John Maus

John Maus comes on stage alone and with nigh on exactly the same set-up as an X-Factor semi-finalist’s lunchtime PA in a shopping centre: vocal mic, backing tracks at the touch of a button and, err.., that’s it. However this basic staging is enough to stimulate a near riot of wild bouncing abandon, the Maus mania at one point seeing one young lady crawling across the stage for the chance to paw at her hero. Perhaps she was inspired to offer a comforting shoulder given how much Maus stage behaviour often comes close to cathartic self-flagellation. He beats his chest like a silverback gorilla trying to chase away a safari tour group. He soaks his vocals in reverb suggesting Ian Curtis fronting The Normal inside an echo chamber. He bangs his head like there’s a rubber room somewhere with his name on the door. He bellows repeatedly in the ‘instrumental’ breaks with what I can only describe as triumphant anguish. Some will look at all this with bafflement but there is no denying that Maus can light a fire in a room. He might deliver man-and-mic karaoke but the secret to its allure is in the vigour, and violence, of the performance.