The Maccabees/Matter London/20.02.09
Two buses, half the circumference of the 02 Arena, one metal detector and a search that stops just short of your various cavities and you’re ready to see The Maccabees first UK date in nine months. And that’s if you happen live near the venue. Tonight Matter isn’t exactly an unusual choice for their return gig, the night’s quite fittingly called ‘Wonky Pop’ and there are some indier than thou DJs ready and waiting to wet your appetite, but it is perhaps an unfitting one. Older fans who followed the band on their numerous support tours and toilet cubicle venue gigs of 2006/7 most likely wont be accustomed to the over-crowded airport terminal that is hosting them tonight, the drinks that’ll see you little change from a fiver and the ample beefed up security force forever dashing around screaming into their walky-talkies like chucking out some tosser who’s had a little too much will save the world. In other words, this all seems a bit too ‘club land’ for the kitsch and quintessentially British darlings we’re here for tonight.
Despite the very true contents of that much needed rant the show is everything fans have been hoping and waiting for. The Brighton five piece show confidence in the new material from their forthcoming album by opening the set with three new songs, starting with the first new track to see the light of day, ‘No Kind Words’. As many will have said before me this track is darker than anything the band have given us before and has the air of a more intense take on bands like Interpol and The National. It’s this intensity which makes this track hardly an obvious opener but an immediately gripping one and as the song builds to it’s final crashing chorus so does the atmosphere in the room. The two new, and currently nameless, tracks in the intro show more of an allegiance to the band’s already established indie-pop sound and hint at a progression on the classic Maccabees sound for the new album. The vocals during this opening threesome are questionable but that is due to sound quality more than anything and by the end Orlando’s beautifully unique vocals are done justice.
While there is some serious love shown for the new songs it is of course their 2007 debut ‘Colour It In’ which causes both the band and the painfully out of place security to rescue some of the front row fans from the crowd as it goes suitably wild. Songs such as ‘About Your Dress’, ‘First Love’ and ‘X-Ray’ all provoke mass sing-a-longs and reminds that not only are The Maccabees one of the most exciting live bands our cold, dirty shores have to offer but also one of the most technically brilliant, lyrically creative and yet widely adored bands of this decade. While complaining about the venue can, will and has most certainly been done we know not to judge a book by it’s cover, although in this case it was a drunk giry weeing on the floor outside of it, and we can at least be thankful that this was a mere short story compared the The Odysseys the band will be hitting come April. And if all this is just a road test expect glorious things come festival season.
The Maccabees-First Love
The Maccabees-No Kind Words
There is another post with the exact same title only a few down haha. What a coincidence.