Flexing her muscles like a prize fighter and confidently striding to the front of the stage, Wet Leg’s Rhian Teasdale looks like she means business. Sporting a white gym top, buckled white shorts and with a semblance to Harley Quinn, she strikes a definitive pose as the electroclash guitars of ‘Catch These Fists’ – the recently released first single from the Isle of Wight band’s upcoming sophomore album Moisturizer – light up around her. With a chorus seething with primitive Stooges energy, the track is unhinged and addictive.
It’s the first night of the Moisturizer tour and the first outing for the new album’s tracks. More textured and involved, there’s an overriding sense that at the heart of these new songs is a desire to be taken seriously. “It’s so nice to be out” Teasdale tells the crowd, eager to unveil the next phase in the Wet Leg journey. A next phase that consists of ‘Liquidize’ and ‘Davina McCall’, songs not in search of instant gratification, but rather investment and a little more effort to be appreciated. Not so though with ‘Pillow Talk’ which comes into existence through a squall of feedback and Henry Holmes’ piston drumming and is just pure attack. The tracks from their Grammy award winning debut 2022 Wet Leg album still hit the sweet spot with their combination of quirkiness and fun and live these songs display versatility and emotion. As Teasdale and bandmate Hester Chambers duel guitars, Ellis Durand’s chainsaw bass on a stage bathed in red light brings menace to ‘Oh No’. ‘Being In Love’ takes its cue from the jitter of early Strokes but its kookiness puts stars in your eyes and a big grin on your face.
Highlight of the evening is ‘Too Late Now’, its rippling guitar line shimmers with a lysergic tinge, before exploding into raw punk. ‘Angelica’ arrives like an incantation as Teasdale, Chambers, and guitarist Josh Moboraki huddle around the drum kit. There is a cultish freedom to the band. They look the same in loose white clothes (apart from Teasdale who brings a strong sense of character) and musically create a synergy with songs as mantras like their breakaway hit ‘Chaise Longue’ which nosedives its way in with a krautrock drone that threatens to drown out the impish guitar hook and receives the expected manic reception before closer ‘CPR’, another new track, rocks the party to a finish. Teasdale strikes more poses, but this time using a telephone as a prop, but in no way shape or form is this performance being phoned in.