It’s a cloudy night in Melbourne, but of course the sunglasses stay on. There are few frontmen touring today who lean into the theatrics of rockstardom as effortlessly as Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys. At least these days, it seems like he’s enjoying it. When I last saw Turner perform in London a few years back, with his side-act the Last Shadow Puppets, he could barely stand straight. Standing on stage at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, kicking off the Australian leg of their latest album tour, he seems positively chipper.
This tour is “very sold out”, the promoter says beforehand; Australians have loved Arctic Monkeys since they crashed on to Triple J with I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor back in 2006. Almost 20 years on and six albums later, the band understandably now sounds very different. Gone is in the indie snarling of their early albums, and the greaser slickness of AM. Thankfully, gone too is the cosmic weirdness of Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, a jazz-inflected concept album centred around a resort on the moon that confounded some fans.
