GUITAR music has become as disposable as pop.
Open the NME in any given week, and you'll find it full of serviceable but uninspiring indie outfits (Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, Futureheads) who enthrall the nation's 15-year-olds and spark feelgood festival singalongs, but who will find in a few years' time that their audience has grown up and no one's listening any more.
Newcastle five-piece Maximo Park have, like Editors, become strangely successful without bothering the charts, and attract fanatical followers who queued for hours to secure tickets for Friday's low-key Fibbers show.
The band delighted the crowd with a protracted version of Graffiti. From there, the fan favourites kept coming, from the euphoric The Coast Is Always Changing to the explosive Apply Some Pressure.
The storming piano-led Russian Literature was the pick of the new tunes, which took the band's sound to new levels harder, faster and catchier.
Maximo Park are effortlessly now' Britpop meets post-punk, articulate, northern and, as such, have fared well in the world of NME-endorsed indie. However, it also makes them almost impossible to distinguish from every other group out there. The band's enthusiastic performance and the antics of wild-eyed frontman Paul Smith ensured a good time, but ultimately the night was forgettable.
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