For many, the fact that Newcastle’s Maximo Park are still massively active more than ten years since their inception is crazy. While so many bands of their era have either stagnated in to obscurity, or reached the dizzying heights of worldwide renown, theirs is a career of celebrated consistently, of which the 2000 people in attendance this evening are a testament.

Any argument against the band’s current relevancy however, prove unfounded when their most recent album Risk to Exist is brought in to the mix. Far more politicised than their previous records, it’s this material that forms the backbone of tonight’s set, though despite the overt politics of said material being both timely and heartfelt, its sincerity does little to dampen the convivial atmosphere felt inside Manchester’s Albert Hall.

Opening with a double team of new material in the form of ‘What Did We Do To Deserve This?’ and the eponymous ‘Risk To Exist’, it’s clear from the outset that the new material speaks volumes to the band’s fans, as if it’s been a staple of their sets for years and not, in fact, a matter of months.

Of course, while the politics are both welcome and necessary, the inherent romanticism of Maximo Park is what earns them fans, and indeed keeps them coming back. Tonight, it’s present in spades. From long-time favourites like ‘Books From Boxes’ to more recent offerings like ‘Leave This Island’ the band’s ability in extracting beauty from desolation, and in making the mundane appear poetic is second to none.

As they tear through a 20 strong set-list, complete with expected acrobatics and countless “thank yous” from the band’s affable frontman Paul Smith, it’s clear that despite the vastly varied crowd, Maximo Park are a band that bring people together. And though each song might well mean something different to each person present tonight, their importance is impossible to ignore.

As they exit the stage following an energetic airing of ‘Girls Who Play Guitars’ those on the Albert Halls wooden balcony begin to stamp their feet in unison, shaking the fixtures and adding to an atmosphere already amplified by the deafening roar that only gets louder as the band return to the stage for a deserved encore.

An impassioned outing for ‘By the Monument kicks things off, followed in quick succession by ‘Apply Some Pressure’ and new track ‘Get High, (No, I Don’t)’, but really, it doesn’t matter what they play. Maximo Park gigs are bigger than the sum of their parts, and the band themselves far bigger than their none-existent ego. And though the new album provides an insight in to their leftist politics, they were a band of the people long before any serious politics entered the equation. And long my they continue to be so. 

It's been ten years since Maximo Park released A Certain Trigger, their seminal debut. Arguably a defining record of the mid-'00s indie boom, a lot has changed since Paul Smith and co scissor-kicked their way on the pages of NME. Many of their contemporaries have split up or faded in to obscurity, whilst others have been catapulted in to mega-stardom. Maximo Park on the other hand, have done none of those things. Instead they've tread comfortable waters, releasing a steady stream of albums, toured regularly and been celebrated by an ardent yet modest by comparison fan-base.

Tonight the focus is on their debut though, the album that made many of us here at the Albert Hall fall in love with the band, and the album which we're here to see in its entirety. The first half of the evening however, is dedicated to singles and rarities, the band careering through 'Girls Who Play Guitars' and 'The National Health', before a rare outing of early B-side 'A19' gets the pulses of die-hard fans racing. As does similar B-side 'A Year of Doubt', but it's 'Our Velocity' that gets the loudest reaction of the evening; the crowd's roar drowning out everything.

From our position behind, above and to the right of the stage, Smith's clearly overwhelmed by such a response, and thriving off it. Performing some impressively acrobatic dance moves that defy his skinny jeans, he bounces from band member to band member with gleeful abandon. Though there's little in the way of crowd interaction, it's more than made up for with the conviction they lavish on tracks that must have been played hundreds of times before.

In what's “possibly the longest encore ever”, over half the set in fact, Maximo Park begin the second part of the evening with 'Signal and Sign'. It's clear that these songs mean as much to the band as they do the crowd and it's obvious they enjoying playing some of these songs for the first time in a while. 'Apply Some Pressure' goes down predictably well, as does 'Going Missing', the track which spawned the aforementioned B-sides. Personal highlights come in the form of 'The Coast Is Always Changing' and 'Acrobat', though it seems the latter hasn't been played in a while, given Smith's, possibly ironic, reliance on a lyric book.

Though it's been over ten years since these tracks were written, they still resonate as strongly as ever. Some even more so. And while Maximo Park haven't reached the same kind of dizzying heights as early contemporaries such as Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian, their fans have stuck by them for a decade, something which stands as a testament to their longevity and something that makes tonight feel like a celebration of their relationship with their fans, as much as of that crucial first album.