Oberhausen.
In front of 12,500 fans in Oberhausen, the Arctic Monkeys consistently showed themselves to be changeable. The 90 minutes of play are by no means pure indie rock.
If you wanted something bad for the Arctic Monkeys, you could almost speak of elevator music, which occasionally pulls the pulse down during the concert. But humbug, 12,500 fans of the four boys from Sheffield hold against it in the sold-out Arena Oberhausen. Snotty riffs jingled plentifully and sated on Wednesday evening in one and a half hours of concert.
Casual lounges where you want to sink into plush furniture and toast yourself with martini glasses remain the exception. Exactly this, almost coolly matured sound of the past albums, the Arctic Monkeys would have ruthlessly played against the wall with the simmering energy of their own Big Bang epoch, the mid-noughties.
Arctic Monkeys: Inside, the mood explodes
A lot has happened since the debut album “Whatever People say I am, that’s what I’m not” (2006). After almost 20 years, there is a consistent musical disagreement among the British. This is expressed through sharp-edged genre changes: Influences from garage rock, alternative, post punk, but also soul and blues duel through the entire concert.
“Sculptures of anything goes” from the current album “The Car” lays a reserved veil over the hall at the start. Before the 16-year-old “Brianstorm” from the second studio album “Favourite worst Nightmare” saddles up with some serious surf rock and shakes it up. It rattles in the ear canal.
The screeching level among the (many female) fans in their mid to late thirties is still excellent. Frontman Alex Turner (37) cut out the white shirt under the jacket. In the interior, too, they are a long way from arctic cold. The crowd of fans literally explodes when catchy anthems like “I bet you look good on the dancefloor”, “505”, “Pretty Visitors” and “RU Mine?” become noticeable. monkey heat!
In any case, the Arctic Monkeys haven’t lost the youthful practical jokes. And with “Why’d you only call me when you’re high?”, so to speak from the Monkey Middle Ages (2013, “AM”), it smells a little sweeter in the hall, which has long been in a sweaty mood.
Arctic Monkeys: Song to Song – without an assembly line
That your “Do I wanna know?” on YouTube has now collected a monstrous 1.4 billion views – for free! When song follows song at high speed, Alex Turner, Jamie Cook, Matt Helders and Nick O’Malley are still far from assembly line work.
By the way, you can see them before the Oberhausen concert in the arena lobby, where fans besiege the merchandising stand including band shirts (“Monkeys Sheffield”, 35 euros) in black and eucalyptus with astonishing persistence. In places, the line meanders four hall seating blocks through the foyer. So much so that arena employees with construction site tapes even have to regulate walking traffic.
When the Arctic Monkeys finally purr the ballad “I wanna be yours” covered by punk poet John Cooper Clarke in the first of three long-awaited encores, the concert battle is as good as over. For the last time, Alex Turner can ennoble his tireless, powerful and constantly applauding “Ob-er-hausen Rockers”. And they really demanded everything from the band.
More articles from this category can be found here: Oberhausen
