Maxïmo Park @ The Gov, Adelaide 26/4/2026
2005 may seem like a lifetime ago in musical years, but for jaunty UK rockers Maxïmo Park, their seminal debut album A Certain Trigger is still well within its best-before date.
Released in the same year as debut efforts from Bloc Party, Kaiser Chiefs and Editors, the Newcastle five-piece burst onto the scene with an angular, razor-sharp take on indie rock, paired with frontman Paul Smith’s erudite tales of heartbreak in a working-class town.
It was unsurprisingly met with widespread acclaim, quickly cementing Maxïmo Park as one of the standout acts of the mid-2000s indie boom. Praised for its restless energy and distinctly Northern voice, the album struck a balance between art-school angularity and pop immediacy. Lauded for its wit and urgency, fans connected with its relatable vignettes of everyday life and love, helping it earn a Mercury Prize nomination and a lasting reputation as one of the defining British indie debuts of its era.
Celebrating its twentieth anniversary at The Gov on Sunday night, the band matched the intensity and playfulness captured two decades ago with a sprawling twenty-song set, including the debut in full.
The dapper Smith, in his trademark fedora, was commanding and charismatic from the very first beats of opener Signal and Sign. Animated and expressive, his performance was only restrained by the confines of the small Gov stage.
Graffiti followed, along with the Smiths-like jangle of Postcard of a Painting, and as the crowd danced and bopped to the infectious hooks, they screamed along to Smith’s intelligent musings.
Performed in no particular order, the band wove the debut with various tracks from across their career, leaning more heavily on the quality 2007 follow-up Our Earthly Pleasures.
The power-pop punch of Our Velocity was an early highlight before the band ventured further into their catalogue for a powerful version of Leave This Island.
Smith was humble and unpretentious throughout the night, sharing off-the-cuff stories from the band’s two decades of performing this material.
Playing out like a greatest hits set, album tracks such as Kiss You Better, I Want You to Stay and Now I’m All Over the Shop held their own against singles The Coast Is Always Changing and the mighty closing climax of Apply Some Pressure.
Returning for a three-song encore, the band delivered the mesmerising and often under-celebrated Acrobat, which finds Smith’s almost hypnotic spoken-word poetry set against a sparse electronic backdrop. Its achingly painful line, “I don’t remember losing sight of your needs,” hit even harder before they closed the night with Books from Boxes and the apt Going Missing.
Fourteen years since their last visit to Australia, they had indeed been missing for an extended period, but by no means have they lost any of the urgency and joy that put them on the indie rock radar two decades ago.
Live Review By Sam Kelton