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Arctic Monkeys kicked off their UK stadium tour in Bristol last night (May 29) to a crowd of devoted fans. The gig marked the first of 15 live dates the band have lined up on this UK and Ireland tour, which makes stops in Sheffield, Manchester, London and more.
Kicking off at Bristol’s Ashton Gate Stadium, the band played a total of 21 songs, including a number of tracks from their latest LP ‘The Car’, which was released last October.
Alex Turner and co. opened the gig with a live rendition of ‘Mardy Bum’. Taken from their 2006 debut ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’, the show marked the first time that the original album version of the track has been performed live since 2007. It was last performed live by the band in 2013.
Another rarity also arrived midway through the setlist when the band pulled out their first performance of ‘My Propeller’ in nearly 10 years. Other highlights from the show included classic tracks ‘Teddy Picker, ‘The View From The Afternoon’ and ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, as well as a cover of John Cooper Clarke’s ‘I Wanna Be Yours’.
Arctic Monkeys also played some of their most popular songs, including ‘505’, ‘Arabella’ and ‘Do I Wanna Know’, and closed the show off with a three-song encore of ‘Sculptures Of Anything Goes’, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ and ‘R U Mine?’.
The band are set to make a stop at Coventry’s Building Society Arena tomorrow night (May 31), before playing two back-to-back shows in Manchester’s Old Trafford Stadium on June 2 and 3.
From there, the band will head to Middlesbrough and Norwich, play two shows in their Sheffield hometown, and eventually move through Swansea, Southampton and London. For the latter, they will play three shows at Emirates Stadium on June 16, 17 and 18, before moving through to Ireland.
The band released their latest LP, ‘The Car’, to critical acclaim last year — following on from their 2018 LP, ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’. In a five-star review, NME praised the band for the precise songwriting in the album, as well as their innovative ideas.
“The band ‘pick up where they left off’ on 2018’s ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’,” it read. “Their masterful – and divisive – collection that traded razor-sharp riffs and stadium-sized choruses for loungey space-pop, obfuscating characters and a shady lounge lizard persona for frontman Alex Turner.”
The band kicked off the European leg of their tour in Austria last month (April 24), where they also surprised fans with the first live performances of both ‘Suck It And See’ and ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ since 2014.
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