The first live show Arctic Monkeys attended
Over the last two decades, Arctic Monkeys have honed a slick live performance. Characterised by an unrelenting rock and roll stage presence and Alex Turner’s self-assured, albeit increasingly offbeat, frontman capabilities, the four-piece have taken their live set from underground Sheffield venues to the Pyramid Stage of Glastonbury.
Long before they had amassed a big enough fanbase to headline the biggest festival in the UK, the indie rock four-piece were finding their feet amidst the burgeoning northern music scene. In 2002, school friends Turner, Matt Helders, and Andy Nicholson formed the band, but they wouldn’t play their first live show until they took to The Grapes in Sheffield a year later. In the meantime, they were finding inspiration by attending as many other gigs as possible.
The first concert the band all attended together came just months after they had started the project when Australian rockers The Vines paid a visit to the UK. Turner recalled the show as his first gig in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, reminiscing: “I remember getting the train to Manchester to see the Vines in October 2002.”
Three out of four members of the band travelled from their home in Sheffield to Manchester’s Academy 2 for the show; as Turner recalls: “It was me, Matthew, Nick [O’Malley, the band’s bassist], and another friend of ours. I mean, funny that three out of the four of what became the Arctic Monkeys lineup were there. It wasn’t usually like that. I saw that other friend a couple of weeks ago, actually, and we still talk about it now…”
The three of them boarded a train in the morning and ensured they were at the front of the crowd. Turner recalls watching the opening acts – the Bandits and Nada Surf – before stating: “That was really the start”. This formative gig inspired the band to learn the Vines covers and expand their gig-going. From then on, the young musicians tried to attend as many shows as possible.
“We’d just started playing together that summer, in me parents’ garage,” Turner recalls. “We’d be trying to play ‘Get Free’ by the Vines. And the Datsuns – they had a song called ‘Harmonic Generator,’ and we used to do a cover of that. I’m sad that I missed [seeing] the Strokes in Sheffield for Is This It, though. I was a little bit late to the party there.”
Just one year later, they played their first show at The Grapes in Sheffield and began their own live career, one which has surely inspired many more young musicians to take up songwriting and gig-going.
