Arctic Monkeys begin their Glastonbury Friday night headline set in darkness, an ominous pulse ringing across the rammed fields like an elevator ticking off levels in a Kubrick film. Alex Turner walks on in a severely unbuttoned white shirt and open suit jacket, his hair manicured like vintage Roy Orbison. The choice of opener – the gorgeously chilly, Portishead-esque “Sculptures of Anything Goes” – could not signal their transformation more clearly, nor their faith in the experimental bent of their latest two albums. Here is a song they could never have written last time they headlined Glastonbury, in 2013 – a bold choice that doubles as justification for their return, just two divisive albums later.
They move swiftly into the hyperspeed “Brianstorm” and a string of crowdpleasers such as “Don’t Sit Down ’Cos I’ve Moved Your Chair”, from 2011’s Suck it and See, and “Snap Out of It”, from 2013’s stratospherically popular AM, that show the depth of their catalogue. Turner is in strong voice, with no sign of the laryngitis that forced them to cancel a midweek show in Dublin and threatened, until the last minute, to derail tonight’s set.
