Wet Leg review — Isle of Wight duo are back with guitar-chugging energy

In March Wet Leg announced 'we're so back' on Instagram. And before the release in July of a new album, Moisturizer, here they are, at the O2 Academy in Birmingham. The group, founded by Isle of Wight schoolmates Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale, have barely been away — touring extensively since becoming an overnight success with Chaise Longue in 2021. Yet when they do play that delightfully surreal, chant-along favourite, it already feels nostalgic — a defining track of the itchiness of the immediate post-Covid era, delivered with deadpan absurdity that, four years on, the new material pulls away from.
The hits are here tonight and the appetite for them has not dimmed: the crowd, spanning starry-eyed tweens and BBC 6 Music dads, are

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Guardian

39 minutes ago

• The Guardian

Iron Maiden review – 50th aniversary tour as near as uncompromising band get to greatest hits show

It takes four songs for Bruce Dickinson to shout what everyone knows he is going to shout: 'Scream for me, Birmingham!' For their 50th anniversary tour, Iron Maiden are not reinventing the wheel – they are, as ever, playing fast and intricate heavy metal. As ever, Dickinson spends much of the set on top of the backline, acting out characters, Steve Harris machine-guns the audience with his bass while playing his 'galloping' lines, and Janick Gers, when not swinging his guitar around, sticks his left leg in the air and rests it on the stage side speakers. No idea why. But he always does it. And, of course, the song subjects are the contents of a 12-year-old's head: the Battle of Britain (Aces High); crazy mental powers (The Clairvoyant); Satan (The Number of the Beast). You get the picture. The one deviation from usual, Dickinson informs us, is that this is as near as Maiden get to a greatest hits show: the most recent song tonight, Fear of the Dark, dates from 1992. For the less committed, that is a good thing. Maiden have a tendency to be windy, and this format – their early songs were generally shorter and sharper – helps with that, though it doesn't eliminate it entirely. Rime of the Ancient Mariner lasts nearly as long as a cross-channel ferry, and you can't even buy duty free to pass the time. Age is starting to show, too: Dickinson's famous 'air-raid siren' voice is still a thing of range and power, but it is more 'car-alarm voice' now. And in this echoey, sweltering arena, some of the complexities of the sound are lost (the mix leaves new drummer Simon Dawson so low at times that one loses the beat; guitar solos are mixed so high the rest of the band sometimes disappear behind them), which is frustrating. But what an institution: a band whose career has been constructed absolutely on their own terms without a single compromise, something few artists can manage. And, of course, Birmingham screams for them, long and loud. Iron Maiden tour England and Ireland until 30 June

Times

42 minutes ago

• Times

Bobby Weir review — Grateful Dead classics given orchestral treatment

The average Grateful Dead fan of the 1970s might be surprised to find the band's erstwhile guitarist and singer Bobby Weir standing in this epicentre of the musical establishment, the Royal Albert Hall, surrounded on all sides by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 'A national treasure over here,' Weir helpfully explained, resplendent in hippie poncho and white mutton-chop beard, for the expats present. But 30 years after the death of core member Jerry Garcia, this beloved counterculture acid rock jam band — famed for lengthy, cosmic live workouts — remain deeply embedded in America's musical identity. Their 2015 farewell shows were stadium affairs, and since 2022 Weir has considered their music worthy of the symphonic treatment. His orchestral adaptations of Deadhead favourites made their UK debut on Saturday night, having already graced the music stands of America's most revered ensembles. What should have been a prom with freak flags flying from every balcony, though, turned out to be a clash of both form and flexibility. The RPO is rightly renowned for many things, but off-script astral-journey improvisation is low on the list. For much of the first hour-long set, band and orchestra could have been playing entirely different concerts. Weir and his Wolf Bros group (featuring Don Was on stand-up bass) piled into a cosmic rock and blues set — Truckin', Black Peter, China Cat Sunflower — and the RPO, it seemed, a random, unrelated opera score, filling the background with a mush of sleazy horns and atonal busywork. They had plentiful string but precious little swing; it was loose versus formal, pristine versus frayed-edge, and often an unholy, if fittingly psychotropic mess. At climactic points, though, the concept cohered, and over bombastic country sweeps such as I Know You Rider and Brokedown Palace a synchronicity emerged. Come set two and they were forging powerful, majestic moments amid the galloping samba sections of Terrapin Station or on the punchy and poignant biker anthem Hell in a Bucket: 'at least I've enjoyed the ride,' the 77-year-old Weir muttered. But the night worked best disentangled: when the band left Weir to sing the fragile wisdoms of Days Between shrouded by strings, or the orchestra departed and the band kicked loose with a final, party-starting boogie jam. Like we always knew: the Dead and the straights don't mix.★★★☆☆ Follow @timesculture to read the latest reviews

The Sun

an hour ago

• The Sun

‘Brucey was crying' – What Pep Guardiola said to Steve Bruce about Lionel Messi left him in tears

PEP GUARDIOLA left Steve Bruce in tears of laughter during a conversation about bringing Lionel Messi to Manchester City. A reunion between the pair was on the cards in 2020 when Messi's contract with Barcelona started to wind down. 4 4 Messi was said to have been convinced by his old manager to move to the Etihad but performed a U-turn due to his belief Barca would offer him a new deal. That deal didn't end up coming to fruition and he ended up joining Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer in August 2021. The prospect of Messi moving to the Prem quickly became the talk of players and managers alike. And at Premier League meeting with all the managers present, former Burnley boss Sean Dyche quizzed Guardiola about his pursuit of the footie icon while getting a cup of tea with Bruce. During an appearance on talkSPORT, he recalled: "I said, 'What was that thing about Lionel Messi?' "He (Guardiola) goes, 'Sean, Steve, I tell you this. Lionel, he said no way can he come to Manchester City. "Because I tell Lionel it rains. 'It rains and rains. And when it stops raining, it rains again.' "Then he goes, 'Lionel, on a Monday night, you have to go to Burnley, Sean's team. JOIN SUN VEGAS: GET £50 BONUS 4 "And they go bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.' Brucey was crying!" Dyche, 53, added: "I went, 'That's exactly what we're going to do, Pep You warned him correctly.' Lionel Messi gives rare insight into his relationship with Cristiano Ronaldo "Me and Brucey were crying, honestly. It was genius. Pep, brilliant." The prospect of eight-time Ballon d'Or winner Messi rocking up at Turf Moor tickled Dyche, who said: "Imagine that. "His face turning up at Turf Moor going, 'What on earth? " "Absolutely smashing it down with rain, wind blowing across and knocking you over." Messi spent two seasons with PSG before upping sticks to the MLS to join David Beckham co-owned Inter Miami.