Maximo Park, To My Boy - 100 Club, London - Monday 2nd April 2007

Some gigs are special because they happen at really short notice - you find out just a few hours or days beforehand, which makes the pre-gig excitement all the greater. Some gigs are special because they feature bands playing in small venues that they could sell out 20 times over. Some gigs are special because you don't have to pay a penny to get in to them. And some gigs are special because they co-incide with big events in the band's career - they are the first gig of a tour, the last gig of a tour, are big one-offs, or are played on the day a record is released.

This gig was all of the above. I won tickets from a competition in one of the freebie newspapers that you pick up outside Tube stations. I entered the competition on the afternoon of the gig, and got the all-important phone call at about 5pm, with doors opening just under 2 hours later - a very excitable 2 hours indeed! The show was in a 300-capacity venue - when this is a band that sold out 6,000 tickets for London shows in half an hour, when they went on sale a couple of months ago. And, their second album was released earlier the same day. It got a lukewarm NME review, but having heard it myself beforehand, it is a good album, perhaps just dampened by the expectation created after their debut (or perhaps the predictable NME backlash is starting - it is inevitable at some point).

Support band were a 2-piece called To My Boy. I can see how they got the gig, because lyrically they were very similar to Maximo Park - lots of long and clever words, and intricate rhymes. Because there were only 2 of them, they got their drums and bass guitar from a backing track, and concentrated instead on both playing guitar and singing. They sounded good, especially the guitars which sounded furious - I couldn't help wondering, though, if they weren't trying to be a little too clever at times.

After what seemed like a never-ending changeover, Maximo Park bounded on stage, and piled straight into a fantastically loud version of Graffiti. Paul Smith seemed to be going extra crazy whilst singing the vocals, with even more mad jumping around than usual. Or maybe it was just because he was so close to everybody, which could have just made it seem more mental. This carried on at the same intensity for the whole gig, the band definitely seemed to be enjoying themselves, and Paul Smith was definitely giving it 100%.

The set was split fairly evenly between the first and second albums, and was longer than I had expected - the band played for around an hour and a half. The big highlights from the new album for me were Books From Boxes, By The Monument, Nosebleed, and Parisian Skies, the last of which made an appearance as the centrepiece of a 4-song encore. In all, 10 songs from the new album were played, which is pretty much the whole thing, and they were played by a band that definitely looked as if they have moved up a league.

A great performance all round by Maximo Park, but a quick word about the venue. For a place so small, where everybody is basically guaranteed to be able to see and hear pretty much everything, the 100 Club does a good job of making this as difficult as possible. From the massive pillar in the centre of the room, about 1 metre in front of the stage (which of course obscures about half of the stage, from a wide variety of viewpoints), to the strange shape of the room, which means that the sound is muddy and muffled if you stand too far off centre - this is not a great venue for a rock gig for me. I know that some legendary bands have played here, but you are essentially faced with a choice between getting shoved and crushed at the very front, or not being able to see everything if you stand in the middle, or not being able to hear very well if you stand to the side. Most strange - a historic venue, but far from being one of the best.

Having moaned about that, it seems foolish to dwell on it for too long. Maximo Park put in a great performance, and I am now looking forward even more to seeing them on their UK tour next month. It was one of those gigs that is a pleasure to have been at - partly because of how small it was, but also because it was on the day Maximo's second album came out to the world. It is an album which, rightfully, should see their popularity rise even further.

Setlist: Graffiti / Girls Who Play Guitars / All Over The Shop / Our Velocity / A Fortnight's Time / Coast Is Always Changing / Russian Literature / Books From Boxes / By The Monument / Your Urge / Apply Some Pressure / Nosebleed / The Unshockable / Going Missing. Encore: Kiss You Better / Parisian Skies / Distance Makes / Limassol.