Maximo Park - Oxford Union Debating Hall, Oxford - Friday 15th June 2007

Another one of those gigs that it is a complete and utter privilege to have attended. Around 150 lucky people got to see Maximo Park play a full live set, in the Oxford Union's main debating hall. An ancient building, with a long and distinguished history as the headquarters of "the last bastion of free speech", according to Harold Macmillan - Maximo Park became the first band ever to play a gig there. Five former British Prime Ministers (and Boris Johnson) have been president of the Oxford Union, and there are busts of them all around the small hall (read more here if you want to), so it was very surreal indeed to be standing there before the gig, waiting for a rock band to walk onto a stage there.

Being a gig that was "staged" for TV, there was no support band, instead a number of TV crews running around the place, sound checking, getting cameras into position, and telling members of the audience where to stand. Then, at around 8pm, we were all ushered into the building, and five minutes later, Maximo Park walked on stage.

Their set was drawn largely from the new album, presumably to showcase as much of it as possible on TV, although there were a pleasing few songs from the debut album as well. The small, musty-smelling room quickly became very hot indeed, which resulted in Paul Smith progressively shedding clothing as the set went on. Standing towards the back of the room, it was a very strange sight to see the ancient interior of the Oxford Union all around me, but a very loud band playing on a stage in front of me, and 150 or so people dancing and moshing furiously as well. Some things just aren't meant to be seen in the same place!

Upsettingly missing out Nosebleed from their set, Maximo finished up with Limassol, then returned for an encore - which saw Going Missing finally bring this unique, amazing, but ever so slightly surreal gig to a close. They do this kind of thing really, really well - every time I see Maximo, I never fail to think what an amazing live band they are. In fact, if there is a better live band around in the UK at the moment, I would love to know who they are.