Arctic Monkeys

By Ben Brondsky (of The Fleshy Fresh)

I saw the Arctic Monkeys at the Paradise on September 17 and it was the most crowded I’ve ever seen that place. The show had a forced will call (everyone had to bring ID to get their tickets) and doors were at 7 pm, but the music didn’t start until 9 pm. However, it was unsurprising that people waited hours just to be as close to the stage as possible. The Paradise is a great little club though; tickets are relatively cheap, it’s intimate, and the sound is really good.

Hailing all the way from Sheffield, England, the Arctic Monkeys exploded onto the British music scene is 2006 with their debut album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not. Since their debut album they’ve released four other albums and changed their sound on each consecutive one.

On the night of the concert, their newest album, AM, had been out for a week and debuted at number 6 in the United States. AM holds critical acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone, NME, The Guardian, and Mojo.
Consisting of the same four core members since 2006, and three of them being together since 2002, Arctic Monkeys shows are very tight and energetic. They seemed to know what each other were going to do and were able to feed off of each other’s energy. They came on relatively on time and started right away into their new slow burner, guitar-driven song, “Do I Wanna Know?”

I loved that the Arctic Monkeys played a mix of songs from all five of their albums. Stretching all the way back to Whatever’s “I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor” to Suck It and See’s “Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I’ve Moved Your Chair.” The lead singer, Alex Turner, had the crowd in the palm of his hand. One young woman in the very front knew every word to every song and would scream every time he even came semi-close to her. The crowd as a whole was dancing the whole time and really got into the groove the band was laying down. My two favorite songs from the Arctic Monkeys’ set were “Arabella” and “R U Mine?” which are both from AM. Both songs offer some great head-banging and air-guitarring moments.

My only critiques of the show were the extremely long/weird waiting period and set length. I arrived at 8:30 pm expecting to see the end of the opener but The Drowners wrapped up sooner than I expected. Everyone was just waiting around until about 9:15 pm when the Arctic Monkeys came on. Altogether they played right around an hour and a half, which is decent, but with only one opener, I was expecting more towards two hours.

Overall, the Arctic Monkeys put on a very worthwhile and entertaining show. Their US tour runs through the beginning of October and I strongly suggest seeing them.