Go on, say it. We know it’s practically bursting out of you. “I saw Wet Leg before they were big…”
“…and I bought the tickets when they barely had five songs out.”
Feel better?
More than 900 people in Boston earned those bragging rights last night (March 7) at The Paradise Rock Club, as a sold-out crowd witnessed the whip-smart wisecracks of a group we can confidently declare the “it” band of 2022 (and 2021, and 2023, and maybe every year after that).
“I don’t know what I’m even doing here / I was told that there would be free beer,” lead singer Rhian Teasdale deadpanned during “Angelica,” a song that at the very moment, resonated with zero percent of her rapt audience. Hester Chambers, lead guitarist and the other half of Wet Leg, looked on almost sympathetically. The crowd knew precisely why they were there: To chant the chorus of Wet Leg’s first single “Chaise Longue” — all day long, all day long, or at least until the ‘Dise flicked on the house lights.
What started with a no-frills song about old-fashioned furniture last June has morphed into a proud, even snobbish obsession among fans, who happily purchase tickets to hear five songs they know inside out and backwards, and nearly a dozen unreleased tunes they’ve probably never even heard of. When Wet Leg’s debut LP drops April 8, they can cash in some coveted I-heard-it-first creds, but for now, they’ll just have to indulge in the elite experience of hearing Teasdale’s stream of consciousness in real time.
Fans nodded their masked noggins profusely last night, not only because Wet Leg’s oddball guitar riffs were written to ricochet off the walls of a rock club, but because Wet Leg lyrics are uncommonly common. The second most frequent reaction to Wet Leg is some variation of “uh-huh,” “been there,” or if you were once a Tumblr teen, “this is literally me.” (The first is “Oh shit, this rips!“)
The Isle of Wight duo doesn’t mangle the agony of modern life with obligatory metaphors and artful hints about their personal lives. Instead, Teasdale speaks in plain terms with a beautifully blasé delivery. These are songs for when life gets so overwhelming, in so many ways, that you’re kinda over it and must matter-of-factly surrender to the storm. Even if the storm in question is insatiable lust.
“Beat me up! Count me in! 3-2-1!” Teasdale chirped on “Wet Dream,” right before finishing the chorus with a clerical tone: “Let’s begin.” She never uttered an uncouth syllable, but the directness of her language — we’ll let you Google the rest — made cheeks flush, even if the single technically is FCC-approved.
Wet Leg songs say what everyone is thinking but never expresses out loud — not because they’re too afraid to say it, but because the thoughts appear too mundane to share. But what’s obvious and what’s universal also tend to be undeniably relatable, and that’s the overlap that made listeners spring from their seats when “Chaise Longue” dropped last June. It’s also how the duo gain another leg up in the indie music world with every new single they drop.
“Suck the life / From my eyes / It feels nice / I’m scrolling” Teasdale sang on “Oh No,” a song that also pairs “credit card” with “life is hard.” She never explained why she mentioned her credit card, nor does she need to. There are enough implied meanings — debt! inflation! stacks of bills! — that the listener can fill in the blanks using their own experience.
After a 50 minute sprint that spanned 15 songs, Wet Leg collapsed into “Chaise Longue,” that magical song that transforms a verbatim Mean Girls reference (“Is your muffin buttered? / Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?”) into a clever nod to crisis (“Is your mother worried? / Would you like us to assign someone to worry your mother?”).
The band “got the big D” (degree) and refused to stay for a well-earned big E (encore), even after Teasdale recited the song with lippy sarcasm, as if to poke fun at her own single’s mega-success. Because as Wet Leg have already demonstrated, little, if anything, is worth examining without some smart-mouthed remark.
As fans exited the club, they likely overlooked the main hallway’s laundry-list-mural of icons who found their rising star moments within the walls of The Paradise. Tom Petty. Blondie. Alanis. U2. You know, the works.
Expect a “wet paint” sign in the coming years, tacked next to a new entry: Wet Leg.