BRIXTON ACADEMY OCT 6th

After being set up by an excellent support – Love Is All (whose singer’s voice was a throw back to the days of Siouxsie Sioux), Maximo Park arrived on stage to a welcome which must have had the boys from Newcastle thinking it was a home town gig!

With the vertical strip lighting, flashing behind the ever energetic Paul Smith, he ripped straight into Girls with Guitars off the eagerly awaited follow up to A Certain Trigger. It’s a testament to the bands confidence that they could launch into one of their biggest headline gigs with a new track – and they didn’t let up!

Maximo Park can deliver 2 minute explosions of Pop-Rock-Punk like no other and the power of Paul’s vocals are displayed on tracks such as Graffiti, The Night I Lost My Head and Once A Glimpse.

However, even with his brilliant white suit (that would pass any Daz doorstep challenge) this isn’t the Paul Smith band. Tom English (drums) doesn’t relent on thrashing out the beats which are brilliantly backed up with Archis Tiku’s tight bass lines. Duncan Lloyd (guitar) adds the massively punchy rifts, whilst Lukas Wooller joins Paul in the bouncing as well as playing a mean keyboard!

This band spent the night in 5^th gear but did pull up the hand break at times to show they have lyrics that need to be heard (and sung along to). Postcard Of  A Painting, The Coast Is Always Changing, Nosebleed (one of the best new tracks) and Going Missing tick all of these boxes.

The ball of energy that is Maximo Park saved the best ‘til last. With a back drop of flashing white light and the biggest cheer of the evening they played the unofficial anthem, Apply Some Pressure – and if they did they might just have blown the roof off.

Although they are still riding high on the back of their debut album this display of light, energy, sweat and talent will hopefully ensure that they will be blasting out album 2, 3, 4……  

 by Allan Tinkler