Julie Andrews told us that we should start at the very beginning; it is, by all accounts, a very good place to start. But I’m going to fly in the face of Maria, and start at the end, because that was when my friend Ben realised he’d been robbed, which was the only low point of a fucking awesome night.
There are few things more agonising than watching a band in a relatively small venue and realising that you’re probably never going to get that chance again. Some people might take pleasure in going to an arena gig and telling folk how they first encountered the band in a grotty underground bar in
If you can judge a band by their support, then the Maccabees are shit. If you can judge a band by their name, then the Maccabees are shit. If you can judge a band by their album art, then… Well, you can guess where I’m going. Fortunately, I’m not that superficial (when it comes to music at least) – and the Macabees, shit name, support and album art aside, are joyous.
It’s quickly going to become very clear that I’m no music journalist. I couldn’t tell you the setlist, nor even what they started with. I know they ended with Happy Faces, but I don’t know why I know that. My head’s a funny place. I can, though, tell you that I started the gig standing at the back, planning on a quiet one, and that I ended it at the front throwing sweaty seventeen year olds over the barrier, all the time resisting the urge to steal one of their shoes. The Maccabees are just that type of band. While Orlando Weeks sings as if he’s lost in (a) every word he’s singing and (b) his own Ian Curtis tribute, Hugo White leans out from the front of the stage as if he’s looking for his best mate amongst the crowd – and dammit if he doesn’t end up making everyone in the crowd feel like they’re the one he’s looking for.
He shouldn’t be allowed to sing lead though. He’s rubbish.
The Maccabees swing wildly between songs about fuck all (Latchmere) and songs about everything (First Love) but they make you care about each and every one of them the same. They’re lyrically smart, and melodically hummable, but so much more than that they care – Weeks doesn’t so much sing as bleed his lyrics for everyone to see. And they fucking love it. There are few things more frustrating than watching a band having more fun than you are, but with these guys it’s hard to draw a line between where they end and you begin. And that’s a lovely place to be. There’s a sincerity to them that makes everything ok.
High points? Toothpaste Kisses is so simplistically beautiful it makes me want to cry. And I may cry easily, but not normally at songs with a whistled bridge (Walk Like An Egyptian aside, obviously); About Your Dress is one of those pathetic, everyman kind of tunes that everyone wishes they couldn’t identify with and then sings along; and, with all due apologies, Ben admonishing the 19 year old who’d lost his phone before realising that he’d had both phone and wallet pinched was pretty fucking funny.
I’ve criticised the album before for not being as vital as the live show, but I’d like to shamelessly backtrack here – buy it, listen to it, wallow in its adolescent introspections, and then next chance you get go and see them and dance like a motherfucker.
I don’t want the Maccabees to be the next big thing. I want to keep them. So please don’t tell your friends.
