Arctic Monkeys-Motorpoint Arena Cardiff

The Arctic Monkeys, since their groundbreaking debut in 2006, have been one of the most successful and interesting bands of the past five years. Their new album, ‘Suck It and See’ was released earlier this year, revealing a more chilled out Smiths-esque sound that showed that the band wanted to continue their change of sound after 2009’s ‘Humbug’ instead of offering more of the same. The gig offered a lot of variety and the set-list was evenly spread out over the four albums.

The band walked on at about nine o’clock and Alex Turner wasted no time in belting out the first song of the night, ‘Don’t Sit Down ‘Cause I Moved Your Chair’. The crowd immediately cheered and started singing along and I was very taken aback by the power of Alex Turner’s voice. I really think he is quite an underrated singer and he made it seem so effortless. Of course this is a different Alex Turner to what most people are most to. He seems to be a bit more comfortable with being a front man, complete with leather jacket and ‘50s style John Lennon haircut. He moved around the stage a lot and at one point even fell to his knees during a guitar solo, bringing out his inner Hendrix which is a far cry from the awkward teenager from the ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’ video.

The band delivered the new material perfectly and even played ‘Black Treacle’ which is one of my personal favourites from the new album and I was very pleased that I got to hear it. In fact the band were pretty tight throughout the set. Barely pausing for breath and whipping through the songs at break-neck speed. Drummer, Matt Helders almost steals the show from Turner and is one of the best musicians I have ever seen live. He brings a lot to the performance and you can barely take your eyes off him. He is also the star of my personal highlight of the night, ‘Brainstorm”, where the drumming is absolutely relentless and the light show is going ballistic. It was very thrilling to watch and was juxtaposed very well with two new, (slower) songs before it.

 The crowd were very appreciative of course and the front of the stage looked absolutely mental. I was a little further back but in clear view of the band. There was also quite an interesting mix of people. There were teenagers, families and the ‘Oasis’ crowd who like to chuck beer over everyone when the band first started, much to a lot of people’s annoyance. Alex Turner didn’t really have to do a lot to get the crowd going, we were with him from the opening chords. Perhaps he knew this himself as he didn’t say a lot during the gig apart from ‘Thank You’ despite one over-zealous fan member pleading him to ‘say something else!!” 

The encore was short but very sweet. They started off with their latest single, ‘Suck it and See’ which just gets better and better the more times I hear it. However it got better with a stripped down version of the classic, ‘Mardy Bum’. Again the other big highlight of the night, which started a mass singalong. Alex Turner really didn’t need to sing a word. They then finished with their standard set closer, ‘505’ which started off as haunting and eerie, then exploded into an exciting light show and an intense performance from the band to inspire one last dance from the crows.

There aren’t many bands that can pull off just standing there and purely singing and playing their instruments. A lot of bands put on a bit more of a show. But the Arctic Monkeys rely on the music to deliver the goods and with that they certainly succeeded and I would very much like to see them again.

