Everyone was horny at Wet Leg’s sweaty Brooklyn show

Toward the end of Wet Leg’s sweaty show at the 500-cap Market Hotel venue in Brooklyn on Monday night, lead singer and guitarist Rhian Teasdale holds up a red rotary phone to her ear mid-song. “I’m – I’m… I’m…” she utters in exaggerated agony, her band slowly building up the tempo, “I’m… IN LOVE!!!!” In horror at her own diagnosis, she puts her hand to her forehead in despair as her bandmates dove into the crescendo of distorted guitars. Around me, I am surrounded by endless couples, all of whom are participating in extremely public displays of affection: a pair of dark, curly-haired lovers slow dancing on my left; another engulfed in the arms of her beau; behind me rings the smack!ing of lips. It’s humid and I’m beginning to sweat, and have never been more aware of my own singleness.

The song, “C3PR,” is a new cut from the U.K.-based indie rock band’s new album, moisturizer, out July 11, an album about feeling so agonizingly in love you wonder if you’re experiencing a heart attack. Tonight is approximately their third time playing the song live as part of a string of smaller shows to tease the new record. Teasdale, dressed in a white tank top and white cotton shorts emblazoned with the words “HOLY SPIRIT,” plays femme fatale onstage as she handles the microphone like a pole, sliding her hands up and down her body. If Wet Leg’s first album was about the trials and tribulations of dating, finding yourself eye-rolling away from yet another unwelcomed proposition, then the band’s new material is a suggestive beckoning of the hand, a pledge to falling truly, madly, deeply, head over heels.

It’s what everyone seems to be doing when they’re not sing-shouting along through the rest of the 12-set show. The band introduces their set with “Catch These Fists,” the equally frenetic follow-up to their breakout hit “Chaise Longue” that’s in the vein of punk music you can dance to. “Catch These Fists” is about a “belligerent man,” and is delivered in both Teasdale’s signature deadpan drawl and angsty shrieks. Other new songs “Lovestruck,” “Beans,” “Dave Nah,” and “Dragonfart” are played, all fast and loose and urgent and impatient; The sound is dancey, electro-punk in the flavor of Yeah Yeah Yeahs and even LCD Soundsystem, which makes their debut at the Brooklyn venue feel even more at home. Since releasing their debut, Wet Leg have gone on to win Grammys and play stadiums with Harry Styles, but they’re best in the spaces where sweat drips off your nose while wedged between hundreds.

Per a press release, Teasdale admitted that falling in love with her partner made up the core inspiration for these songs, and when performed live, they do take on the feel of the mad rush of breathing in someone’s scent. It infuses the handful of cuts from their self-titled; the whole venue sings “You were touching yourself” during “Wet Dream,” and the first mosh pit of the night breaks out during the climactic second-half of “Too Late Now.” Teasdale and guitarist Hester Chambers fail to keep straight faces during that line of “Chaise Longue:” “Do you want someone to butter your muffin / Excuse me, what?”

At first I was frustrated at the couples trapping me in a circle, tempted to file a complaint against the couple that was making out nonstop. (Is blatant PDA not a faux-pas in the DIY show etiquette list?) But as the crowd moshes on to the finale of “C3PR,” I begrudgingly admit that my haterdom was probably rooted in envy. According to Wet Leg, it’s the time to be madly, disgustingly, disturbingly, in love. When I go home, I text a person I wouldn’t have minded being at my side during the show.

Wet Leg Market Hotel setlist:

“Catch These Fists”
“Oh No”
“Wet Dream”
“Lovestruck”
“Too Late Now”
“Dave Nah”
“Dragonfart”
“Beans”
“Chaise Longue”
“Ur Mum”
“Angelica”
“C3PR”