My Review - The Maitlands - Live in Oldham

 My Review 

The Maitlands 

Live at Whittles @ Tokyo

Oldham - Manchester 

Friday 29 April 

We are nomads, children of the wind, vagabonds and souls driven by the desire for movement. And music sublimates all this.

You can move a lot, or a little, but it is always a journey that never ends, because it leaves you with the feeling that it will continue.

And so I find myself in Oldham, a place that seems to be enclosed within the smile of the meadows, surrounding a fresh and curious town.

I'm here to see The Maitlands again, Manchester's brightest band at the moment, that I love for its approach to culture and the curiosity of those who don’t feel the need to bind themselves only to the myth of the city. As humble people, they don't want a relationship of complicity with the decades-long history of this place that has become famous, but look for an autonomy and individuality that allows them not to be part of a scene.

Tonight they proved this once again with their best concert I have ever seen.

The compactness of these guys now lies in having eliminated tensions, jealousies. They were already very good but now they are better, a set of beauties that revolve within the complicity which makes the performance exciting and engaging.

They sound like new songs.

Having seen them recently with a line-up reduced to four members, tonight the new one was able to demonstrate their full value: considering they don't get many opportunities to stay together, the result is even more amazing.

The songs this evening were endowed with a spectacular array of colours: the notes gravitated into our hearts, the music was a continuous, powerful flight, and together they carried us towards an awareness of ever-increasing joy, since The Maitlands break the boundaries.

Rob Glennie's and Mike Foy's guitars are bees that sting, but able at the same time to give us honey with their perfect harmony.

Tom Sillitoe is the keyboards wizard who provides melody and vigour to the songs making them complete, while Matt Byrne, with lightness and precision, has taken his bass and made it harmonious.

Saul is not human, let's admit it: his love for drums is so great that all the technique and enthusiasm are combined in a masterful work.

Then there's Carl: his voice, the way he sings, is poetry and, like a shaman, leads us to seductive, total imposition.

A band with a solid present that can allow itself to look to the future with a smile: they have intense songs, capable of making us reflect and of enchanting, they are healthy vehicles of beauty and only the ignorance of a careless world can fail to give them the success they deserve.

Twelve tracks to make the venue full of sublime scents, rhythm and melody and inner richness that combined to make this evening the show of enchantment.

Alex Dematteis

Musicshockworld

Salford

4th May 2022

Matt Byrne - Bass

Mike Foy - Guitar

Saul Gerrard - Drum

Rob Glennie - Guitar

Carl L. Ingram - Voice

Tom Sillitoe - Keyboard