Last night, I may have seen the greatest concert of my entire life. I’ve seen the likes of Radiohead, (who are right next to this show, by mere inches!) Coldplay, Arcade Fire, but seeing the Arctic Monkeys at Terminal 5 last night, just may be my “the best”!
There was so much energy in their performance, the crowd has absolutely nuts. The band fed off it putting on their best performance out of the 5 times I have seen them. Alex was as talkative as ever, interacting with us quite well. I was literally in front of him near the front, so being 6’5, I was able to make eye contact with him a lot. Shared a bit of an intimate moment!!
The bands set was pretty familiar but I still had a great time. They opened with “The Jeweller’s Hands” which was an interesting way to start the show. It started off a bit awkward but finished off quite lovely. From there the band absolutely killed it with all of their best jams such as “Brianstorm”, “Still Take You Home”, “I Bet You Look Good”, and “The View From The Afternoon”. The crowd was pretty nuts with plenty of pushing and shoving that Alex took note of when he said “This House Is A Circus” was both the song title and a description of the crowd! The songs were played to perfection by the boys, with new solos and instrumentals added to some songs, showing that they have only gotten better!
There is nothing like trying to fight to keep your position while anxious fans dance, push, and shove. In between all this your chanting along with “Brianstorm”, shouting the classic lyrics of “Dancefloor” and just rocking out to “Red Right Hand”. They played most of Humbug songs, plus “Sketchead”, which was a pleasant surprise! During “Fluorescent Adolescent” Matt did another rendition of “All I Want For Christmas” in between the songs new-found breakdown (video here). That absolutely made my night!!!
The band came out for a 2 song encore which was special to me because they never did an encore for the previous 4 times that I saw them. They ended things with “Secret Door” and “505”. I never got to see “505” live so this was really special for me. It is one of my favorite Arctic Monkeys song, and one that I have a lot of memories with.
After the show, Matt left his drumsticks and I was firmly it position to try and get one. Sure enough, their sound guy noticed me waving at him and I was able to snag one of Matt’s drumsticks. This is something that I will hold onto for a long, long, time. Some guy offered me 200 bucks for it. No way I am ever selling something like that! The best part was, me and my girlfriend waited after the show and met Nick O’Malley. He was top class. He was on his way leaving and turned around to come back to sign a few autographs for us. He could have easily just left pretending to not hear us, but he made sure he signed a few things. I got my drumstick signed by him, so I am 1/4 of the way there! Thanks for that Nick, I really appreciate it!!!!
I cannot really describe how great this show was. The band was just on it tonight, really putting on one of their best performances. I obviously have not seen all of their shows, but this one had to be up there for them! The crowd was totally into it, going into an absolute frenzy the entire time. Openers Screaming Females were very talented as well. Their female guitarist showed some amazing guitar chops. Look out for them!
Here are the photos I took. I borrowed my moms good camera, and during “Potion Approaching” the Arctic Monkeys tour manager, Timm Cleasby, came up to me and threatened to kick my out if I took another photo. This was pretty disappointing, I was just trying to take some good memorable photos of the show. He could have just asked me to stop taking photos. The threat wasn’t necessary. People were recordings songs and taking flash photos all night. I guess that’s what I get for being so god damn tall! So if you do happen to read this Timm, I apologize for that. I didn’t mean to piss you off mate!
I want to go see the band again as soon as humanly possible, they were just so good last night! They probably won’t be back in America for a while, but until then I will wait!
Check out the photos below!
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