Fringe players let their hair down and a legend is born

Maroon 5 brought a new crowd to the St James on Saturday night if the guy in the toilets is anything to go by. He's spooked by the venue's basement toilets, and it doesn't help that there's a light out down here.

This gig is a sellout and the pop-kids, and the older pop-kids, are out with vengeance. And these chart- topping, good, all-American lads, who come on at the beginning of the show like the Chemical Brothers with flashing lights and all, end up wooing this crowd to its knees.

Apart from singer Adam Levine, who is very straight looking, the band look like a cross between the country rockers Kings Of Leon and metallers System Of A Down.

The guitarist and bass player are shaggy while the drummer, and the keyboardist-cum-guitarist, are very much of the metal persuasion.

The keyboard player is described by one punter as looking like All Black Carl Hayman. He does, with his more-than-full goatie, but his posturing behind the keys is much more eloquent than the All Black prop.

As one audience member said: "I love the keyboard player, I want to take him home and put him in the corner like a little rug."

It's funny how the band - apart from Levine - look bored when they're playing their smash hits, like She Will Be Loved. It's precision-perfect, but the hick-looking bass player seems uninterested and strolls through it.

When Maroon 5 play their lesser known songs - where they are able to break it down and have a bit of fun - the lads with the fringes really let their hair down. For example, and we're jumping straight to the end here, their cover version of Neil Young's Rockin In the Free World is stellar. Who would have thought these lads could have done that song?

But really, how much of that nice yet in-your-face voice of Levine's can you take? Remember the band Three Doors Down? Maroon 5 have smatterings of their one hit wonderdom. But tonight the crowd absolutely love it and so do the band.

This is the last night of their world tour and Levine proclaims: "That means it needs to be legendary."

It was, for the band at least, because this gig was real girls-on-the-shoulder stuff.

Review

*Who: Maroon 5

*Where: St James

*Reviewed by Scott Kara