Apply Some Pressure

Maximo Park / Rock City / 20 May 2009

The signs were all good for this gig: pairs of magpies appeared along the way as we travelled toward a rainbow, ending as if Rock City were the pot of gold. This seemed encouraging after the disappointment of latest album Quicken The Heart had taken the shine from the initial excitement.
If I'm honest I wanted them to make things up to me tonight, I really wanted them to be able to work that live magic which would help me understand where they were going with this new stuff. I sort of got what I wanted.
This didn't stop me spending around the first seven minutes hopelessly distracted by Paul Smith's get up. I am a sucker for a suit on stage but I couldn't help thinking about how the hat he'd chosen was causing him to bear an uncanny resemblence to Paul McGann in his last scenes of Withnail & I.
Finally pushing this from my head I was immersed in a heady mix of crowd-pleasers from A Certain Trigger and Our Earthly Pleasures. Respite came with the insertion of new ones, bound to happen to some extent when the release is so young, but it wasn't just physical downtime, there was outright disinterest here.
Even the band seemed slightly hesitant to play these new ones and don't seem to believe in their offerings as from Quicken the Heart as strongly as earlier material. Let's Get Clinical seems like it should work. The '80s influence strong and sure but there is no heart, it's all too, well, clinical.
But Paul Smith is a frontman with panache. A performer with the emphasis on entertaining. Spending much of the gig leaning high above the crowd from the stage edge, gesturing and gesticulating, an expression swinging between Clockwork Orange and Ooh Matron. And he is with the crowd all the way as they succumb to first love Going Missing and a canter through Our Velocity and Books From Boxes.
Despite the unremarkable new material there is hope. First song of the encore is one they have only recently recorded and it has some of that character back, it seems alive again. They temper this with a valient attempt to interest the crowd in Questing, Not Coasting. I find my mind wandering again but am snapped back as we are incited to dance with Apply Some Pressure, ending on a high.
Playing a set biased toward their established hits this was a gig for the masses not the die-hard fans but for me it succeeded. I may return to Quicken the Heart and see if over time I can get to grips with it. However, for now, last night just made me long for older Maximo but gave me the fuel to hope they can return to form in the future.

Picture by Lauren.