In their 3 years of absence, The Maine have been more than busy. Eventhough they didn’t set foot on European soil, they’ve been touring the United States of America in order to support the release of their 2015 record “American Candy”. After this tour cycle, the band jumped back into the studio and created another brilliant record before touring Europe again. Armed with 2 new records “American Candy” and “Lovely Little Lonely”, The Maine’s return to Amsterdam was massively anticipated and the audience was noticeably stoked about their return.
Not only was the crowd amped to hear a lot of new tracks taken from 2 records live for the first time, the band was noticeably stoked as well. Last time around, The Maine performed a stellar show, while the deliverance of the tracks back then was a rather stiff endeavour. This time however, the band combined stellar musicianship with an epic performance with great crowd interaction. The few years of inactivity seem to have worked wonders on their ability to give a great show.
From the first moment onwards, frontman John Macallan invested a lot of his time entertaining the crowd in between of songs and lines, which resulted into absolutely mayhem among the attendees. While the room was crowded and rather small, The Maine had everyone jumping, singing and moshing around from begin to end.
The tracks effortlessly floated into one another due to the sublime instrumental interludes that connected the tracks together, almost making it seem like a set consisting off of one massive diverse track. Even when McCalligan was busy entertaining the crowd, the music never died down. When the energy would just decline a little, the band would play a massive hit or a track the fans hadn’t heard live yet before, making sure that the energy level rose to the appropriate level in no-time.
As the show continued, vocalist McCalligan took a step back from the endless entertainment and shifted the focus to performing the vocals from the band’s 2-decade spanning discography the best way he could. While it did make for an exceptionally enthusiastic crowd and band, we’d rather The Maine return a bit faster than they did last time, as we’re sure that a second time, the crowd would still be able to pull this kind of energy into a beyond-packed room.
Check out the many photos Eva van Kuik took of the band’s performance below.
