Arctic Monkeys returned to the live scene last night. Previously the product of provincial High Green, Sheffield, they swaggered back in to our eyes and ears, suited and booted and on stage at the Majestic Ventura Theater, California. Their most recent output (‘R U Mine’, ‘Electricity’, ‘Evil Twin’) had suggested that the boys were on to something with bigger balls than anything that had come before, and last night’s set opener certainly continues that trend. Another ear-worm of a riff makes the introductions for ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, and it’s not long before Turner warms up his new found croon. Lyrically, the song doesn’t stray far from the themes of the femme-fatale that has most recently dominated his writing, and while Matt Helder’s drumming is no where near the ferocity of ‘R U Mine’, the rest of the track snarls and broods with an immediate sense of purpose. It doesn’t have anything of the treacle-sweetness of tracks from Suck It And See, harking back to Humbug if anything, and Alex Turner is probably irredeemably far up his own arse now, but it’s certainly an exciting preview of what’s to come in the not so distant future.
