It’s impossible to pinpoint with 100% accuracy the exact moment when you fall in love with someone or something. It’s usually something small, something that at the time feels insignificant, and yet it is only when you look back on it that you realise the importance it has had. Music has been something that for the longest time I have felt an intense affinity and connection to, and while it is hard to say when this started exactly, a lot of it can be traced back to that moment when I went into the Golden Discs in Kilkenny city back in 2006 and bought Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, the debut album from Sheffield band, Arctic Monkeys. It would take me a few listens to properly appreciate what I was listening to, but eventually the majesty of this record would open my eyes (and ears) to the full power of the artform.
Over the following years, they would cement themselves as my favourite band. The band who’s music would be listened to on the day of it’s releases without fail. The band who would be revisited every few weeks almost metronomically, and feel as though it were being rediscovered and the magic would come back as intense as the first listen. I would obsess about the exploits of drummer, Matt Helders, the effortless coolness of Jamie Cook, the unassuming brilliance of Nick O’Malley, and the enigmatic Alex Turner. They would soundtrack every step and turn as I navigated secondary school, university (twice), and the early steps of adult adult life.
However, despite this adoration of the band, I never took the step to see them live. Different circumstances would intervene at different times, both external and internal, to mean that they would stay on the list of ‘bands to see’ rather than ‘bands seen’ for quite sometime. Eventually, it gets to the stage where you wonder do you want to actually see them at all. Had they changed too much from the energetic and incendiary act of the early days that you fell in love with to feel as though you would get to see the truest representation of them?
It was last year when I eventually decided that it was worth seeing for myself with the band announcing an Irish summer outdoor show for June 2023. This gig would eventually be cancelled on medical grounds and it started to feel like I would never see them. Thankfully, these shows were eventually rescheduled for the weekend just gone and I acquired a ticket.
It was hard to head along last Sunday night without the opening lyrics of that previously named debut album ringing in my ears…
“Anticipation has the habit to set you up for disappointment”
I need not have worried. This was phenomenal!
This was Arctic Monkeys as I had always imagined them to be. Confident and powerful, and loving and flaunting everything that goes into being in one of the biggest bands in the world. Opening with one of the stand out songs off the new album, The Car, Sculptures Of Anything Goes, the band immediately built with a triumphant air of anticipation and tension that helped to bring the audience in… before the explosion that came after it of songs from early albums such as Brianstorm and Snap Out of It. Immediately you could tell, they were on it tonight!
This was one of those gig-going experiences where it really felt like those in attendance were in the middle of something a bit special. They were watching a band who after years and years of being together, knew each other inside out and were just enjoying being on stage as a group of friends who happen to make music. It was an enthusiasm that was infectious for all in the 3 Arena, as every lyric was screamed back at the stage. Every guitar rift was greeted with smiles and whoops (including the girl beside me at the show who emphatically pumped her fists in the air during the transition from Teddy Picker to Crying Lightning), as the level of instrumentation and musicianship that is often forgotten about the band was demonstrated to it’s maximum.
Shoutout as well needs to go to the support act on the night who helped to expertly set the tone. Miles Kane will have been familiar to fans of Arctic Monkeys for years as a regular contributor to the live shows of the band, and for forming the second part of Turner’s side project, The Last Shadow Puppets. There was an energy to this set that reminded all in attendance that Kane is an artist of substance in his own right, and one who can really connect with the crowd in front of him… as shown during a touching rendition of Colour of the Trap. The only disappointment was that he didn’t join Arctic Monkeys onstage for a run through of a TLSP song.
Rumours have started circulating that this run of Irish shows could possibly be the last shows that the band ever do as a group, with all it’s members now involved in different projects. If it comes to pass that this was their last hurrah, I can’t help but feel grateful that I finally got to see them at such a high. Thanks, boys… for showing me the magic of music!
MK
Covert Ceol 