Arctic Monkeys + Eagles Of Death Metal – Newcastle Metro Radio Arena (16/11/09)
The Arctic Monkeys are touring their third album ‘Humbug’, last night they played Newcastle Metro Radio Arena. I saw them back at the time when they toured their highly successful debut album, and saw them again at Leeds Festival 2009, where they headlined the main stage, and despite being very good, I couldn’t help but feel somewhat disappointed by the set list.
So when it came to the Humbug tour, I maybe thought it would be impressive, but they had lost some of there early sparkle and charisma. That said I really enjoyed it last night. Eagles Of Death Metal were a superb support band to help warm up the crowd, as they are good entertaining live band.
Before the Arctic Monkeys were due on, the curtains were shut covering the entire stage. The lights went off and everyone was waiting and ready. The curtains lowered and they opened up with a song off the new album called ‘The Jewellers Hands’. Which is a brilliant song, but I would have much rather seen the set opened with a more ‘ummmmphh’ track like ‘Brianstorm‘ personally, usually always better to start with a fast one than a slow one as sometimes it detracts some of the initially energy away from the crowd.
They played a large proportion of songs off Humbug, and a mixture of songs off the first two albums (see set list below) including a portion of ‘Mardy Bum‘ and its chorus halfway through ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, which was a surprise to many as they claimed in an interview with Zane Lowe that they were never going to play it live again.
The gig was possibly unusually short, with it lasting around 1 hour 20 minutes, after seeing Kasabian only a couple of days prior they played for nearly two hours, so you would expect with both bands being on their 3rd albums now that they might play for a similar length of time.
Some big names were missing from the songs played. But I guess its the Humbug album tour so that dominates the set list at the expense of some absolute classics like ‘A Certain Romance’ ‘Dancing Shoes’, ‘Teddy Picker’ and ‘Fake Tales From San Francisco’.
What riles me about Arctic gigs is sometimes the members in the crowd. Someone threw a shoe at Alex Turner which skimmed off the top off his head, seemed loads of people were throwing all sorts of stuff at him throughout the gig, and whilst he comes across as a bit of a moody so and so these days, people didn’t want the gig to be stopped Morrissey Style did they? (which had happened a few days before where during the second song someone threw an empty plastic cup at him, only for him to end the gig prematurely)
Arctic Monkeys are a top band, but I cant help but feel that something is missing compared to the energy of early live performances.
Setlist:
The Jeweller’s Hands,
Brianstorm,
This House Is A Circus,
Still Take You Home,
I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor,
Sketchead,
My Propeller,
Crying Lightning,
Dangerous Animals,
The View From The Afternoon,
Cornerstone,
If You Were There, Beware,
Pretty Visitors,
Dance Little Liar,
Do Me A Favour,
When The Sun Goes Down,
Secret Door,
——————–
Fluorescent Adolescent / Mardy Bum Interlude
505
(Sent in by reader Thomas Holynski)
