LIVE REVIEW: Kate Nash, Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (Date: 22.10.07)

The young grow up so fast. Glancing around there are small people who look lost without a conker and a hand full of Pogs. Youngsters line the barrier refusing to acknowledge an elder pushing through the crowd shouting: “When do you want to go home?”, “Do you want another Fruit Shoot?”

An act that attracts such a vast fan base should be celebrated and is, if only if it wasn’t for Rihanna and her pesky rain shield. Tonight Kate Nash has some props of her own. Red tied back velvet curtains, her name in pink neon, fairy lights draped over amps, artificial plants and china ornaments.

The secret behind this Harrow girl’s success is her ability to bring music down from near elite planes to poetry of the public. These familiar themes that line Nash’s music mushroom in significance for every single person. They can try to reach out to her through their bedroom music system but when she’s in front of them they reach out physically and verbally, and she so very kindly and happily reaches back.

The distorted drums of ‘Play’ crash into the room as the neon light sparks to life; the people’s musician arrives. ‘Mariella’, the opener, is an excellent showcase of Kate’s voice. It is amazing! Over exaggerated accent aside, the keys and tones, speed and elocution is dumb-founding. ‘The Shit Song’ is beautiful. The lack of electronic accompaniment helps the daydream of sunny afternoons and large glasses of booze. Non-album track ‘Stitching Leggings’ fills the set list to last the hour and half adequately before returning to stringless ‘Skeleton Song’ and a richly stripped down ‘Birds’. ‘Nicest Thing’ continues the gorgeous low tempo of the most touching tracks before the gears are cranked up for ‘Mouthwash’ and ‘Foundations’. The interchanging, the upbeat and the mellow, is seamless.

The encore finishes the crowd off. A night of banter, smiles, laughs and sweetness is punctuated with Kate lonesome on the piano for ‘Little Red’ and then joined by her band for ‘Pumpkin Song’. The former has a crescendo that would be fitting for any classical concert but the rings of “I just want your kiss boy!” puts ridiculous smiles on every face, Kate’s included.

Words: Dean Samways

Photo: Adam John Miller's MySpace

LIVE REVIEW: Maximo Park, Portsmouth Guildhall (Date: 08.10.07)

“It’s their biggest tour to date!” chirps the pop pixie next to me, coiled like a spring. Her face is smouldering with anticipation that will only be outdone by the rubbery-faced theatrics of Paul Smith. Spanning Anglo, Germanic, Austro and Yankee soils, the five Geordie boys are certainly looking to become global. And why not?

Maximo Park are notorious for having an educated electricity; a literary richness to their music. On top of this the poetic anguish there’s lust and love that rings like a new age Morrissey, where every scribble in the lyric book offers foreigners an insight into British culture. These hymns of modern life would fail to penetrate the hearts of the hordes though without the expressive drama of the band’s live show.

Their energy, especially Mr Smith’s, seems inexhaustible. This performance, like every one before and after it, will be loaded with cries and expressions of emotion that tear you between standing sombrely still and dancing your clothes off to the indie disco.

In one vigorous movement the band bounds onstage as high as kites on the Yorkshire dales. ‘The Coast Is Always Changing’, ‘A Fortnight’s Time’ and ‘Girls Who Play Guitars’ are belted out without hesitation or interruption. The trillion expressions that race across the singer’s face announce instructions like a flashing applause prompt; a signal for the crowd to go mental. Anger to coy, happy to bashful. The many faces of Maximo Park infect the crowd as they imitate the passion on stage. It’s contagious.

Yells of “COME ON!” lift the crowd further and further into pleasure not known on this world. Caught up in the pandemonium you fail to twig that ‘I Want You To Stay’ and ‘Limasol’ sound as fresh as ‘Parisian Skies’ and ‘By The Monument’. Two LPs married in mayhem.

There is perhaps only one purely sentimental moment that demands your full non-bouncing attention. It comes as they return onstage for the encore. ‘Acrobat’, with stripped-down synthesizers and measured tempo, brings pained prose to close what’s been a vigorous assault on the senses. But not before leaving the crowd with an impatiently hasty and brutal rendition of ‘Graffiti’. Godspeed, Maximo Park.

Words: Dean Samways

Photo: Shirlaine Forrest