Tonight I took the opportunity to watch Maps live at Manchester’s Roadhouse. I first came across these guys on the indoor stage at this year’s Summer Sundae in Leicester - they blew me away then, and they have since been nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, so I figured this would probably be my last chance to see them at a relatively small venue before they go stellar.

Before I go any further I’m going to geek out for a second and make this point. If you want to make a buzz on the internet regarding your new band, do not call it “Maps”. I had to scroll down to page 3 before finding any mention of these guys. You may as well call yourself “Video”, “Analytics” or “Webmaster Tools”.

Anyway, Maps is, for all intents and purposes, a single geezer, namely James Chapman. The album “We Can Create” was put together in his bedroom, with James playing all parts himself (singing too). His band have been put together for the lives shows. This gives the shows a significantly different feel than the album, and it works brilliantly. I found myself honestly hoping they release a live version.

It’s been a while since I’d been to the Roadhouse, and to be honest I’d forgotten how small it actually was. There could not have been more than 200 people there, and it was not at all difficult to get a decent spot. We showed up a little late, at around 8.45, to find Maps already a couple of tracks into their set. This was a little dissapointing, but we found ourselves a spot and made do anyway. As a big fan of the album I was pretty familiar with the songs played, and found myself really enjoying what they’d done with them. Several of those that I’d overlooked a little on the album, such as “Don’t Fear”, came alive in the hands of the band. I’ve never been one for verbose descriptions of what I’ve heard at a gig, so here’s the word’s of Megan Vaughan of music-dash.co.uk instead. Saves me the effort which, as anyone who knows me will tell you, is what I’m all about.

“Hefty percussion grounded the determined synthy whirrs and drones in some kind of structure, while bass, reverb, heavy breathing and the squeal of a metalworks all came together to create what I assume is the sound of dying in a train crash, but then being gently propelled towards the light at the end of the tunnel with your heartbeat in your ears and the voice of God coming at you through a vocoder.”

Told you they were good.

I’ve posted a video of “Don’t Fear” below. Others, including their biggest hit to date “You Don’t Know Her Name” can be heard on their MySpace page. Enjoy!