Music

The Maccabees, O2 Academy, Glasgow

Four stars

Although a farewell tour, there was never likely to be anything flashy about the Maccabees final bow. They are a band who built a career in understated terms, through four impressive albums and gradual evolution rather than any ridiculous hype, and so it proved here.

Although the set wasn’t chronological it was still possible to trace their career, from the youthful eagerness and love of post-punk and poetry that characterised the jerky, anxious X-Ray and heart-swoon pop of Precious Time through No Kind Words’ brooding disquiet and eventually the uncertain contemplation that characterised a spikey Spit It Out.

There was all of that, plus Latchmere, surely the most euphoric song about a local leisure centre ever written, and Marks To Prove It, a terrifically discordant piece of noisy pop in the encore. The voice of Orlando Weeks underpinned it all. After all these years and despite attempts at dancing and arm-waving, his onstage persona still sometimes resembled a shy boy trying to back out of a school presentation, but the vocal was gorgeous, capable of heartbreak and defiance.

He apologised at one stage for leaving the talking to guitarist Felix White, a more gregarious presence who leapt to the front of the stage regularly (and was last to depart after taking an extra moment to soak the reaction in). His guitar work, together with his brother Hugo, provided that extra thrust.

However the gig showcased the group (aided by extra brass and percussion) as a whole, through to a conclusion of Pelican, an urgent, dynamic tune about life’s progression. Fitting, because the Maccabees managed to regularly evolve without ever losing their original spark. That is why they’ll be missed.