The Maccabees live at Kirkstall Abbey, live review by Rob Johnson
The Maccabees were a band for a long time, and then they weren’t a band for a long time, and now they’re a band again. Or at least that’s how lead singer Orlando Weeks tells it whilst playing in front of an adoring crowd at Leeds’ illustrious Kirkstall Abbey. A few hours before that point, however, with the sun shining in West Yorkshire, London four-piece Mystery Jets take to the stage to perform a short but well-received set culminating in classic singles ‘Young Love’ and ‘Two Doors Down’.
These were songs initially written by young people and performed in front of crowds of other young people. Well, the band are elder statesmen now, and the crowd have a few more grey hairs (if they have hair at all), but the bittersweet effervescence of the Jets’ best work leaves everyone feeling young at heart.
Everything Everything come bursting out of the tracks next with ‘The End of the Contender’ and ‘Get to Heaven’, and from there, they deliver a career-spanning barnstorming set that deepens the appreciation of the initiated and surely wins over any non-believers. There’s a reason the Salford band are often called in as a support act for events like this, and it’s because they are reliably brilliant.
Frontman Jonathan Higgs, who has one of the most distinctive and wonderful voices on the indie rock scene, brings a wry melodrama to tracks such as ‘Spring/Summer/Winter/Dread’ and ‘Cold Reactor’, before an incendiary rendition of ‘No Reptiles’ closes things out. Higgs’ bandmates, clad in matching yellow jumpsuits, match his energy every step of the way, and if I were in a band (heaven forbid), I wouldn’t want to follow Everything Everything onto any stage.
And indeed, this does initially prove difficult for Newcastle heroes Maximo Park. Despite opening with ‘Our Velocity’, one of their best songs, it takes a while for the band to get going, partly because the sound for the first couple of tracks isn’t great. By the time they reach the midpoint of the set with ‘Leave This Island’ and ‘I Want You to Stay’, any technical problems have been forgotten and frontman Paul Smith has the audience in his grasp.
Wearing his trademark fedora (which seems to get wider with every passing year), Smith prowls the stage with intent and it is clear, and I mean this as a compliment, that Maximo Park are undoubtedly his favourite band. He loves this song, and by extension, he makes everyone else love them too. The final trio of ‘Apply Some Pressure’, ‘Going Missing’ and particularly ‘Books From Boxes’, the latter song a set highlight as the sun goes down behind the Abbey ruins, ensure that this will go down as another successful show from a band who will sing these songs until there are no stages left to play.
It’s been a great afternoon of music before The Maccabees even take to the stage, but it’s clear immediately that we are witnessing something on a different level to what has come before from the first tentative guitar stabs of ‘Love You Better’ through to the triumphant mania of ‘Pelican’.
In between, the crowd are treated to six songs from their seminal debut album Colour It In’, including a woozy ‘Toothpaste Kisses’, a rackshackle ‘First Love’, and the almost religious experience that is ‘Precious Time’ (fitting considering the location), a smattering of other tracks from across their discography, and even a new song in the shape of ‘Ballad of So Long’, a track that proves that this is far from a nostalgia exercise.
Orlando Weeks and his band are bigger now than they ever were first time around and it’s lovely to see how utterly grateful the band still are about their Indian summer. Guitarist Felix White can’t stop smiling throughout and Weeks continually thanks the audience by patting his head, an act that sums the band up in microcosm – weird, unique, but ultimately, you can’t help but love it.
I’ve seen hundreds of bands over the years, I’ve written countless reviews for this very publication, and I can honestly say, hand on heart, that The Maccabees at Kirkstall Abbey in the summer of 2026 will go down as one of the best live performances I’ve ever seen. The first explosive drum snap of ‘No Kind Words’. The driving bass line of ‘Lego’. The wonderful portion of loaded fries I ate just before they started. All of it was exceptional. I miss it already.
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