Rock and Pop: Gig review - NME Awards Tour final show at Brixton Academy
Published: 25 February 2010
by ROISIN GADELRAB
• THANK you Tubelines. I had big plans on Saturday and they did not involve maniacal drivers and snarly abusive teenage passengers on packed rail replacement buses.
The disastrous state of the weekend’s transport set me back a good couple of hours and I missed the first three acts on the NME Awards Tour’s final show at Brixton Academy.
No Big Pink, The Drums or Bombay Bicycle Club for me.
So it was fitting compensation when the sublime Maccabees took control. Any fears they may not have reached headline status quite yet were allayed in seconds as track after track was sung back to them in some mass choral tribute. Their rounder sound filled the Academy in a way they failed to at the Roundhouse last year.
Orlando Weeks’ deceptive vocals, apt for the faraway love song Toothpaste Kisses, expanded to impossible heights for the rousing Can You Give It, establishing just how accomplished the boys have become.
High points – their chef-d’oeuvre No Kind Words, the surprise appearance of Edwyn Collins for Rip It Up, and the impromptu multi-band stage invasion as the tour closed.