Wolf Alice live at TRNSMT Festival 2022 (Gary Mather for Live4ever)
Arctic Monkeys and Wolf Alice bring the rock on Day 2 at Reading Festival 2022.
The genre-defining lines in music are blurring all the time, and nowhere is this more evident than on the Reading & Leeds Festival line-ups.
The likes of rappers Dave and Megan Thee Stallion (both of whom made headlines on Day 1, the general consensus being that they were both defining in their own ways) can sit comfortably alongside the likes of The 1975 and Bastille.
All mainstream pop acts in their own way, but a far cry from the days of Reading Rock.
All that said, there are plenty of guitars still to be found, and Day 2 on Main Stage East (or simply, the Main Stage in old money) has a distinctly ‘indie’ tilt, with the final four reading like a backwards trip through the last ten years of the genre.
After a relatively quiet 2022 (in comparison to their Number 1 album and various degrees of hype last year), the evolution of The Lathums may have slowed in pace but they’ve quietly been going about their business of winning over hearts and minds across the festival season.
Their mid-afternoon, sun-drenched set finds them re-asserting their presence as a band of genuine quality, with both Alex Moore’s vocals (your correspondent heard ‘what a voice’ on more than one occasion) and Scott Concepcion’s lead axe skills vying for attention.
Moore has all the tricks required for a frontman, holding the audience in the palm of his hand through well-versed tricks of the trade such as singing snippets of Disco 2000 during his solo performance of All My Life, or generally thanking the crowd accordingly, but it’s probably Concepcion who should really be getting the attention, as his youthful looks defy some dexterous and tastefully extravagant guitar virtuosity on the closing Artificial Screens.
Following the Wiganers are Fontaines D.C., still engaged in their ongoing mission to play every Western hemisphere festival in 2022.
Yet there’s no signs of exhaustion as they rattle through select cuts from all three albums, in fact the opposite: Jackie Down The Line sounds rawer and beefier, Televised Mind’s guitar lines shock the field like the electricity and the swirling garage-psyche of Nabokov loses none of its anxiety.
Though Chatten and co. appear sullen, they burst any perceptions of pomposity when allowing a fan to take to the stage towards the end of the set.
You’ll be familiar with young Dexter by now, as indie-rock finally has its ‘Alex Tiago Silva’ moment, the teen joining his heroes onstage and perfectly playing guitar on Boys In The Better Land. Being cool is easy but you can’t substitute that for a grin the size of the young man’s as he lived his dream.
For quite a few years, Wolf Alice have been labelled ‘future headliners’ but have yet to make the leap. The Londoners certainly have the chops for the job: Ellie Rowsell’s soaring vocals deserve to silence any crowd, and she flexes her muscles on the dreamy Delicious Things and the gnarly How Can I Make It OK?.
Meanwhile, Giant Peach and a gargantuan Moaning Lisa Smile rock in the grandest traditions of the festival, and there’s no shortage of effort (Rowsell dousing herself and her colleagues in water to cool down) or stagecraft (cameras on the microphone stands providing a unique backdrop).
Unwittingly, Rowsell answers the question before the gentle Safe From Heartbreak (If You Never Fall In Love), inviting the crowd for a singalong that doesn’t follow.
Unfortunately, despite the accolades and fandom Wolf Alice, simply don’t quite have the hits just yet. Perhaps their next album will right that wrong, as they’ve undoubtedly paid their dues.
But there’s only one show in town today and justly so as it’s a Very Big Deal, with Britain’s biggest and best band performing on home soil for nearly four years.
The announcement of the seventh Arctic Monkeys album (The Car) earlier in the week has only increased the anticipation, yet aside from one new track, the blaxploitation-esque I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am, which points to their evergreen intriguing future, and the sepia-tinted screens sustaining the retro aesthetic of Tranquility Base Hotel + Casino, tonight’s set is a summary of the story so far.
A career-spanning set in its truest sense, the High Green quartet (and friends) rattle through all their key touchstones to date without drowning in nostalgia, and offering something for everyone.
The set staples such as Do I Wanna Know?, Brianstorm, I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and R U Mine? sound as vital as ever, but it’s the deeper cuts that satisfy the more discerning fan, and presumably the band itself.
That’s Where You’re Wrong is perhaps their best hidden gem, its shimmering chords encouraging an emotional drift into the night sky before the senses are wrestled back down to earth by a bruising Potion Approaching from the lesser-loved-but-most-important-album Humbug.
Even when the band do indulge themselves (if the title-track from the last album, and a single no less, can be called indulgent), they are savvy enough not to test the audience’s patience and follow it with their most recent Top 10 single, Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?.
Barring a couple of tweaks and extensions (Arabella gets its now-mandatory War Pigs snippet, while Knee Socks now contains a rockier and superior outro) it’s musically a straight bat, but how can perfection be improved?
While Alex Turner has evolved as frontman, he’s been afforded the luxury of doing so by the rocks that are Matt Helders (still comfortably the best drummer of his generation, and most others), Jamie Cook (intricacy and energy on lead guitar in equal measures, all with his back largely to the audience) and Nick O’Malley (steadfast and reliable).
Arctic Monkeys’ unique alchemy remains perfectly in proportion, as proved by a masterclass of a headline set. We’ll go in the front seat of The Car, if you don’t mind.