Wet Leg, straight out of the Isle of Wight, set to rock the Music Box at San Diego debut

Hester Chambers and Rhian Teasdale of the English indie-rock band Wet Leg

The English indie-rock band Wet Leg will perform with Lowertown with back-to-back shows next week.

San Diego Union-Tribune

March 18, 2022 11:30 AM PT

Wet Leg, with Lowertown

How fast did Wet Leg rise from total obscurity to major indie-rock buzz band status?

So fast that the English’s group’s debut U.S. tour last December sold out in a near-instant. So did its 2022 tour of the U.K. after going on sale last fall.

The punch line?

Wet Leg had released exactly two songs at the time.

The buzz they generated underscores how dizzyingly fast a song and a band can blow up online. No wonder Wet Leg’s co-founders, Rhian Teasdale, 28, and Hester Chambers, 27, quickly tweeted: “Big thank you to everyone that’s bought a ticket after having only heard two songs.”

But cheekiness is a big part of Wet Leg’s charm.

The duo — who tour with three male backing musicians — clearly don’t take themselves too seriously.

Witness the opening lines to “Chaise Lounge,” their snark-fueled 2021 breakthrough hit: “Mommy, daddy, look at me, I went to school and I got a degree.”

The second verse, which is taken from the 2004 movie, “Mean Girls,” begins: “Is your muffin buttered? Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?”

Never mind that “Chaise Lounge’s” guitar riff borrows heavily from The Breeders’ 1993 hit, “Cannonball,” or that Teasdale speaks her lyrics as often as she sings them. And never mind that Wet Leg’s debut album won’t drop until next month.

For now, this Isle of Wight-bred duo’s combination of sardonic songs, enthusiastic amateurism and pinch-me giddiness seems like a welcome tonic in a troubled world.

8 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, The Music Box, 1337 India Street, downtown. $23 (advance), $26 (day of show) Wednesday; $26 (advance). (619) 795-1337; musicbox.sd

George Varga

San Diego Union-Tribune music critic George Varga began drumming in rock bands at 12 and writing professionally about music at 15. A Louisiana native who grew up mostly in Germany, Varga has earned three Pulitzer Prize nominations for his writing at the U-T and is a voting member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition to providing live coverage of the Grammy Awards and festivals from Coachella and KAABOO to the 1994 edition of Woodstock, he has interviewed everyone from Miles Davis, Britney Spears and (over a game of chess) Ray Charles to Willie Nelson, Kanye West and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Anthony Davis. A triple first prize-winner for criticism and arts writing at the 2022 San Diego Press Club awards and a first prize-winner at the 2022 San Diego Society of Professional Journalists awards, Varga is also a contributing writer for Jazz Times magazine and has written for Billboard, Spin and other publications. After attending San Diego City College and San Diego State University, he created and taught the 2002 UC San Diego Extension course, “Jazz in a Post-Ken-Burns World.” Varga has written liner notes for more than a dozen albums, including by jazz sax greats James Moody and Michael Brecker, and contributed two chapters to the book, “Dylan: Disc By Disc.”