Maroon 5 Review | 8 January 2014
On a cold mid-week night in Birmingham, the LG Arena was warmed up by the official world’s Sexiest Man Alive (according to People Magazine) as Adam Levine brought his band Maroon 5 to kick off their UK Tour.
The night promised to be great from the start with the singer of 2013’s most controversial yet best-selling song; Robin Thicke owned the stage like he was the main act and ended his set on the epic ‘Blurred Lines’.
Even though the gig has been rescheduled from several months before, the Arena was packed full of (mostly female) fans. Maroon 5 started things right with ‘One More Night’ and proceeded to sing songs from each of their four albums. They even threw in a few cheeky covers of Prince, Daft Punk and Gym Class Heroes.
I’ve been a Maroon 5 fan from early on (I went to see them on their Songs About Jane Tour in 2004 at a much smaller venue) and, having not seen them since, Iwas looking forward to see how they’d tackle an Arena stage ten years on. They had a very minimal stage set up as it turns out they don’t need production gimmicks to put on an incredible show.
One of my favourite things from the night was that much of their setlist was from ‘Songs About Jane’, their first and in my opinion, best album. Tracks including the hits ‘This Love’. ‘Harder To Breathe’ and a beautiful acoustic version of ‘She Will Be Loved’ were interspersed with some of the album tracks like ‘Shiver’ and ‘Tangled’ and it was great to be able to hear these songs live again.
The band ended with an encore including ‘Payphone’, ‘She Will Be Loved’ and ‘Daylight’ and as I left to catch the train home, my friend couldn’t stop talking about how “completely in love” with Adam Levine she was now. I imagine she isn’t the only one!
Review by Charlie Smith