Arctic Monkeys
9 out of 10 - Simply Amazing. Can't wait to see 'em again.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
The Great American Music Hall
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The British have a tendency to over-hype their every musical export. As a rule, I find even Dick Cheney a more trustworthy source than NME--so when I heard that the Arctic Monkeys' 'Whatever They Say I am, That's What I'm Not' was being billed as the next big thing--I took the album title at face value.
See, if you throw a bunch of money at a quartet of Sheffield kids and tell them they are the best thing since the Beatles--you are going to get a bunch of snotty brats of the flash-in-the-pan variety. These weren't unreasonable things to be clouding my mind as I walked past a dozen scalpers into the Great American Music Hall that night.
The Spinto Band was sent onstage to fluff the crowd. Shaggy, bouncy and playing their instruments like wind-up toys--they were an overdose of sugary breakfast cereal. The most feel-good band I'd ever seen, they had the Saturday morning cartoon sound down to pure, saccharine science. They even gave out bright yellow kazoos at the end of the night, which further endeared them to me because I didn't have to listen to amateur kazooists all through the headliner.
Thirty minutes later the venue went pitch black and Warren G's 'Regulate' threatened to blow out the sound system. On came the Arctic Monkeys in the darkness--but that didn't stop the crowd from going wild. By the time they had delivered the first song over roaring applause, they could squeeze in a little banter. "That's us," Frontman Alex Turner teased the crowd and band alike, "international superstars." The monkey-mania entered full swing as they pounded out another song.
When the bass amp stopped working during the third song, 'Perhaps Vampires Is A Bit Strong, But…'--I was sure the hissy fit would follow. Pen and paper firmly in hand, I waited for 'Whose cock do I have to suck to get a bloody amp that works?" Or something more in the vein of what Ian Brown had perfected in this very venue--bashing a security guard's head in and heaving microphones into the crowd. What I got was a different story altogether. The rest of the band faded out and took swigs of bottled water. (throwing it back like the hard stuff, it seemed an ironic observance of America's drinking laws). Turner stepped up to the mic to deliver a new song, 'Despair in the Departure Lounge' solo. The hissing red lights faded into a single white spot. By the last note of the unrehearsed song, the bass amp was replaced and the entire band blasted back into the rabid chorus they left off at. Turner's shriek of ' All you people are vampires!" was matched with an explosion of red light and they finished the song without mention of 'technical difficulties.' Did I mention that I really wanted to hate this band?
'
Fake Tales of San Francisco' was predictably a crowd favorite and seemed to be narrating that very concert as they played. In true rock form, every time Turner rolled his tongue around 'San Francisco' the audience went crazy. In fact, the crowd went crazy pretty much every time he opened his mouth.
With lyrical naughtiness similar to fellow Brit, Jarvis Cocker--these Monkeys have turned the tired disco-rock scene into poetry. Smutty, sweaty, dirty poetry--but if you can decipher Turner's thick accent over the simplistic garage-rock, you'll find there is more to the Arctic Monkeys than all of the hype..
There is simply no weak aspect of this band. The players, though young, are strong in their craft. The lyrics are dead-on accounts of working class, party youth. The ego is absent. The San Francisco kick-off to their sold-out American tour was a mere 55 minutes of rock promise. Did I mention that I really wanted to hate this band?
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