#13: Monkey Business

I went to see the Arctic Monkeys at the London Astoria on Thursday night, and I can honestly say that it was the best gig I’ve ever been to in my life. I’ve seen Oasis, Incubus, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink 182 (I was a lot younger, and I’m not proud), Scissor Sisters, Faithless, The Music and quite a few others, but none of them came close. Incubus were my previous favourite live band, but the Monkeys beat them into a cocked hat.

The atmosphere in the place was just fantastic. The Astoria is quite small and only holds 2000 people so it was much more personal than most gigs I’ve been to before. I arrived fashionably late and so only saw the second support band, “The Little Flames” - they weren’t bad at all, although I didn’t know any of their stuff. The Monkeys came on at 9 and started with “Brianstorm“, their new single. After that, they played “Still Take You Home”, which is probably my favourite tune off their debut album, and the whole place just went off. Everyone was jumping around and singing their heads off - I’ve had some rushes of adrenaline in my time, but only coming up on ecstasy compares to the surge I got when they started playing that tune.

They were on for about an hour and ten minutes in total, played all the popular tunes off the debut album and about four off the new album. It was just an astounding gig and I’m so glad I went. I’ll definitely be buying the new album when it comes out on the 24th - “Teddy Picker” is currently my favourite tune off it. They played it at the gig and it just stuck in my head.

I’ll write a bit more soon, but I have work to do. I’m in the London office this morning (work on a Saturday, my god!) to provide onsite technical support (for “technical support” read “sitting on IRC on my laptop”) while new carpet tiles are fitted. And when they’re done, I’m going to go and meet Andy for a pint or three somewhere in London :)