The Maccabees - Manchester Night N Day Cafe - 26/2/07
3/5
By: Gareth Roberts
For about a year now, the Maccabees have been slowly but surely building a throng of devotees up and down the land with their own brand of jittery-jangly stop-start heartfelt-throwaway (insert any number of contrasting adjectives here) pop music. Along with Good Shoes, these lads are pioneering a new wave of pop music, one where not everything is always 'Empire', and one in which is thankfully defunct of Grace Kelly references.
Sharply dressed in an art student meets nu-raver kind of way, possessing catchy, simple tunes and a truly endearing knack of writing lyrics which seem to be describing your own life, this band are special. So, as you can imagine, expectations were high at the Night n Day tonight. First up, however, (after a short comedy performance from one of the venue's local, lets say, mentally challenged regulars, an older lady known as Carol) are Good Books. They deliver a tight set with 'Walk With Me' and 'Leni' proving that this band are capable of great things. However, whether they managed to keep up that quality for the whole set is debatable, but the potential is certainly there.
Now, as I said, everyone was expecting to see a special performance tonight. So did it transpire that way? Well, yes and no. As is the case for many bands, The Maccabees appear to only be as good as the crowd they're playing to, and save for a few youngsters down the front who had clearly been on the White Lightning before they came out, the atmosphere was a little flat.
However, that is not to say that this wasn't a good performance - it just lacked that spark which makes a gig great. Kicking off with a song as good as 'About Your Dress', its clear that they could have the worst gig of their lives but be carried through quite easily by the sheer quality of the tunes alone. The 'hits' don't let up, the hideously stupid but infectious 'Latchmere' is followed by the excellent 'Precious Time', each of which proving that The Maccabees certainly know their way around a tune. Every song is packed with more hooks than a butchers store room.
'X-Ray' doesn't disappoint, yet it isn't until the frankly unbelievably good 'First Love' that the magic really starts to happen. It's a modern classic in waiting, delivered by Orlando with a sincerity that eludes most rock stars, unsurprisingly it's a clear highlight and is worth the entry fee alone. Time has flown by as they close with 'Lego', and as they are cheered off its clear that despite a below par performance, they have still managed to slay Manchester tonight, albeit in a somewhat makeshift fashion. But to use the old football cliché, that is the true mark of champions.
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