Maxïmo Park + Gravenhurst Paradiso, Amsterdam, August 10th, 2008
So last Sunday I saw Maxïmo Park, once again... 6th time now.
Gravenhurst was the support act. I had seen him four years ago in a small tent at Pukkelpop, which was great! I just remembered that I alse saw Amy Winehouse then.. strange! Anyway, back then, he got everyone quiet and listening and dreaming away... Very much unlike now. Not a lot of people were impressed by his guitar-tickling and mumbling. I must say, I wasn't either. Even a guestappearance by Lukas couldn't make his show more interesting. Too bad, I think it could've been way better.
Right when we (which is Anneke, Marieke, Angelique and me by the way) entered the venue we were welcomed by this huge banner and yes, those are GLITTERZ. The "toppers" would've been proud.
And then, the moment we'd all been waiting for...
... the return of the jew Park! They opened with Girls Who Play Guitars (I think?) and well, what can I say? They were good as always. Except one thing was a little different: Paul jewish pimp look. Having long curls coming from underneath his hat, wearing a strange checkered suit and a pink blouse, he made quite an, eh interesting appearence.
(in this pic it looks like he's wearing glasses, to complete the orthodox-jewish look!)
But he wasn't the only one looking slightly different. Lukas had a different haircut and bit of facial hair, which I thought made him look less gay.
Unfortunately, I said this out loud, and probably a bit too loud. He might've heard me, oops. He still goes mental as usual though, and to compensate this new look he showed a complete lack of chesthair:
And he even changed his shirt ánd shoes when he came back from his surprise act during the support!
Anyway, back to the music. They played the usual mix of both albums and a bunch of new songs. I had a little trouble getting into the new ones, they didn't sound as catchy as they usually are. Maybe they're growers. I shot a video of a new one, but since there was a restriction for recording audio and video, I had to sneak around. I haven't uploaded it yet. To our left there were at least four camera's filming so it's probably on Youtube already.
Here's one:
The Kids Are Sick (sound's not too good) (I quite liked this one by the way)
They played this one during the encore and I think they played three other ones during the show, so that makes four.
Paul's Michael Jackson moves didn't go unnoticed.
And yes he changed his shirt during the encore. According to Marieke, it took him a while to get back on stage because he had to pull his shirt over his hat, which caused the obvious trouble. Such style issues! And can someone please hand the man a belt?
