For almost two decades, American rock band The Maine has stolen the hearts of their dedicated fanbase, dubbed 8123. This name finds its origin in the place the band hails from: a parking lot in Tempe, Arizona, a state that is decidedly not Maine. In April, the band released their tenth studio album, Joy Next Door. Of course, that meant it was also time for the band to head back on tour. On September 18th, the ‘I Love You But I Chose The Maine’ tour made a stop at Amsterdam’s Paradiso.
At 19:30, as the hall of what used to be a church slowly filled up, support act Grayscale took to the stage. It was immediately evident that quite a lot of people in attendance did not show up for The Maine, but also for Grayscale, as they sang along to every word right from the start. The Pennsylvania band consists of lead singer and guitarist Collin Walsh, guitarists Andrew Kyne and Dallas Molster, and drummer Nick Veno. For this tour, they also brought Nick DeMaio with them as their bassist. The band opened their set with ‘Through the Landslide’ and ‘Kept Me Alive’, the crowd eagerly clapping along to the latter. For those not familiar with their music, the band also added a cover of The Top Notes’ ‘Twist and Shout’ to their setlist. A physical copy of said setlist would be given away by the band at the end of the show to one of the fans who had signed up for this giveaway through an online platform. Phones were taken out to join the competition as urged on by Walsh himself. He then continued the show with a slower song dedicated to his mom, ‘Mum II’. Throughout the 45-minute set, the band switched between upbeat pop-punk songs such as ‘In Violet’ and softer songs like ‘Fever Dream’, during which the audience waved their flashlights in the air. Grayscale ended their set with the banger ‘Not Afraid to Die’ after telling the crowd “Amsterdam, we fucking love you!”.
It was then time for The Maine act of the night (pun intended). A voice-over introduced “a band called The Maine” before Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ began to play as the five band members walked on stage. The Maine consists of lead singer John O’Callaghan, guitarists Jared Monaco and Kennedy Brock, bassist Garrett Nickelsen, and drummer Patrick Kirch. The five of them opened the set with ‘Half a Spark’ from their most recent release. O’Callaghan was wearing a jacket during this one, but immediately took it off afterward, as it was already heating up inside the venue. A few songs in, as the final notes of ‘Like We Did (Windows Down)’ sounded, someone’s bra had made it onto the stage. O’Callaghan acted as if he was disgusted by this as he held it between his fingers and promptly threw it to Brock, who by the way, is single! The unseriousness of this moment was counteracted by The Maine continuing with a slower song, ‘Taxi’. “I don’t need [your] energy,” O’Callaghan stated. “This is a slow one.” The singer himself played the acoustic guitar for this song, which had a lovely design of a white star on it. The biggest mood switch of the night was definitely the fact that ‘Taxi’ was followed by the iconic, club-like track ‘Touch’.
As The Maine has been around for quite a while, deciding on a setlist must have been hard. The band did their absolute best to play both older and newer tracks. O’Callaghan jokingly stated that the venue has a curfew, but they were planning to play like 500 songs anyways. After playing one of their older tracks, ‘Identify’, O’Callaghan talked about how excited he was to be here tonight. He told the audience that one of his friends was in attendance tonight with his son, for whom it was his first-ever concert. The son was about to turn ten tomorrow, so O’Callaghan dedicated the next song to him. He did immediately realise the dedication was kind of weird, because up next was ‘Right Girl’, but surely the kid would find the right girl someday. During this song, O’Callaghan also held up his microphone in front of a fan to let them sing some of the chorus. Afterwards, the audience took direction by singing for the birthday boy: in Dutch, of course. “It kind of scared me,” O’Callaghan said as soon as it was over, with hands being raised into the air during every ‘Hoera!’. At the same time, he also quite liked it and found this version way more fun than the English one. He liked it so much that when there were issues with the speakers after ‘Loved You a Little’, he asked the audience to teach him the song as the technicians were fixing it.
Thirteen songs in, The Maine had gotten to ‘We All Roll Along’, and near the end of that song, O’Callaghan made it into the pit looking for a specific fan he’d met in the queue earlier on. This fan had something important to do at the show tonight. ‘We All Roll Along’ turned out to be his girlfriend’s favourite song, and so he decided this was the perfect time to propose to her. An adorable moment, made even more fun by the girlfriend – now fiancée – getting to finish singing the song herself. As soon as O’Callaghan made it back onto the stage, the band continued with ‘Bad Behavior’. There would be no encore at this show tonight. Instead, O’Callaghan just stated there would be five more songs, unfortunately not actually 500. The first of those five was ‘3:31’, another track from their latest album. O’Callaghan tends to forget the lyrics to the song’s bridge, and so a fan in the front held up their phone with the lyrics on it to help him out. During ‘Blame’, the crowd clapped at exactly the right moments, as is an important part of the track, and during ‘Another Night on Mars’, O’Callaghan asked the audience to hold onto their friends as he sang “This one goes out to my closest friends, the ones who make me feel less alien”. The Maine ended their show with ‘Black Butterflies and Déjà Vu’, but not before giving a shout-out to a pregnant fan on the balcony who had come to about forty shows of them so far. O’Callaghan stated that it doesn’t matter if tonight was your first or 170th The Maine show; he appreciates every single person for showing up and choosing The Maine.
