Arctic Monkeys Italia - Forum • Leggi argomento - Arctic Monkeys Play Secret Show

!minnie!

Oggetto del messaggio:

Inviato: 29/05/2006, 13:46

fluorescent adolescent

Iscritto il: 24/04/2006, 10:21
Messaggi: 3996
Località: Lecco e anche al rolling stone :P

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scleraz

Oggetto del messaggio:

Inviato: 29/05/2006, 14:51

have you been drinking, son

Iscritto il: 07/05/2006, 11:02
Messaggi: 1141
Località: Milano/Pordenone

recensione del concerto

Arctic Monkeys, Hot Club de Paris
Date: 25/05/2006
Venue: London Old Blue Last
Price: Free; invite only

Da Wale
Arctic Monkeys play in front of 100 people at a tiny invite-only secret show. Who was the only website there? You knows it...
How do you create a scene within a scene? You bring the most feted band in the land to the nerve-centre of all that is trendsome and let them prove their mettle. You see, this was supposed to be a chance to put replacement bassist Nick O Malley through his paces in a smaller, safer environment than Arctic Monkeys have played in for some time. The marvellous reality however is that in the confines of this Shoreditch boozer, tonight wasn’t so much a test as a demonstration of wit over pretence; of class over fakery; and of balls.

You can say that this was a calculated move; some ploy to whip up a frenzy in another perfectly executed marketing move, but please leave your indier-than-thou credentials and jaded cynicism at the door when you enter the room, because barracking from afar wont wash. At least if you do it up close this is a band who are prepared to have it out with you - and on more than one occasion Alex Turner does just that. Tonight they are engaging but aloof, a result of the busy crowd being more inclined to shout than cheer early-on. “I can’t tell whether you love it or hate it,” Alex confesses at one point. There is a heartbeat though, and with each song the pulse rises. 'A View From The Afternoon', 'Still Take You Home' and 'Vampires' out of the way, 'Dancing Shoes' is flung into the set early enough to jolt the majority of the peacocks out of their stupor and fire up those who are already starting to make this old venue creak.

It’d be nice to imagine that people’s opinions can be corralled into pens like sheep simply by using a photogenic face, a foaming horde of critics and a relatively small record label, but the hype machine can only give an initial impetus, and after that a band has to succeed or fail on its own merit. Well when the threat of a first-story wooden floor collapsing underfoot during ‘Dancing Shoes’ seemed a real possibility - albeit one that was pushed to the back the mind like a final demand behind a radiator – I really wasn’t concerned about whether Arctic Monkeys deserved a lesser mark out of ten than that which some other hack gave them the prior week. I was too busy sweating.

That’s the nut, Arctic Monkeys thrive not on the news-stands, but in the confines of a visceral physical space where the guitar chops sting that little more and the rhythms are felt rather than heard. Much is made of the (admittedly) inspired lyricism which has a flow fed through hiphop and back via The Jam – but as drums pound into your head time and time again you know that this is a BAND, like so many vital ones before them that deal in the great equaliser – youth. That promise of time stretching out filled with a multitude of possibilities.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence at all that Arctic Monkeys have garnered the following they have by documenting the stagnation of such potential in the face of a suffocating modern world. Music at its purest doesn’t need an agenda. Too often it defines itself by that which it posits itself against - Britpop vs Grunge, punk vs the bloated musos - which can be briefly anarchic before the core is burned out and the hollow shell that remains is filled by the late and lesser like hermit crabs. The Arctic Monkeys are commentators who for better or worse have had the taste-makers and the self important attach themselves to this increasingly weighty ride like limpets to a hull. They’ve been thrust into the limelight (too?) early and have shown remarkable resilience to be – what appears – unaffected by the lofty goals others have set for them.

The fanfare surrounding their early releases has left them in a dangerous position now, where they can’t afford to make mistakes and tread a knife-edge in trying to fulfill almost superhuman expectations. No band is that much better the rest of the entire field, not in this game. So not by a long chalk do we have the ‘best band in the world’. What we do have though is a gang of bright young things with the bit between their teeth and a fire in their belly, and that’s something to get very excited about.

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Arctic Rocker

Oggetto del messaggio:

Inviato: 29/05/2006, 18:40

have you been drinking, son