O/T Arctic Monkeys Sheffield Arena,

After seeing the monkeys tonight I have an observations and a couple of questions...

- IMO the gig was mediocre, the new music put a dampener on the entire experience, and the venue is rubbish.

My questions are,

1) why do people throw £11 pots of drink in the air? Are they that wealthy/stupid/irresponsible/psychopaths without conscience? When did this start to be a thing? I just don’t get it, even if it’s a pot of piss, just tip it over and move away would be better than lobbing it over the crowd? (Sorry a few questions in one..)

2) why does a good 50% of the crowd watch the show through their mobile phone cameras? I had a crap seat, but loads around me spent the evening videoing... why? Plus the videoed it in portrait making it even less useful to watch! The rest of the audience spent an awful lot of time using phones too. Do they have to inform everyone that they are living exciting lives by showing videos of them sat at the back of an arena with pinpricks of light and poor sound quality on social media ?

I know I’m an old confused but was genuinely bewildered by the behaviour...

 

We had seats tonight near the front, both my kids loved it, between us we used our phones for a few minutes to save and remember the evening by, my other daughter is in the far east so we thought it would be nice to show her as she likes them too. In the standing area it was pretty full on mosh pits and pogos, don’t think many people there were overusing their phones. They intermingled old and new stuff pretty well Cornerstone is an oldie and hardly 100 mph, but it was great. They played plenty of the old classics and I thought it was amazing. Too many bands have 20 versions of 1 song, you can’t say that about these guys.

 

Agree with all you say there.
But, also, these lads used to be such proud Yorkshire boys. I remember seeing a televised gig, in Argentina, where Alex Turner proudly shouted "Alrayt, we're the Arctic Monkeys from High Green, Sheffield".
In South America, proud to be from Yorkshire.
Fast forward 8 years and they come 'home' to Sheffield and pretend to be American!
I'm done with them. Last album was dreadful, and they've totally lost their 'local' connection.

 

Maybe that was my problem, I was too far back to feel involved... I couldn’t really see what was happening apart from the artsy big screens. Although I could see lots of folk going for drinks/bog when the big hexagon descended indicating a song from the new album. Well down on my list of favourite gigs.

I understand taking a few seconds of video, but those near me were videoing the entire gig. The new songs did not come across well from where I was sitting. If the lastest album was their first, they wouldn’t have made it out of Sheffield...

Did you get a pot of beer chucked at you?

 

Alex was very self indulgent, but hardly said anything between songs.

 

Chucking beer is pathetic but they were doin it at Donnington back in the 80s plu-ca-change?

 

Was it glass pots back then as well?

 

Tended to be Plastic bottles as I remember! Big ass cider ones, don’t think they contained much cider though...

 

Went on Tuesday, most disappointed I’ve been in 30 years of gig going. Dull dull dull. 5 songs from TBH&C plus 3 from Humbug which is a pretty poor album. Lost it Alex, sorry.

Should’ve got rid of the standing area & replaced it with cabaret style tables. Seen them 5 or 6 times before & loved them but that was f@cking awful. Forgot his own lyrics at one point & just walked away - says it all. £70 wasted, will think twice about paying to see them again. Shame :-(

 

I first noticed the flying beer thing at a Kaiser Chiefs gig about ten years ago at Elland Road. Before that I'd never experienced it in many years of gig-going. I think it's purely a British thing, as I've been to plenty of gigs in other countries and never seen it, thankfully. Absolutely brain dead behaviour on so many levels. As for the Sheffield Arena, it's a truly awful venue. Seen loads of gigs there and only one of them managed to overcome the utter soullessness of the place.

 

I went on Wednesday and thought the acoustics were very poor indeed.

I’ve recently watched the Gallaghers at Manchester and Leeds respectively and they are so much better sound wise. I was up in the gods for both and the sound was excellent.

My tickets weren’t great for arctic monkeys and I am used to seeing them very up close in the old days which made it doubly worse as the sound was crap. Further so I was surrounded by people who seemingly didn’t know any of their tunes which made it annoying especially as the guy next to me told me to ‘watch what I was doing’ as I trod on his shoe when view from the afternoon came on....

Musically I thought the new stuff sounded really strong - which surprised me as I didn’t think it would convert into an arena.

Some of the old stuff was good too and really liked fluorescent adolescent acapella. That said the Mardy Bum one and the one last night were rubbish. They managed to **** yo Brianstorm somehow too but hey ho.

I think it’s pretty unfair to say they’ve forgotten their roots etc. Quite the opposite imho.

Alex Turner is basically an actor - it’s just a stage persona to keep them evolving. They can’t stay as a bunch of 20 year old lads from high green forever. That said, I’m not totally convinced by the new album - there is some fantastic stuff on it but equally I think there is some rubbish on it that just doesn’t work and it is slightly self indulgent.

 

What, sort of like.....Yeah I'll tell you what's my problem/you're not from New York City you're from Rotherham...?

 

Which gig was it that managed it?

 

If there was cabaret tables... it might have worked. Also if the venue was the size of the Metrodome with the cabaret tables, and they were serving a three course meal. They might have got away with playing the new stuff. Maybe then it would have justified the ticket price too.

 

I saw Slipknot there a couple of years ago and they definitely woke the place up

Im not a big fan of stadium or arena shows if im honest. I was seated to watch Blink-182 last year at Leeds arena and the sound was terrible. A few people I've spoken to in past have commented on acoustics there too.

I have seen some good gigs in arenas such as RHCP, Nine Inch Nails, Foos etc but my faves have always been at the likes of Apollo, Manc and Leeds academies. The more intimate the better.

 

The first time I ever saw Oasis there in 1995, Pulp as surprise support after The Verve pulled out. Oasis were absolutely at their peak, just before Morning Glory came out. Featured the first ever live performance of Don't Look Back In Anger apparently.

 

I’d ban mobile phones. Can’t understand why people pay £70 and then watch it through the back if their phone. Can you imagine what they do with the footage? Get home and show auntie Sharon some wobbly half arsed video of a band playing 50 meters away a song she has no interest in. All rather bizarre

 

I quite like outdoor arena gigs in the summer, depending on the band. but indoor arena gigs are generally pretty poor. The Manchester Evening News Arena or whatever it's called now seems to have fairly decent acoustics, both REM and the Manic Street Preachers sounded spot on there. But apart from the above mentioned concert, everyone I've seen at Sheffield Arena has sounded completely flat and lifeless - Oasis a different time, the Manics, Blur off the top of my head.

 

My instagram feed was full of them yesterday and the sound quality of every single one was absolute dogshit.

I get the reasoning behind it but some of my fave show memories are from 20 years ago before phone cameras existed. Im more liable to remember that than some crap video that will get deleted in a year or so.