Since I moved into my new room at university, my roommate has been gearing up to go to a gig by what sounded to me like a new bunch of superheroes. The Arctic Monkeys, as it turns out, are a new band from Sheffield who, despite having only released two singles, have sold out thousands of tickets across the country and who knows how many across the world: ticket touts were selling tickets for no less than £100 outside the venue in London. Cautious as I am of new bands who seem to
have more style than substance and can only produce one good album — which even then is flawed — I figured I should give them a chance.

Well, the gig was in a small club about ten minutes' walk away from us and inside was a huge disco ball, I mean huge. Sadly, I can't think of anything to use as a reference, but take my word for it because it's not even that important anyway. As the gig started and Milburn, the support, came on, I'd already been chatting with two guys behind me who were from Sheffield and fans of both bands. This clearly showed when Milburn came out and they were busy bouncing to the first song that was played. I, too, was enjoying the atmosphere, but since I was there for the music I was a little bit annoyed at the pushing and shoving that was going on next to me. Though it was not quite a mosh pit, there certainly was a large circle of people just jumping into each other. As if this didn't annoy me enough, especially when I was battered in the head a good few times, when the Monkeys finally came on about 35 minutes later¹ I had the completely different experience of not being able to move. Perhaps this was due to being in the second row of standing people, but I was so crushed that merely to move my arm from my side to up in the air took a long and hard struggle. Eventually swaying ensued, but we were literally packed in like cattle. I could not move a bit and spent most of my time being forced into the hair of the girl in front of me: thus, the swaying was actually the entire audience seemingly loosing balance and falling — only twice did I think I
would actually fall over, but the other countless experiences were no more pleasant.

Combined with the way in which I had three or four people standing right next to me shouting out the names of songs at any given moment — mid-song, between songs and, more annoyingly, when the lead singer was talking — I came to question the very point of this kind of gig. I was here to see a band I didn't know, but could potentially like, play music; listen and perhaps like it; bounce up and down and rock my head a little bit. I didn't come to get elbowed in the head in the middle of people pushing each other around, to get five boots to the back of the neck from crowdsurfers, to have the guy in front of me turn round and shout the songs in my ear till I could feel my eardrum moving or to have all that the lead singer was saying blanked out by people shouting the names of songs which they are clearly not going to play as their repertoire so far isn't exactly that huge.

I started to get this image of the band pulling knives out of their pockets and throwing them into the crowd, the crowd being stabbed and cut open by them and a large proportion of people jumping to grab the knives, cutting themselves in the process; yet to this kind of crowd the members thereof would be celebrating in the bathing of their own blood because they thought it meant they had some relationship with the band that clearly didn't exist. Essentially all that was happening between this band and the audience was sado-masochistic. The crowd would do anythng they could and debase themselves as much as possible if it meant being one iota closer to the musicians or being pointed out in the audience. Now of course most people would love to be famous, but I paid my money to watch a band sing their songs, not the guy in front of me block my view of the band by singing it to me; I came to hear the lead singer talk and, perchance, be witty and make me laugh, not to see him talk but have the man next to me shout 'Mardy Bum'² throughout the entire gig between
songs so I couldn't hear a word and I certainly didn't come to see people break out in a fight and try and include me in it. I came to see the band strut around on stage and entertain us. So stop trying to vainly grab my attention you selfish, narcissistic, idiotic and mobbish thugs! I came to a concert to (surprise, surprise) hear music. The whole
experience made me understand Roger Waters' motives behind making 'The Wall' even clearer: bringing in seats and making it difficult for the audience to see the band would certainly be something I'd consider if it'd put an end to this blatant attention seeking.

Other than that, the bands both seemed to be rather good — the Monkeys certainly more so than Milburn. From what I could hear of the lyrics, the Monkeys' were very witty and, if not clever and cryptic, then damned funny. The guitarist and drummer worked particularly well while the lead singer shuffled about in an almost-exact imitation of Joe Strummer and the bass was, well, good enough. Their single comes out this week, I think, in order to keep publicity up for them while they go to Amsterdam and then the rest of the world before coming back to Blighty for their February debut album. Not a bad lineup for a band that have never been played on the radio.

Tony2Times

27.10.05 Front Page

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