Maxïmo Park

Maxïmo Park played to a full venue at the Academy last night, and in terms of enthusiasm, action and audience participation, the gig was the best that Moonface & I have attended there for some time. Compared with the lacklustre noodlings of Guillemots and Amy Winehouse's doped-up toneless voice, Maxïmo Park were full of energy and verve.

The singer, Paul Smith, has stage presence that holds the audience and pulls it to him. I've never seen so many fat adolescent girls jumping around so madly. He leaps and bounds and wings around the microphone like no other singer I've seen since Mick Jagger in the early 70's. The crown in the mosh-pit sang and swayed and danced like puppets. There was crowd-surfing and fainting, keeping the security busy hauling bodies out of the crush. Fainting girls were helped left, to be returned to the back of the hall; whereas surfing boys were marched right, to be thrown out through the emergency exits. Whether they managed re-entry or not, I don't know.

Smith's costume was smart. With a bowler hat, black suit and t-shirt, he looked like a negative version of Alex from "A Clockwork Orange", especially with his conspiratorial smile and knowing manner. The pianist is rake-thin, was dressed in a white cardigan, and moved like a marionette with an inattentive operator, all splayed legs and jerky arms, frequently drooping over his keyboards as if stoned. I don't think he was.

Overall,the are a fine band. And the support, Das Wanderlust, was almost equally fine. I'll try to see them again.