Forget weight watchers, diet pills or Atkins. The way to lose weight this Christmas is easy - get yourself to a Maximo Park gig, writes Erica Bingley.

From start to finish, the Geordie band's Oxford gig was fully charged and bouncing.

Frontman Paul Smith's excess energy was expended by numerous signature high jumps (as seen on the sticker of Newcastle Brown Ale's latest incarnation: Maximo Brown Ale). And the crowd's feet hardly touched the floor either.

Despite that, the gig was very grounded, and the crowd listened intently to Smith revealing details about his day in Oxford before the gig - telling the crowd he had had an ice cream and been to the Port Mahon.

The gig had been touted as a warm up show for their arena tour. Smith smashed this rumour, telling the expectant crowd: "We don't do warm up gigs. This is for you Oxford!"

Which prompted the sell-out crowd to get even more excited and accepting of the band's Northern charm.

The set was punctuated with love songs, up-beat classics from their debut album and set-fillers from the slightly more generic second album, Our Earthly Pleasures.

The band could have played anything to be honest, and the crowd would have lapped it up. There was an encore and once again Smith and his bright red patent shoes claimed the stage - and the night.