Moderate Rock

Music can move walls. And you need look no further than Maybeshewill for proof of that power. For an all too brief half hour tonight the Leicester lads transform the sterile confines of the Garage into a grand arena, a gig for everyone, an almost-Nirvana. Big words, sure, but that’s all that’s left after you run out of superlatives and wring your thesaurus dry looking for any and all useful equivalents of epic and cinematic. ‘The Paris Hilton Sex Tape’ perfectly captures the band’s uncanny ability to go from quiet to loud without any messing about in between, ‘Co-Conspirators’ is all emotional, tangible clout, newbie ‘To The Skies From A Hillside’ is an instant classic, and while those songs from album number three, ‘I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone’, are warmer, easier even, they slot into the set perfectly. And then there’s ‘Not For Want Of Trying’. Three years old and probably aired at every Maybeshewill gig since it was written, it remains simply something else. A song above and beyond most songs when trapped on a disc, live and in the flesh it transforms into a cleansing wall of fire, and is capable of changing lives. Here’s hoping the band never once get bored of it. All this and they look like they’ve just walked in off the street, like they’re not even trying. Three other bands played tonight, they didn’t stand a chance.