September Excess

It was a feast of excess musically this week.
Maximo Park played The middle East Downstairs on Monday night, at the start of the night it seemed horribly quiet but by the time we had suffered through the two abysmal support bands thankfully the place had filled out.
Maximo Park have never been a band that were the most popular but have steady stream of support and have continued to create really great music which if you look at the lyrics can really suprise you as Paul Smith uses terms that are pretty erudite and are way beyond the normal garbage espoused by pop bands such as The Vaccines.Then there is also the fact that Smith is pretty acrobatic out there doing scissor kicks and jumps and generally keeps the audience in the palm of his hand.
On Monday they gave us a 21 song set, listed here .
Full of brilliant pop songs with hooks that kept people going crazy and having a really good time the band showed why they are so important.
Girls who Play guitars, Limassol, Apply some Pressure, books from boxes adn the kids re sick again show that they consistently create strong powerful songs which have the power to make you smile, want to move and raise your spirits. Lets hope its not another five years before they come back.
Talking about long time since a band has played, the Jesus And Mary Chain played The Paradise Tuesday and Wednesday, again pretty low attendance, what the heck is with Boston not knowing when a good thing is happening?
When the show started the band looked so old unassuming and I did wonder if this was going to be less than brilliant. It is probably the brilliance of the original songs but hearing songs like Sidewalking, Some Candy Talking , Just like honey and Reverence. However when they played 'Never Understand' it was transcendental and made e remember exactly why I hold these grumpy temperamental freaks to my heart with awe and wonder. and yes it felt just as wonderful the second night and of course Jim Reid had to throw the odd hissy just to prove he existed.
Such Wonder!
On a different note , Alt-J, a band from Leeds play Boston Monday the 17th.
Alt-J play music that really has quite a different structure to most current songs and the vocals have a almost falsetto note. As always Leeds provides music that goes where others do not helping the landscape keep fresh I am looking forward to this concert very much.