It’s taken me some time to get into the Arctic Monkeys I’ll admit. When they first arrived on the scene around 2005 with their debut album, 'Whatever people say about me, that’s what I’m not' (or words to that effect) which was the fastest selling album in UK chart history , I couldn’t totally understand what the fuss was all about. But was certainly very aware of Alex Turner’s genius ability to write fantastic lyrics and compose a pretty good song or two!
It actually took me until their latest offering ‘Suck it & See’ to wet my appetite enough to pop along and see these northern lovelies. There was a real buzz about the venue (Horden Pavilion) while we drank over priced beer (that tasted like watered down horse wee), watched & occasionally laughed at plenty of under aged kiddies get ID’d at the various bars dotted around the place. There really was a good age range that attended here, leading me to believe what a broad appeal the guys have.
Mr Miles Kane supported (‘The Last of The Great Shadow Puppets’ side project with A.M lead singer Alex Turner), who did a grand job of warming the audience up. He was quite a lanky bastard and had real charisma waving his hands around a lot, as well as using his guitar as some sort of heavy based weapon or extension of his knob which worked pretty well.
The Monkeys didn’t come on until 9.30pm which is usually fast approaching my bed time these days (sad wanker, I hear you cry!), but perhaps even more pathetic than that was the bar closing at 10.30pm (Nanny State now I hear you cry!). The Monkey’s entrance though was fucking magnificent though as they ploughed into their single from the latest album ‘Don’t sit down cause I’ve moved your chair’. Turner’s presence on stage and timely banter with the audience was fantastic and had me chuggling into my beer every now and again. He also referred to Sydney siders as Sidders “come on Sidders, put yu ‘ands together!” he’d bark in a rather strong northern tone, proving that this once timid media shy little chap had come and out of his shell.
The audience continued to salivate though as they tore through hits such as, ‘I bet you look good on the dance floor’, ‘When the sun goes down’, ‘Teddy Picker’, ‘Brainstorm’, ‘Crying Lighting’, the list rocked on. And interestingly so did the smell, as sweaty body after sweaty body leapt out from the mosh pit rubbing up against me and my lady friend, causing me to snarl a couple of times. I'm all for a bit of mosh sweat, but after body number 10 I started getting a bit disgruntled and showing my age. I’m all for open air rock concerts in the future, as the stink towards the end of the show was getting a bit too much for my poor little nostrils!
But here is a band that demand to be seen live, the energy I found quite infectious and Mr Turner is a stellar front man. So nice one fellas the years have been good to ya! Just play an open air arena or something like that next time yeh? Or my nose is going to drop off.
8 Northern ‘musical’ thumbs out of 10.
