Maximo Park
O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester
7th February 2026
North East indie royalty Maximo Park make their highly anticipated return to Manchester to celebrate 20 years of their seminal debut album, Apply Some Pressure.
Somehow, two decades have passed since north-eastern indie darlings Maximo Park released their debut album A Certain Trigger. Arriving in a timely fashion ahead of the glut of landfill indie offerings that followed a few years later, it was a record that succeeded in both establishing the band, whilst also setting them apart from the identikit indie that was peddled by their contemporaries.
A huge amount has changed in that time. The country we live in is a very different place from that in which Maximo Park unleashed their angular indie 20 years ago. However, as we enter the cavernous Victoria Warehouse, it’s clear that for the few thousand of us that are crammed into its ex-industrial confines, the world outside the doors matters little, at least for a couple of hours. Tonight isn’t just about a band celebrating their debut album; it’s about their fans forgetting the world has gone to shit, and about allowing them to relive the halcyon days of a youth misspent.
Emerging from the side of the stage and wasting little time on introductions, frontman Paul Smith cuts a lithe figure. Bedecked in his trademark black suit and hat, Signal & Sign kicks things off before heading into a breakneck version of fan-favourite Graffiti, which sees the three-thousand strong crowd in full voice. An early out of Postcard of a Painting makes it clear which album is tonight’s focus. However, the one-two salvo Our Velocity and Leave This Island shake things up early on. The moody electronic fizz of the latter track showcases a maturity in the band’s songwriting that’s perhaps not as evident in earlier material.
Of course, another dive back into the past with The Coast is Always Changing raises the volume once again. Whilst the band’s more recent material will always feel a little more three dimensional than older cuts, there’s no denying that these songs were the soundtrack to a generation, and it’s this material that people want to hear.
As if on cue, B-side and deep cut Fear of Falling get its first live airing in 19 years. For some, it’s something of a lull in proceedings that provides a perfect opportunity to head to one of the venue’s many bars, which seem busy throughout the entirety, whilst for others, it’s the chance to hear a track live that they never thought they would. From this point, the band begin to mix things up a little more, introducing tracks from across their catalogue that break up the debut material nicely. Questing, Not Coasting, The National Health and Kiss You Better are all aired; each track is receiving a rapturous response from a baying crowd.
Having exhausted much of the material from the debut in the first half of the set, there’s little left in the band’s arsenal beside the big hitters, and it’s clear that we’re heading into the show’s final stages. Indeed, a spikey Limassol proceeds a life-affirming rendition of the title-track Apply Some Pressure, which sees everybody in the room, and those of us on the fringes, singing back every word before Smith and co leave the stage.
Not for long, though, a haunting and emotional Acrobat kicks off the encore, with Smith’s vocal deep and resonant above the track’s inherent fizz. Conversely, Books from Boxes follows. A track that needs little introduction, its familiar intro rings out over the crowd before Smith’s voice is joined by 3000 others: the emotion is evident despite the volume. Things could quite easily end here; however, there’s been one glaring omission from the setlist so far. On cue, the opening notes of Going Missing ring out across the venue, and for one final time this evening, thousands of voices fill the Victoria Warehouse, belting back lyrics that still, all these years later, mean so much to so many.
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Maximo Park can be found on Facebook, Twitter and their website.
You can see more of Dave Beech’s writing on Louder Than War here.
Photos by Andi Callen
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