Maximo Park at Shepherd's Bush

The magnificent Maximo Park played Shepherd's Bush Empire for the first time tonight and I was there to bask in their majestic glory. I walked in, bedraggled from the rain, to witness the place in full lighting and wondered why I'd never thought of the place as small before, but it isn't that big and the stage isn't big either.

I enjoyed the rather odd Art Brut, the support act, that reminded me of a punk version of Ian Dury crossed with John Cooper Clark and Jarvis, loud thrashing punky music with lots of self-referential and ironic lyrics. They were fun! Unfortunately the sound wasn't too good and they just sounded like a blur-noise with the odd lyric floating through. I'd like to see them somewhere smaller with better sound.

And then came the Lords of Maximo. I've awarded them lordship since a few times during the night I wondered to myself whether they'd assumed SLADE's mantle of good-time fun live band. They're certainly that, and Paul's showmanship as lead singer gets better every time I see them.

They opened with 'Graffiti' and closed with the marvellous 'Going Missing' then came on for a two-song encore finishing with 'Limassol'. They played for about 1 hour 15 minutes being wonderful throughout. 'Apply Some Pressure' got the biggest applause of the evening closely followed by 'Our Velocity' (both are wonderful live songs).

They melded old and new songs very well and I was delighted that the audience sang along to the new songs as well as the old, particularly the chorus to 'Girls Who Play Guitars'. I'm very proud of them.

They were relentless, they were fabulous, they were the Lords of Maximo Park!