Little beyond religious pilgrimages and zombie apocalypses draw a crowd like Wet Leg at The Park. Up the hill they come in their thousands, cramming the field right up to the Crow’s Nest and jostling for space at the top of the ribbon tower. It’s clearly indie pop’s turn back at the helm of the zeitgeist, and it isn’t hard to see why.
If their singles signify a modernist revival of febrile 2000s alt-pop – “Chaise Longue” and “Wet Dream” in particular sound like the product of an AI writing “indie sleaze” songs after being fed nothing but Peaches’ records – the rest of their set is rich in deeper alternative references.
“Supermarket” throws back to the melodic grunge of Veruca Salt. “Being in Love” and “I Don’t Want to Go Out” are attuned to Wolf Alice’s more gorgeous, glacial contemporary textures. And the spiteful “Ur Mum” could be a chant-along from Glastonbury’s peak Britpop years, ricocheting along like Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann were still mid-breakup.
What is hard to see is Wet Leg themselves. Twitter tells this gargantuan crowd that they’re frolicking around in Waltons dresses, but for all that most of us can see or hear they could be playing the whole set in a paddling pool full of custard with Harry Styles on bongos.
That most silent discos three miles away, or iPhone DJ sets on passing busses, have clearer fidelity is testament to the fact that The Park’s “special” sets are often far from special, but we can be certain that – no matter how indiscernible it might have been – something phenomenal happened here.
