Dublin: The Last (Ever?) Destination of “The Car”
Arctic Monkeys were in Ireland for their long-awaited show that was postponed 4 months ago due to frontman Alex Turner suffering from acute laryngitis. They came back not only with one but three shows in 5 days to Dublin, as the final stop of the tour of their latest album “The Car”. We had the chance to see two of their three shows in Dublin, on the 15th and the 17th of October. These shows were not only special because they were the last stop of the tour, but it was also rumoured to be the last show EVER for the band. Rumours got pretty intense after the families and friends of the band members were in the audience to see the final show on the 19th. There is still no confirmation or announcement of any kind about it, but we might have witnessed the end of an era. As King Theoden once said, “If this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance”, and yes, if this was the end, it was definitely worth remembering.
Performance
We already know Alex Turner as one of the most iconic rock stars of the past decade. He is the reason a lot of us bought our first black leather jackets, put ridiculous amounts of hair gel on our hair, and owned a pair of classic Ray-Bans. His deep unique voice and the whole band being the “cool bad boys” of the music awards made them one of the most charismatic bands in the world. Me and Alex (not Turner our Alex lol) both knew a lot about their shows, and themselves as a band, and we both had seen them a few years back, so again, we kind of had the idea of what we were going to get. Well, you can never be fully ready for Arctic Monkeys, can you?
When the speakers got all the arena vibrating with the first note of Sculptures of Anything Goes, it was like a switch to another world. Starting from the first second he appeared on stage, until the end, in every second of the show, we could feel the band’s captivating, breathtaking, charismatic presence. I personally could not sing a single word of the songs or could not jump or go crazy or could not simply react to anything in the first 4 songs of the show, because of how epic their stage presence was. I switched off and just watched them. Me and Alex both agreed that Alex Turner was probably the most dominant figure we have ever seen on stage. When he raises his right arm and swings his index finger around in circles while he sings, or when he puts his left leg on top of the platform in front of him and points towards the sky, every move he makes just captures and holds your eyes and your attention on him. Alex asked me after the show: “How many times do you think you watched something other than Alex Turner throughout the whole show?”, and the answer was very few times. He is such a great performer that he can capture and hold your attention for so long.
Oli Sykes of Bring Me the Horizon summed up perfectly in an interview, how Arctic Monkeys perform. He says “Arctic Monkeys are cool. They go on stage, pick up their instruments, and just play. That is enough for people to go crazy. We can not do that, we need flashing lights, screens playing videos, fire, confetti, banging our heads whatever you name it, they do not need any of that.” We agree on every word that Oli said. Their stage just needed them, and nothing more to make their performance epic and electrifying.
One thing we want to point out about the performance is the brilliant storytelling. Alex Turner delivered the songs as if they were not the songs that we had been listening to for years and years. It was like his stories, his memories, maybe one big Ted Talk I don’t know, but the fact that they play the same songs every night, over and over, I think it is very precious to have this kind of storytelling that makes the show very genuine and interesting. In a lot of cases, with touring and playing the same songs for years, it feels like it slowly becomes automated, and feels like the story behind the songs slowly fades away. With Alex Turner and the rest of the band, it felt like very genuine storytelling about their lives, some girls, some night outs, memories in Sheffield, it felt like they took us back to all of these memories with them, which made it an incredible performance.
Another thing we need to mention, which already has been a meme throughout the years, is how different Alex usually sings the songs from their studio versions. He clearly wants us to listen to his songs but does not want us to sing with him. He changed the melodies so much when he was singing live, it made the performance unique and special and gave the show a very different vibe than just listening to the studio versions. I personally had no problems with him doing this, because you would never see him performing the same songs exactly the same, but it really made it hard for people to sing along, and believe me I have noticed that people in Ireland WANTED to sing along, which we will talk about it more in the Venue & Crowd section in a minute. Before that, we want to dive into the setlist of their Dublin shows.
The general outline of the setlist was very close to what they played in most of their shows of this tour, with a few exceptions, so there was not much to talk about regarding the setlist. One thing that we absolutely loved was that they used an orchestra for the show. When we saw the orchestra getting ready on stage, we thought they were going to play Mardy Bum, since they played it with an orchestra in Glastonbury. Well, they did not play Mardy Bum, but we had a full orchestra accompanying the band for the whole show, which was very cool and quirky.
