Monday is the new Saturday at Richards! I was surprised by the opening bands for Maximo Park tonight. I'm sure in hindsight I'd seen both names in passing, but until they were right in front of me, I forgot that both the Ooh-La's and Monsters Are Waiting were performing. Both bands that feature girls front + centre, they were both wonderfully engaging bands for very different reasons.









The Ooh-La's were decidedly cutesy and boppy, with the lead singer gal, Olivia Stone, in vintage-store chic styled mismatched-perfectly patterned dresses and leggings. They were a colourful and playful band, exemplified by Stone's fluttering hands, bass player Mark Eklund mock kicking her over when she bent to fix her pedals, and a guitar player, Greg Eklund (yes, that one) with non-stop kicking stage action. Their merch was a victim of the border-crossing unfortunately, but they clearly made a lot of fans in the room, and as various band members strolled through the crowd after the set, said new fans were quite vocal in telling them how much fun they were to watch.









Monsters Are Waiting were on the other end of the hip spectrum. Moody, ambient and dreamy, the gal fronting this band, Annalee Fery, was dressed in white satin and fishnets, looking like she just fell off the silver screen and onto the stage. I'm tempted to put them in a similar contemporary category as Uncut. Only, you know, with a chick. Amongst their own synthy and somewhat dark tunes, they tossed in a Stone Roses cover of "I Wanna Be Adored." It took me a second to pick it out - I suddenly perked up thinking, 'this guitar riff sounds really familiar, did they rip this off?' Then... lyrics... ah, a cover. It was cool, a lot like the Year of the Rabbit version of the same tune - which is another band I might add to this category with Uncut and Monsters Are Waiting... if they actually existed anymore, that is. The band mannerisms were different as well, matching the mood they presented. Raven-haired and black-eyeshadowed, Fery squinched her shoulders up alternating with swift outstretched limb movements, jerky and sudden and occasionally with such abaondment of sanity it was almost disconcerting to watch. And for that very reason, glorious. A set-ending stage freak-out amongst primarily Fery and stage-side-swapping bassist/guitarist Andrew Clark was panicky and a grand send-off.









Onto Maximo Park now - in the time I've been standing at the foot of the stage, I neglected to realize how incredibly full the room has gotten. People are waiting and ready to dance. Nothing's quite so cute as a gaggle of excitable UK fellas in suits and hats and stuff having a crazy-fun time. Honestly about 23 seconds into the show they were all sweating like maniacs. Our delightful singer, Paul Smith, with his throaty heyday-of-punk accent, leaves no spec of stage untouched with his hand-gesturey style of movement. Very powerful - lots of clenched fists and popping veins and stretched tendons. The guy's practically doing a workout video up there and is clearly feeling the music. I'm more or less worn out just watching them. On the keyboard, on the sidestage amps, on peoples' faces - holy smokes do they ever move.









And are they feeling the love, or what? Claiming this room is giving them one of the best reactions on tour, they commended the city's fine Tshirt shops and all the fun band shirts they picked up during the day. "We were stuck earlier today in a lovely town called Blaine. It's beautiful, there's definitely worse places we could be stuck. And then we got held up in a lovely beige room... called customs.... again." Some guy in the crowd scremed during one of their banter sessions about how rad we all are, "We like your hat!" Smith was indeed wearing a charming bowler hat that somehow managed to stay on his head no matter how many times he leapt wildly into the air. He paused... scanned the crowd... giggled and said thanks.









Chats about the topics of certain songs prompted a bit of Oasis bashing, where Smith mentioned that they have one of the greatest opening lines in "Supersonic" where they say, I need to be myself/ can't be nobody else, but the rest of the song contains swill lines like he lives under a waterfall. The band mocked playing the song much to his chagrin then. Shaking his head, he stated, "It's one of the simplest lines in the world. This song is... much more complex."









Tune after tune, the opening bars made the audience howl with joy and at one point there was a full-on leaping mass happening in the center of the room. I think all, bands and audience, were left satisfied and suitably worn out for a Monday night here.

Gallery Time : The Ooh-La's

















































Monsters Are Waiting





















































Maximo Park

Elsewhere