Reading 2011: Pulp and The Strokes

Last Saturday I went to Reading for the sole reason to see two of my favourite bands, Pulp and The Strokes, one after the other. When I bought the ticket 6 months or so ago I knew that I was not going to be disappointed but the night certainly held a few surprises that I was not expecting.
First up was Pulp, who had recently reformed for a series of gigs this year which I was very excited about. Different Class is one of the best albums I have ever heard and I believe Common People is the one of the best songs of all time, so I knew I was in for an incredible gig. Pulp certainly put on quite a show, they started off behind a massive screen which flashed up messages to get the crowd excited and as soon as Do You Remember the First Time? started the excitement started to build up more and more. The bass was very very loud and this gig was one of the loudest I have been to, which makes a nice change because Reading is often ridiculously quiet a lot of the time. Once the screen fell down and Jarvis Cocker burst through to the centre stage, the crowd went crazy and from thereon in the gig was a roller coaster ride that got better and better. Dedicating Joyriders to the rioters and following on with the brilliant Mis-Shapes it was a cracking start to a gig.
Seeing Jarvis Cocker as the frontman of one of the best bands of the nineties was a very special experience. He is a true showman and is an expert in engaging and working the crowd. He is also pretty good at talking to the audience which a lot of frontman are not actually very good at. You hang on to everything he has to say and while he is a pretty odd guy, he is very very likeable. It is surprising how much work he does throughout the show being as the other band member simply stand there, playing the instruments albeit very well obviously, but Jarvis runs around the stage , jumps on the monitors, shakes his hips and does some other quite odd but hilarious dance moves. He has quite a stage presence and you really can't keep your eyes off him.
The audience were also very receptive to Pulp. Obviously during the hits people went mad for, especially Disco 2000 where the audience went into a frenzy and you had no choice to jump and dance around, otherwise you would have gotten knocked to the ground and that would have been the end of you. But there were other songs where I was surprised at how popular they were, for example Underwear. One of the best songs they had written but not that well known, but I was quite shocked to hear five 16 year old girls screaming the chorus as if they were singing along to Paramore or something. But it shows how strong the songs are that people who were only just about born when Pulp headlined Glastonbury in 1995 are singing passionately along to the songs.
Last but not least they of course finished with Common People which will stay with me for a long long time. It is an amazing song and for the full six minutes the audience was jumping up and down and singing along. I really did not want it to end but it is definitely a gig I will never forget and they were one of the best band I have ever seen. But things were about to get better with The Strokes coming up next, or so I thought.
I probably love The Strokes more than Pulp, I have listened to all of their albums multiple times and I feel that they have set the benchmark for all indie rock to have come out in the past ten years. However I felt something about their set was lacking. They started off really well, Is this it started off a mass singalong, and New York City Cops and Under Cover of Darkness got the crowd very excited and with following through with Modern Age, Machu Picchu and an amazing Reptilia and this was on for another great gig. But suddenly there was a bit of a lull. They started playing a lot of new songs mixed in with a slow songs, which I didn't mind too much because I knew them all but none of the crowd around me seemed to know any of it.
This also detracted slightly from the enjoyment of the gig. Literally the whole of Reading seemed to be at the gig and unfortunately a lot of wankers were there, who would push you out of the way to get to the front, only  to leave when they realised they did not know the song. Very frustrating.
In regards to the band, they weren't the greatest at engaging with the crowd, Julian Casablancas seemed very awkward up on stage which is quite odd for a front man and he didn't seem to be interested all of the time. Also the sound had been turned down, so it was sometimes difficult  to hear his voice from time to time, which of course is very annoying at a gig.
However there was a chance of redemption and The Strokes rose to it. Jarvis Cocker came on stage to guest on a Cars cover of Just What I Needed which was amazing to watch and something that I did not expect. The cover was a bit messy but it was very likeable and you could tell they had a blast performing it. The Strokes then delivered hit after hit, with Juicebox, Last Nite and Take it or Leave It and the crowd got back into it and brought a decent end to an otherwise mixed gig.

I still enjoyed the gig, at the end of day they're one of my favourite bands and I'm really glad I saw them but not all bands can exceed expectations like Pulp or Foo Fighters did, 2 months earlier. But this was one of the best saturday nights I've had in a while and was the perfect teaser to Bestival.

Two Door Cinema Club Review

I first came across this band through my girlfriend who had downloaded the album and was constantly listening to one of the more well known songs off the album, What You Know. I enjoyed the song but I never thought about listening to the rest of the album despite the single being very upbeat and catchy and similar to the sort of the music that I am into.
The band were announced to play Reading 2011 and being as I was going on the day that they were playing I decided to give their debut album, Tourist History, a listen.
The first song on the album, Cigarettes in the Theatre starts off rather menacingly and suggests that this could have darker elements than What you Know suggested. However 30 seconds into it, the song burst into euphoric synth pop which is what I was anticipating when I first decided to listen to it. Despite this it did not disappoint in anyway and its good to hear an album that is uplifting and euphoric despite the hard times we live in at the moment. Certain parts of the album remind me of Bloc Party who excel in blending guitars with synths and while there are no sad or emotional numbers that make up some of Bloc Party's albums, its refreshing to hear a band who build on their influences instead of directly mimicking them.

