Maximo Park Rewards My Devotion with a Superb Show at Schubas -- Chicago Concert Review

Concert Review

Maximo Park
w/ Stagnant Pools, The Neighbourhood
Schubas, Chicago
September 17, 2012
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If I were to look at your iPod, I would undoubtedly discover at least a few—if not several—musical artists with which I am unfamiliar but that you devotedly enjoy and follow. The British band Maxïmo Park is one of those acts for me.

I found their 2005 debut album, A Certain Trigger, to be the best album of the century’s first decade and although their two subsequent discs were each a step downward, their latest release, The National Health, is among the best new albums I’ve heard in 2012.

On Monday night, I saw Maxïmo Park live in Chicago with a relatively small but passionate crowd of fellow devotees at Schubas. The show, also featuring opening acts Stagnant Pools and The Neighbourhood--I enjoyed the former, a 2-piece band of brothers from Indy, a bit better than the latter--had been booked at Lincoln Hall, but was moved to its older-but-smaller sister venue, presumably due to middling ticket sales.

If you’re oblivious to Maxïmo Park, so be it; I just hope that whatever obscure bands you love deliver as satisfying a show as I got last night. For in a 90-minute, 22-song set—every one of which I enjoyed—Maxïmo Park further demonstrated that, IMHO, they are one of the best bands in the world today.

Coming on the heels of outstanding concerts by Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, I’d be hard-pressed to award this one a full @@@@@ as it just didn’t have the emotional heft of the former or classic brilliance of the latter. But once the acoustics got worked out early on in a much-smaller room than Maxïmo Park plays in Europe, it was every bit as good a performance as I could have wanted.

Energetic, animated and amiable, Paul Smith is a first-class front man, providing the 5-piece band’s primary focal point in addition to crisp vocals. Mixing songs from all four of their studio albums, it was clear that the band has built up an estimable songbook and that The National Health has substantially enhanced it.

New tunes such as the album’s title cut, “Hips and Lips,” “Write This Down,” “The Undercurrents,” “This is What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” and “Waves of Fear” sounded great among A Certain Trigger chestnuts “Graffiti,” “Going Missing,” “I Want You to Stay” and “Apply Some Pressure.”

And while the band’s 2nd and 3rd albums aren't end-to-end excellent like the 1st & 4th, “Questing, Not Coasting,” “Our Velocity” and “By the Monument” showed that Our Earthly Pleasures and Quicken the Heart each have choice cuts that come off quite well in concert. (A Chicago setlist is not posted on Setlist.fm, but I believe it matches what Maxïmo Park played in New York.)

I had seen Maxïmo Park play a similarly stellar show in 2007—though their new material certainly added to this one—but they cancelled a U.S. tour in 2009, and with their brief current jaunt experiencing the downsizing of venues, who knows when they might be back again. So this review may be somewhat moot in terms of a recommendation that you see this band anytime soon.

But if you’re looking for someone new and worthwhile to add to your personal music universe, in my estimation you could do a lot worse than to explore Maxïmo Park. Start with the albums and just maybe, you’ll join me in looking forward to their next visit to Chicago. Or at least a concert DVD that isn't Region 2 only.

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This is a video I shot of their first single and closing song, “Apply Some Pressure”:

The 100 Best Alternative Rock Bands of the Past 25 Years

Last night I saw Weezer. It was an excellent show and I should post my review later today or tomorrow.

Despite Weezer being, arguably, one of the few alt-rock superstar bands of the '90s still in existence--and one whose music I've always enjoyed--this was only the second time I'd seen them, and the first was only because they were on a double-bill with the Foo Fighters.

So it got me thinking about where I'd place them in the pantheon of alternative rock bands. Thus, I started making this list.

Initially I was only thinking in terms of acts from the '90s, but in being unsure if I should also consider music made since then, I decided to go back 25 years.

Even this, like all list making attempts, is of course imprecise.

First of all, what defines alternative?

It seems that once Nirvana rolled around, alternative music became the mainstream. And nowadays, "alternative" seems to be a dead moniker, with alternative rock stations--like Chicago's Q101--having bitten the dust.

But, as a rough qualifier for inclusion on this list, the following artists (mostly bands, but not just) are ones I would have expected to hear on an alternative rock radio station (with new music) over the past 25 years. Thus no Guns 'n Roses, Metallica, Bruce Springsteen or presumably Adele, but a pretty wide swath otherwise. And if you're unclear what makes Elvis Costello, post-87, any more "alternative" than Tom Petty, you've got a pretty good point. As I said, this is imprecise.