Being a band with 7 successful albums makes it very tough to come up with a setlist that would satisfy everybody, and of course, we had a couple of songs we wanted them to play like When The Sun Goes Down or A Certain Romance (which rarely happens anyways), but overall, we like how their setlist is balanced with songs from different albums. I would personally highlight Cornerstone as my favourite of the show, when they played it in the first show in Dublin but did not in the second one. The crowd loved every bit of the song, waving their flashlights that gave us the sensation as if the whole venue was standing under a full moon. Alex Turner ended the song with “We still keep in touch”, which put a cheeky smile on the face of all the people in the venue. For the second show, they started the encore with a mashup of I Wanna Be Yours and Star Treatment, which I found very moving and beautiful as well.
As they do in most of their shows, the band added a 10-minute jam session to the outro of Body Paint, where they rocked the sh*t out of the arena, just before the encore. I felt like that bit was their favourite part of the show and they had so much fun doing that. Well, when they have fun, we have fun so we enjoyed that trip down to vintage Arctic Monkeys feeling.
"At the end of my career, if I had had the chance to call an album "The Car" and I hadn't, I would never have forgiven myself." These were the words of Alex Turner on the Apple Podcast. Did Arctic Monkeys manage to convey this visually? Let's talk about it!
The stage was minimal, elegant and a little nostalgic. It was clear that the band wanted to recreate a vintage atmosphere. In the background, some curtains that changed colours thanks to the lights (during Pretty Visitors breakdown everything became red, it was sick!) and in the middle, behind the drums, a circular screen where the cameramen's footage was transmitted with a filter that made the images grainy, making me remember when all the “Friends” met at Monica's flat to watch a movie on her cathode TV (RIP Matthew Perry).
On both sides of the stage, there was a grouping of lights in the shape of a rectangle. We presume it was intended to recall the headlights of a car, probably those of the Toyota Camry photographed by drummer Matt Helders which appears on the cover of their latest album.
“There’d Better Be A Mirrorball.” Well, Alex brought his own, a huge one hanging down from the top of the stage. In fact, he brought another small one just in case, which we could not see that much, but it was used for lighting effects. About the mirrorball, when you walked into the venue, even hours before the start of the show, you could see it hanging down from the ceiling. So, as everybody around us, we expected that it would be a big part of their show. Well, it was not. They used the giant mirrorball once, which was arguably the coolest part of the performance, so we would definitely want to see more mirrorball action. That was the only criticism we could give about the whole show. That's all about the stage elements. Again very simple, but to be honest we didn't expect anything different from them considering the stages of previous tours.
Now the question is: Should they have included more elements related to The Car? In our opinion, yes. Obviously we wouldn't have expected them to enter wheelies on a monster truck, it wouldn't have been in keeping with their style. However, recreating on stage an environment inherent not necessarily to a 4-wheel vehicle but also to the road would have contextualised everything better by making it less anonymous.
If they had asked me for advice (which would hardly be the case but you’ll never know), I would have suggested they include some elements that recalled gas stations. It would have contributed to the retro vibe that the band wanted to give by also being able to use neon lights along with standard strobe lights. I could totally see Alex Turner wearing his Ray-Bans and black leather jacket lighting a cigarette while filling up his car. With that being said, I won't deny that a part of me still dreams of Alex Turner singing the chorus of Cornerstone sitting in a car, what a magical moment that would have been!
Venue & Crowd
Everybody knows how big Arctic Monkeys are, especially in the UK, but after our disappointment with the Muse crowd, it felt very good to be a part of an electric crowd that surely waited for Arctic Monkeys for months. We could tell how much the crowd waited for this, even heard a couple of lads after the show saying how much they waited for this night, with satisfied happy faces.
There is nothing much more to be said about the crowd, and for the sound, we just have one point to bring out. Alex Turner could not hear himself for the first couple of songs and he was not very happy about it. He sang Snap Out Of It without an in-ear and looked uncomfortable for the first 15 minutes of the show. I am pretty sure nobody noticed it but it is fair to mention the technical inconvenience.
Finishing Touch
We want to dedicate the last part of the review, to the opening act and the close friend of Alex Turner: Miles Kane. Yeah, we have heard about him, we knew a couple of songs from him, but we certainly did not expect him to be this good and dynamic on stage. I can easily say that he was the best opening act I have ever seen in a show, from his energy and charisma to the crowd work he has done, it was the perfect opening act for Arctic Monkeys. Seeing his stage presence, vintage Ireland jersey with a leather jacket on top, and how he played the guitar, you could tell that they were very good mates with the band. We will definitely keep an eye on his work in the future as well.
Hot gignwings review
Performance: 🌶🌶🌶🌶
Production: 🌶🌶🌶
Setlist: 🌶🌶🌶🌶
Venue: 🌶🌶🌶
Crowd: 🌶🌶🌶🌶
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