Experience the mastery of The Last Shadow Puppets covering The Smiths with Johnny Marr
The Last Shadow Puppets, the enchanting and captivating musical collaboration between Alex Turner and Miles Kane, stands as one of the most intriguing and enigmatic bands in the realm of contemporary music. Not because their music lacks quality nor because their performances fall short; in fact, quite the opposite is true. The supergroup is perhaps one of the most anticipated in music, and yet, since 2008, they’ve only produced two albums. The Age of the Understatement and Everything You’ve Come To Expect are arguably two of the most important albums to surface over the last couple of decades.
The Last Shadow Puppets is a love letter to the avant-garde. Turner and Kane are renowned music fans themselves, and both come together to accrue a project that communicates just that – when you listen to their stuff, you can hear the Scott Walker, Ennio Morricone, Serge Gainsbourg, and The Beatles influences. It all comes through, culminating in something that warms the ears.
One of the captivating aspects of The Last Shadow Puppets for Turner was always the opportunity to delve into his diverse musical interests beyond the post-The Strokes hype that characterised Arctic Monkeys. Kane’s inclination towards the grooves of rock and northern soul adds another layer to their collaboration, resulting in a harmonious blend of musical genres that showcases the very best of both artists.
The music is quintessential baroque pop, characterised by its retro aesthetic, theatrical arrangements, and evocative lyrics. Their songs often delve into themes of love, desire, and nostalgia, while their dynamic performances showcase their chemistry and charisma as a duo.
The Age of the Understatement spawned several successful singles, including the title track, ‘Standing Next to Me’ and ‘My Mistakes Were Made for You’. After the release of their debut, the band took their first hiatus as Turner and Kane focused on their respective main projects. They reunited in 2016, however, to release their highly anticipated second album, Everything You’ve Come to Expect. This album continued to explore their signature orchestral pop sound but introduced a slightly darker and more experimental tone.
The fun doesn’t just stop when the record halts spinning, though. Catching The Last Shadow Puppets live is a big part of what they represent: appreciating music and not taking yourself too seriously. It’s during these sets that everything all falls into place. Often they’ll incorporate covers into their own sets, which have historically been anything from The Beatles to Jacques Dutronc. The best one, though, has to be during the Everything You’ve Come To Expect tour in 2016 when Johnny Marr joined the band onstage to perform a rendition of ‘Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me’. It’s a magical experience even when watching through a screen as confetti rains down and the audience falls into an awe-inspired silence as they watch on.
This was Turner’s doing – one night, when Marr was writing about ‘Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me’ for his autobiography, he received a call from Turner asking if he wanted to play the song with them live on stage. “I was in a very weird headspace as I was writing about the breakup,” recalls Marr, “[I was] a bit frazzled, slightly burnt out and strangely emotional. Then I got a message that they wanted to play Last Night… We played it in Manchester first and I’d forgotten that the Smiths had never played it live. It was a nice moment, and went off okay but when we played it again at Alexandra Palace, and opened the show with it, confetti was raining down on everybody from the ceiling and it was a really poignant moment for me. There’s a good recording of it on YouTube, it was just another one of those weird things that happens in life sometimes.”
This remarkable cover achieves the figurative feat of breathing life into a once-empty house, capable of haunting the senses. Marr’s masterful work is as mesmerising as ever, as Turner’s vocals and Kane’s accompanying guitar riffing effortlessly exhume the lesser-known track. Whether The Last Shadow Puppets will return soon and reignite the embers of music loved and music lost is a mystery, “I think there’s a bit of a myth about it and I quite like that,” said Kane. No matter how much more time passes though, they’ll undoubtedly have an audience poised and ready as soon as they return to centre stage.
