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home » festivals » Glastonbury Festival » Glastonbury Festival 2009
Maximo Park offer a crowd pleasing set without any sparksGlastonbury 2009 reviewTuesday 7th July 2009 I'm not sure if it's just me, but it seems that for the past four or so years, Newcastle's Maximo Park have appeared at almost every major UK festival every year. After starting with the summer with a new found hope in the band, by the end of it, I'm usually very tired, weary and even sick of the band; hearing the same old stuff that I've heard many a time. For the most, the band's set on the Other Stage was very similar to it has been in recent year, bar the inclusions of some new material and the performance of a very rare song. Their set on Saturday was their second appearance at the festival after officially opening the festival at the Queen's Head stage on the Thursday, which saw masses of people trying to get into the small stage. I personally hadn't seen the band live since their huge hometown arena performance in Decemember 2007, which, arguably, came at the peak of their popularity, following the release of their second album, 'Our Earthly Pleasures', which shot the band into mainstream popularity. After appearing at many a festival since the release of their debut album, 'A Certain Trigger' in 2005, which also saw the band rewarded with a slot on the coverted NME Awards Tour in 2006. With a huge amount of touring over the past few years the band have now become a very tight set of performers, and with the charisma of lead singer Paul Smith, the band seem able to take on bigger and bigger venues with relative ease. Their set on the Other Stage was no excpetion, delivering a crowd pleasing set, without stepping away from the normal. The band are in the process of promoting their third, and latest, record, 'Quicken the Heart', which on a sidenote has some fantastic artwork, and their set on Saturday saw the band offering a mix from all their of their albums. Songs such as 'Our Velocity', their biggest single to date, 'Going Missing' and 'Apply Some Pressure' were all delievered as I expected, with the sizeable crowd responding well to their 'festival friendly' set. Songs from the new album such 'Wraithlike' and 'Let's Get Clinical' fit well into the new set, all sounding very similar to the band's previous work, but the band also performed 'Acrobat', a song from their debut, which gained the biggest cheer of the set. Rarely played live, the performance proved to be an excellent suprise amongst a very similar set to the one they've been doing for the past few years. At the end of their set, I, and no doubt many others, were left pleased by the performance level, recoginising that it was a good, but not great set, from a good, but not great band. They reaffirmed themselves as a great festival band, able to spark a good sing-along and get the crowd ingaged, and for those reasons you're most likely to catch the band elsewhere this summer as several other festivals. I may have seen them many a time, and I may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm not. I'll still always go and see them live when I get the chance, as they are an excellent live act. But I do wish they would just take one summer off the festival scene and give us all a needed break. review by Anthony Hetherington 
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