Though the 25 year span largely covers the rise of alternative era--from the origins of The Pixies and Jane's Addition through the grunge explosion, the birth of Lollapalooza and everything since--it too is an imperfect demarcation, as it leaves out much punk, which I tend to consider alternative.

Though the whole list is obviously based on my own preferences and whims, I tried to gauge artists only by the music they made within the 1987-2012 range. Thus I left out otherwise extremely deserving bands like The Smiths, Husker Du, Talking Heads and Ramones, who were either on their last legs by '87 or no longer producing their best music. For included acts whose careers pre-date 1987, I tried to only reflect their work since them, not their overall output. In many cases, I was able to factor in the band as a live act, but some I've never seen.

And since this is my list, I could only include artists whose music I know pretty well and enjoy, so no Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, My Bloody Valentine, Ministry, Tool, Guided by Voices, Built to Spill, Sleater-Kinney, Portishead or others that you might include (additional "also-rans" are included after the top 100).

So take it for what it's worth--if I made the same list tomorrow, it would likely be ordered slighly differently--but this is how I rate the 100 Best Alternative Rock Bands (and Solo Acts) of the Past 25 Years:
 

1. Nirvana
2. U2
3. R.E.M.
4. Pearl Jam
5. The Smashing Pumpkins (+ Zwan)
6. Radiohead
7. The Replacements (+ Paul Westerberg solo)
8. Midnight Oil
9. Green Day
10. Soundgarden

11. The Cure
12. Foo Fighters
13. Red Hot Chili Peppers
14. Dinosaur Jr.
15. Nine Inch Nails
16. The Pixies
17. Arcade Fire
18. The Flaming Lips
19. The Beastie Boys

20. The Wildhearts (check out this song)

21. Depeche Mode
22. Blur
23. Wilco
24. The White Stripes
25. The Killers
26. Weezer
27. Bob Mould (including Sugar)
28. Jane's Addiction
29. System of a Down
30. Stone Temple Pilots

31. Paul Weller
32. Rage Against The Machine
33. Elvis Costello (remember, this is '87 onward)
34. Phish
35. Smoking Popes
36. Stereophonics
37. The Waterboys
38. Garbage

39. Beck
40. BoDeans

41. Maximo Park
42. Ash
43. Social Distortion
44. Oasis
45. Sonic Youth
46. No Doubt
47. Coldplay
48. Counting Crows
49. Teenage Fanclub
50. Material Issue

51. Pulp
52. Moby
53. LCD Soundsystem
54. Alice in Chains
55. The Lemonheads
56. Screaming Trees
57. Everclear

58. The Hives
59. The Wallflowers
60. Faith No More

61. Stone Roses
62. Liz Phair
63. Snow Patrol
64. Hole
65. Urge Overkill
66. Supergrass
67. Manic Street Preachers
68. Pavement
69. Mudhoney
70. Cracker

71. Muse
72. Incubus
73. Live
74. Alanis Morrisette
75. Franz Ferdinand

76. The Strokes
77. The Cranberries
78. The Wedding Present
79. PJ Harvey
80. The Jesus and Mary Chain

81. Blink 182
82. Suede
83. Placebo
84. The Charlatans UK
85. Matthew Sweet
86. The Tragically Hip
87. Fishbone
88. Dave Matthews Band
89. The Fratellis
90. Local H

91. The Decemberists
92. Kaiser Chiefs
93. Bush

94. The Offspring
95. Sponge
96. TV on the Radio
97. Son Volt
98. The Hold Steady
99. Feeder
100. Soul Coughing

Assorted Others in No Particular Order

Primal Scream
Arctic Monkeys
James
My Morning Jacket
Keane
Rancid
Soul Asylum 
Linkin Park
Mission of Burma
Fastball 
The La's
Uncle Tupelo
Goo Goo Dolls

Gin Blossoms
Toad the Wet Sprocket
Queens of the Stone Age
Primus
Sublime
Korn
Death Cab for Cutie
My Chemical Romance
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
My Bloody Valentine
Ministry
Tool
311
Guided by Voices
Built to Spill
Sleater-Kinney
Portishead
Sloan