8

Maximo Park- Southampton Guildhall

“It’s wonderful to be back on the South Coast” Paul Smith roars from the root of his lungs to welcome the appreciative Guildhall crowd. Having played to a rowdy student union audience on the eve of this spectacle, the Geordie five some found themselves well and truly warmed up for the night ahead.

Early news that The Noisettes had pulled from the gig due to illness was not taken too kindly from parts of the traveling masses, leaving a huge gap that both support band Stricken City and headline act Maximo had to fill. An extensive back catalogue such as that of the latter however should crush any doubts that The Park would provide any less than a spoilt for choice audience.

Opening with ‘Graffiti’, the stage became property of Maximo’s in an instant. The asymmetrical band set up and epileptic lighting furthered the quirky qualities the band have clung onto since the day this debut single ever reached our shop shelves; front man Smith’s abstract actions were matched only by the audiences adoration, which of course he lapped up in buckets.

The boys continued to belt out favourites from both their first album ‘A Certain Trigger’ and critically acclaimed release ‘Our Earthly Pleasures’. ‘I Want You To Stay’, ‘Going Missing’ and ‘Velocity’ sent the loyal lads and dettes at the front wild, deterring away from the individuals further back who preferred to use Smith as a target for empty beer bottles as opposed to the eccentrically brilliant artist that he is. New tracks ‘Calm’, ‘The Kids Are Sick Again’ and ‘A Cloud Of Mystery’ were already familiar amongst the devoted but also appeared to go down well with those they were less at home with.

For much of the performance, Paul Smith; dressed in his conventional black suit minus the tie and gangster mule hat, pranced around the stage strutting his camp manneristic self armed with a giant megaphone. Complimented by excessive strobe lighting, The Park reeled off new material that took comparisons to previous releases and combined it subtly with synth and disco muse-esque standings. “This is a dance track” Smith would pipe up every now and then to demonstrate the direction the band from The Futureheads neck of the woods would be taking from here onwards.

To end the set, ‘Girls Who Play Guitars’ and a couple of new tracks were put to the test - including epic ballad ‘This Beating Heart’. Critically, the performance dragged on a little and the lighting tickled most’s fancy more than the melody. As a final farewell, Maximo provided the audience with an exasperating performance of ‘Apply Some Pressure’ which sent the audience and band alike into a mid state of panicked frenzy. Smiths on stage caricature (which can only be referred to as a Lee Evans stand up mimic - minus of course the continuous set changes due to severe sweat loss) kept the crowd entertained with his cringe worthy yet ever so slightly endearing rhythm-less dance moves. Everyone who went to this gig probably came out with a smile on their face but would most definitely have rued the Noisettes disappearing act.