Show Review: Wet Leg with Mary in the Junkyard at Paramount Seattle, 9/1/25

At first glance, it appears as if the duo consisting of Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale, also commonly known as Wet Leg, is having a moment. However, if you look past the surface, you’ll see that it’s more than just a moment. Their video for the single “Chaise Lounge” in 2021 was everywhere. This is where I, like many, first became familiar with them. The next three years were incredibly busy for the two, as they toured the world, won Grammys and Brit Awards for their debut record, which also produced five more singles. They also became a proper 5-piece band, writing and collaborating, and had their aforementioned debut album go gold. After taking a year off, they released “Catch These Fists” in April and began playing shows in May with new songs in their repertoire, before releasing their sophomore album, Moisturizer, in July. Since then, they have been hitting this album cycle hard. Moisturizer has already produced three singles with videos for each one of them, and this English indie band hailing from the Isle of Wight had already played 50 + shows around the world before landing in Seattle for their first time to kick off the American leg of their world tour.

To open the show, London band Mary in the Junkyard played a spirited opening set at the front of the stage to a respectful and enthusiastically hyped up crowd. Vocalist and guitarist Clari Freeman-Taylor leads the trio with Saya Barbaglia (bass) and David Addison (drums), providing an incredibly tight rhythm section for the majority of their songs; however, from time to time, Clari plays bass and Saya plays the viola. At times show gaze’y, mellow, gorgeous songs with lunging choruses that crest and crash wavelike. Experimental at times, the viola makes them sound a little bit like the Velvet Underground in the best possible way. They groove dramatically. A rhumba with pizzicato strings will wash over you just before the rock hook of the song grabs your legs and gets you to move. Clari has an incredible siren-like voice and is not afraid to belt at the top of her register. Videos and streaming services DO NOT do them justice. You’ll want to see this incredible group of young musicians live. When I was looking for a set list, it appears that they are road-testing a number of new songs right now, as the only available song list from the last couple of months includes a number of new songs. The set list they had on stage was written on paper plates, which were discarded when their set concluded. Mary in the Junkyard has a live KEXP session scheduled on the 3rd, so hopefully we’ll all have that to look forward to on video soon.

[Show as slideshow]

At just about 8:45, smoke enveloped the stage as the lights went down at the Paramount on September 1st. A burst of white light provided silhouettes of the main attraction as they walked towards the lip of the stage… Lead singer Rhian Teasdale, with her arms up, flexed as she walked slowly towards the front of the stage in time to the intro to their first single from Moisturizer, “Catch These Fists”. The energy in the way they’re playing the new songs is palpable. You can really tell the difference having Jason Mobaraki (guitar and synth), Henry Holmes (drums) & Ellis Durand (bass) makes on the sound. A band wrote and worked on these songs together, ensuring they were polished before recording them in the studio.

The new songs are incredible live, and the older favorites have a different kind of life in front of an audience. The fans know all the lyrics and sing along loudly. The band is incredibly comfortable on stage, and they run around and dance in the space they have. When Rhian isn’t dancing all over the stage in time to the music, she’s rocking out on her transparent, neon-lucite Warlock BC Rich guitar. Joking around between songs about their roadie’s debut as percussionist before he came to the stage to play tambourine on a couple of tunes, they were obviously having a blast doing what they do.

Wet Leg isn’t really an average indie band. What Hester and Rhian have crafted as friends who write songs to make each other laugh, but also being open enough to bring songs of introspection and reality, is my favorite kind of music. Additionally, most bands with two albums would likely load their set with covers or find ways to stretch out their material… Wet Leg played a 17-song set of all original songs, omitting only two songs from Moisturizer and four songs from their debut album. What that meant for this Seattle audience was that at Wet Leg’s very first shows in Seattle, they played the majority of their material, and practically everyone got to hear every song they wanted. There is a real benefit to seeing a band early on in their career, and that’s in seeing songs that you will never get to see again as soon as they get 3-4 album cycles deep and begin to play more new songs and less of the early body of work.

The highlights were frequent and incredible. Before “Ur Mum”, Riahn told us all “Not only is it a song but it’s also scream therapy.” and sure enough, halfway through the song, the entire band dropped out and everyone screamed while strobes and smoke enveloped the stage for a good 20 seconds before the band returned to the song in a time. Wet Leg has never been an average three-chord band, and often they eschew using hooks and choruses that resemble pop songs and go for something a little more left of center. Well thought-out harmonies over interesting but still danceable, smart, and moving chord changes. These new songs crush live.

You can feel the pulse in your body while the music pushes you to keep moving. At the end of the night, Wet Leg didn’t perform an encore; instead, they stayed on stage and played a devastatingly intense version of “Chaise Lounge” with the audience screaming Hester’s subdued questions, “What?” so loudly that I laughed out loud each time it happened. “CPR” rounded out the night, and the house lights instantly went up to the tune of the Bee Gees, leaving everyone in attendance in a sort of collective daze.

I’ll make sure to catch Wet Leg every time they come through Seattle. Don’t miss them on this tour. They are crushing this material and evolving so quickly as a band that by the next time they come to your city, they might be a totally different version of who they’re going to end up being. There is nothing like a new band growing quickly.