Another strong point of the album is that the album tracks are worth listening to over and over again. While I'm the sort of music listener who will listen through the "bad" tracks of albums instead of skipping them, the album tracks are practically singles. In fact the whole album sounds like a greatest hits, instead of a debut album. One of the stand out tracks is Something Good Can Work which basically sounds like the definitive summer anthem, with a euphoric synth hook and jangly guitars, it is a thoroughly enjoyable song and should be an indie rock staple for years to come.
However the album is not exactly perfect. Because the songs are all upbeat, it can be a bit repetitive and there does not seem to be a lot of substance beneath the shiny synth pop surface. Also Alex Trimble does not sound a particularly unique front man, his vocals sound like every other indie rock singer out there. Its the riffs and the catchiness of the songs that are the stars of the show, not the singing or the lyrics.
Despite this you cannot deny that this is a very enjoyable album and if you are feeling down, then put this album on because I guarantee you it will put you in a good mood for the rest of the day. It is also somehow captures the feel and sound of an idyllic summer especially What You Know and Undercover Martyn and you can imagine these songs soundtracking your summer and many summers to come. All that I have left to say is, I should listen to my girlfriend more often when it comes to music!

Why Blink-182's new album "Neighborhoods" needs to be good.

Reading 2010. The final night of the festival. Blink-182 are on stage and are undeniably the band everyone has been waiting for the whole festival. Towards the beginning of their set they start playing Miss You. I don't know whether it was because they were a brilliant live band or it was because I was starting to sober up, (2 hours previously I was asleep/passed out on my friend's shoulder during Weezer's set....) but I found myself almost moved to tears. Granted it is one of the more emotional songs in the Blink canon but it is still a damn good song that pretty much everyone can relate to. From that moment on I went from being a casual listener to an enthusiastic fan as I found myself almost speechless after the set had finished. They were truly the perfect close to the festival after the Guns N' Roses/Axl Rose Show disaster that opened it. 4 months or so later when news of another UK tour in the summer of 2011 me and my friends seized the opportunity to go and see them again. There was even better news still to come when a new album was in the works and it was due for a summer release.
However.....
In April this year the music world was granted with this statement from Mark Hoppus: "It is with heavy hearts that we have to announce our planned 2011 European summer tour has been rescheduled. When we booked the tour last year, we were confident that we would have the new album out before the summer. Turns out we were mistaken as the album is taking longer than we thought and won't be out till later this year."

Admittedly I wasn't too bummed out about this. I couldn't get standing tickets and the only seats I could get was towards the top of the O2 Arena so I wasn't expecting the gig to be better than Reading's, being as I was quite near the front. But it was the one gig that the majority of my group of friends from home in Plymouth were going to so it would have been a lot of fun nonetheless. 
What was more annoying was the fact that not long after the band announced that they were due to start a tour in North America beginning in August. This pissed off a lot of people, my friends included, being as they disappointed their fans by making us wait a full year for £40 tickets we bought in November. Only to announce weeks later that they were going to play a big tour of America that was to start in August, not long after they would have played in Europe. They did offer refunds which I had no choice to accept due to having no money at that point but the majority of my friends are still planning to go and I hope they have a good time!  
Thankfully I still had the album to look forward to, which although they were pressured to finish it by Geffen Records by July 31, I still have high hopes that the album will deliver.
On July 14 the first single, "Up All Night" was released. When I first listened to it, it did not sound like a traditional Blink song, (although to be fair their previous album didn't have the traditional sound either) but I still enjoyed it. It took me a couple more listens to fully appreciate and I think its a worthy comeback song that dares to be different to what Blink have released previously. At the end of the day the three band members are approaching 40 so it was bound to have a different sound.
However the song got a fair amount of backlash. On NME.com people were saying: "Bloody Awful" and "Life long Blink fan, they are my childhood. This song is a disgrace." Hardly a unanimous "All the Small Things" type of praise.
But something about the new album that disappointed me recently (and prompted me to right this blog) was the fact that a couple of days ago, Blink 182 released the track listing for the new album. I was disappointed to discover that there was only going to be 10 songs on the album, and 3 songs on the "deluxe" edition. After all the hype of their comeback and their brilliant headline set at Reading, I was expecting a bit more than just 10 songs. Granted its not about the quantity,( Led Zeppelin are prime examples of having a small amount of track numbers and delivering an incredible amount of quality), but Blink are not known for long songs. Although in a recent interview with Jam Showbiz Tom DeLonge says that there are "prog-rock" songs on the album, so it will be interesting to see how the album turns out like.
What I'm trying to get at is this is probably Blink 182's most important album of their career, its their big comeback, if this is a disaster then they are going to be riding on nostalgia for the next decade or so. Lets be honest they're too young to be going on greatest hits nostalgia tours like The Rolling Stones or The Who, this album needs to be good. With their performance at Reading being one of my highlights of 2010, could their new album be one of my highlights of 2011? I'll have to wait until September 27 to find out.....