02/11/2014

Earlier this school year I was lucky enough to see the Arctic Monkeys live at the Paradise Rock Club. On February 6^th, they returned to Boston once more and played at Agganis Arena. When they played at the Paradise back in September there were a few hundred people packed into that small club, Agganis can hold over 6,000. I was curious to see how the Arctic Monkeys’ presence, theatrics, musicianship, and set list would change from a small club to an arena.

The Arctic Monkeys have basically been huge in their home country of England and the surrounding UK since they started in 2006 but it’s been harder for them to breakthrough into the states. The Monkeys have headlined massive festivals in the UK such as Glastonbury but have been regulated to smaller venues here in the states, but that all has changed with the release of their newest album, AM. AM debuted at number six on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the highest charting album in the U.S. for the Monkeys. Two days after their concert in Boston, the Arctic Monkeys played to a massive crowd at Madison Square Garden.

Just like at the Paradise in September, the Monkeys opened up with “Do I Wanna Know?” off of AM. With its sluggish, rolling guitar rhythm and dark, foreboding lyrics it’s a great opener and although the song is from their newest album the crowd at Agganis immediately recognized it. The band then continued to play songs from their five-album-deep catalog. What I’ve always liked about the Arctic Monkeys’ set lists is that even though they’re over playing the same type of music from their debut album that first made them famous, they’re not against playing the older songs. They seem to know that the audiences love hearing the throwbacks.

Because the band has had the same four members since their debut album in 2006 they’re always in synch together and the musicianship is tight. Alex Turner handles all the lead vocals but he also plays most of the lead guitar parts and does the majority of the solos. One of the key differences I noticed between the Paradise show and the show at Agganis was that Turner was much more flamboyant and his show presence was much prominent. There were a couple of songs that he didn’t play the guitar and walked around the stage strutting and thrusting his hips for the girls (who all loved every minute of it). The addition of the lasers and stand up bulbs that spelled out AM added to the spectacle.

Arctic Monkeys played for around an hour and a half and in their last song before the encore they brought out Miles Kane to play guitar on their song “505.” Alex Turner and Kane collaborated on The Last Shadow Puppets for one album that came out in 2008. “505” was a great song to end on and has an emphatic ending. The Monkeys took a short break and came out and played three more songs as their encore. To completely end the show they finished with “R U Mine?” which was my favorite song from AM and my favorite song of the concert.

Once again the Arctic Monkeys put on a great show. I loved that their live performance can transition seamlessly from clubs to arenas and beyond. Hopefully they’ll continue to churn out solid albums and tours for the next billion years. The Arctic Monkeys will continue to perform throughout America in February and then hit Australia and New Zealand in May.