Wet Leg Dares It All At Mtelus

All Photo Credit: Ashley Bellam

There is something quite unique about the band Wet Leg. The band's idiosyncratic style of what some may call “talk singing” gained them a massive following across the world. I was introduced to Wet Leg through Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist. When I first heard their song “I Don’t Wanna Go Out’, I was completely enamoured by their artistry, and they immediately gained a spot in my top ten bands to see in concert. Arriving at Mtelus that night, I knew I wasn’t the only one with the same passion for the band.

 The crowd’s demographic surprised me somehow. I was expecting an audience of indie college kids who are too cool to be seen in anything not vintage, but instead, I found a lot of millennials with their beers, ecstatic for Wet Leg’s performance. That’s the thing about Wet Leg’s sound, its relatability and its instrumental versatility invite anyone to enjoy it. 

 They began their set with the new hit single “Catch These Fits”, a song that encapsulates the aggressive passion that breakups can create. Seeing it live elevated the song’s experience as the lead singer encouraged us to chant and scream. They continued on with their hit single “Wet Dreams” from their debut self-titled album. The instrumental and its incorporated hand claps made the song’s live performance incredibly interactive. The live performance was paired with smoke machines and strobe lights, which added to the audience’s excitement. However, I believe it did not pair well with the structure of the venue.

 Mtelus is terribly ventilated; the smoke machines only worsened this factor. Wet Leg makes music for people to dance, scream, jump and clap to. The venue made that nearly impossible. Luckily, I was adopted by a group of 30-year-olds who offered me water and told me, “We dance together, we sweat together, we’re all gross”. The solidarity within the audience was admirable, though it didn’t completely ease how suffocated we felt. 

The crowd fell completely in love with the lead singer, Teasdale. Her stage presence made you feel like you were on stage with her, dancing along. It was incredibly refreshing to see an artist who is proud of their artistry and is delicate with their storytelling.

 When they played ‘Davina McCall”, I spotted several lesbian couples singing and staring at each other lovingly. I was incredibly moved; though the song is not explicitly queer, it was refreshing to see how the queer community adopted the song as their own. Wet Leg just has this ability to invoke passion in others in various ways. Their song “Ur Mom” embodies the anger that you feel when someone you used to know has changed negatively. Teasdale asked us to scream as loud as humanly possible in the last verse of the latter. The audience was asked to scream a total of three times as the artist insisted it wasn’t loud enough. The last scream was powerful; the sound lingered in my mind hours after the concert. In that moment, as I felt the anger in the crowd, I felt like I knew who each person was thinking of. It was cathartic. They ended their show with an encore of “Chaise Longue”; the audience could not be more pleased. I then hurried, filled with excitement, joy and ten-dollar water, to go to the opening of Montreal’s queer club “Club DD’s”. It felt like my heart was started by jumper cables to a car. It was the greatest way to start the numerous concerts happening in Montreal this fall.

Taina is also the co-host of Whatever She Wants, on air Wednesdays from 12-1pm