ON A freezing cold night in Dublin, young and old (but mostly young) queued long before the doors opened to gain pole position at the hottest gig in years: the appearance of the Arctic Monkeys on the NME Awards tour. I can’t remember any band having reached star status before starting this showcase tour for new acts. But that is what the post-punk urchins from Sheffield have accomplished.
The Arctic Monkeys, led by Alex Turner, have seen their first two singles go straight to No 1, and this week their album Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not is about to become the fastest-selling debut album since Oasis’s Definitely Maybe in 1994.
“We’re a phenomenon now,” deadpanned Turner from the stage on the first night of a tour on which they join forces with Maximo Park, We Are Scientists and the Mystery Jets.
The Arctic Monkeys are the real deal. They come bearing great songs full of streetwise observational nuggets that are propelled by uncompromising yet tuneful guitars. Strangely, they opened their 40-minute set with their two hit singles, when conventional wisdom would suggest closing with them. The scabrous When The Sun Goes Down has to be one of very few songs about pimps, prostitution and Aids to top the charts. Yet the crowd roared every word back at Turner, as though it were their collective Desert Island Disc.
Other highlights included the sneering swamp-rock of Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong But . . . and Fake Tales Of San Francisco, which was alive with funk and ska influences, and revelled in an impressively tight rhythm section.
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It’s clear that Turner has true star quality — he looks like he was born to be on stage — whereas the other acts on this NME tour, to varying degrees, seemed as if they were just trying out this rock’n’roll malarkey for the laugh. That said, Maximo Park were technically the headline act, and they made a good fist of having to follow the Arctic Monkeys.
The New York trio We Are Scientists certainly looked the part, but their aimless, grungey rock brought to mind Placebo — and not in a good way. Mystery Jets made no impression with their disjointed, amorphous and grating sound.
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