Arctic Monkeys are a four-piece indie rock band from Sheffield, England. Since signing for Domino Records in 2005, the band have gained popularity in many parts of the world, and have gradually progressed to playing larger venues. Following the release of "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" in October 2005, the band had a near-continuous touring schedule that culminated with performances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. Following the release of their new album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, on 23 April 2007, the band began a series of tours that included a headline appearance at the Glastonbury Festival as well as hosting their own "mini-festival" at Lancashire County Cricket Ground.
The Monkeys' debut world tour began in Liverpool on 2 October 2005. Beginning with performances across Britain, backed mainly by the Sheffield band Milburn, the tour included gigs in The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Canada and the USA. Although originally scheduled to finish in Tokyo, Japan, on 23 November, further dates were subsequently added in Spain, Sweden and Denmark for December 2005.
The UK leg of the tour coincided with the release of the band's debut single, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor", which went straight to UK Number One. The furore surrounding the band saw every show selling out and some venues having to be upgraded to handle the demand. Dates at popular locales were also added later on. Tickets with a face value of £7 were being resold on eBay for over £100 a pair. The band's home gig in Sheffield had a second night added due to floor space being required for film crews.
January and February 2006 saw the band playing alongside Maxïmo Park, We Are Scientists and Mystery Jets on the NME Awards tour. The tour consisted of a series of gigs across the UK and Ireland, including Glasgow, London, Leeds, Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh, Cardiff and the band's home town Sheffield. Unusually, the band swapped slots with Maxïmo Park for one night only, making them the headliners at the Sheffield gig for obvious reasons.
On 30 January 2006, James Sheriff announced details of the Monkeys' UK tour in April 2006. The tour began at the Rock City in Nottingham on 13 April, and consisted of 12 gigs around the UK, culminating on 27 April at Brixton Academy in London. Advanced tickets to all 12 shows were made available on the Monkeys' web-site at 6pm that night, and sold out within 1 hour.
Tickets were put on general release at 6pm on 2 February, available online, by phone or box office. All 12 gigs were sold out within 10 minutes, with queuing at some venues beginning in the early hours of the morning.
In May 2006 the band toured several venues in Continental Europe, beginning on 2 May in Paris and including Cologne, Amsterdam, Munich, Milan, Marseille, Barcelona and Madrid. The tour culminated in Lisbon, which would be subsequently turn out to be Andy Nicholson's last show before leaving the band.
June 2006 saw the band playing significantly bigger venues than their initial visit in March 2006. Andy Nicholson, whose departure from the band was announced upon the band's return to the UK, was replaced by Nick O'Malley during the tour. Supported by We Are Scientists, the band have received critical acclaim from the American media[1][2][3] - the hype surrounding them "proven to exist for good reason"[4] who have acknowledged that "the hype surrounding the band is there for a reason". Cities visited include Vancouver, San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Atlanta, Boston, New York City, Montreal, and Toronto, among others. Domino Records USA created a special site, The Riot Van, for information and interaction with the tour.
After announcing their first tour of Australasia in March 2006, the band performed in Auckland on 28 July. After gigs in Perth,[5] Adelaide, Melbourne[6] and Brisbane supported by Australian band The Grates, the Australian leg of the tour culminated in the Enmore Theatre in Sydney on 9 August.
The band's return trip to the UK from Australia included stops in Japan to play at the annual Summer Sonic Festival in Tokyo and Osaka on 12 August and 13 August respectively; as well as performances at the Frequency Festival in Salzburg, Austria; Belgium's Werchter and Pukkelpop festival and the Lowlands Festival of the Netherlands on the 18–20 August. Following near-continuous touring since Autumn 2005, the band's schedule came to an end following their performances at the Reading and Leeds Festivals on the last weekend of August. The band's spectacular rise up the billing from the small Carling Tent up to penultimate on the Main Stage in the space of a year was noted by many reviews, and the band delivered "a set that was typically low on spectacle but high on musical fire, [as] they confidently made the festival their own".[7] The Leeds leg of the festival saw the original band members re-united following a backstage appearance by Andy Nicholson.[8] Earlier in the summer Arctic Monkeys had taken the Main Stage at Oxegen by storm when they made an appearance on the rainy, windswept Saturday of the festival. The following evening at T in the Park, Kinross in Scotland they played a 60 minute set on the main stage before The Strokes took to the stage.
The Arctic Monkeys played an 11 date UK tour exclusively for fan club members. During this tour the band was supported by The Little Flames, Gas Club and Reverend And The Makers.
The band performed two dates at Dublin's Malahide Castle on 16 and 17 June followed by two dates at Cardiff International Arena on 19 June 2007 and 20 June 2007. Support came from Supergrass, The Coral and Delorentos in Dublin while the Cardiff support acts were close friends of the band Reverend and the Makers and The Rascals.
Co-inciding with the release of their second album, Favourite Worst Nightmare, and new single "Brianstorm" in April 2007, the band announced several tours and festival appearances for the summer of 2007. In addition, the band headlined the Glastonbury Festival in June and the first ever Friday at T in the Park in July.
On Saturday 28 July and Sunday 29 July 2007 the band played two sell out shows at the 55,000 capacity Lancashire County Cricket Club in Manchester. Billed as being the group's own 'mini-festivals' both date saw support sets for Supergrass, The Coral, Amy Winehouse and Japanese Beatles tribute act The Parrots. The shows were hailed as 'the gigs of a generation' by NME and were even compared to Oasis' record-breaking shows at Knebworth House in 1996 and The Stone Roses' one-off gig at Spike Island in 1990. Despite the acclaim the gigs were not without their faults. On the Saturday, sound problems occurred during 'Balaclava' forcing the band to stop playing halfway through. Whilst on the Sunday the band had to stop performing twice during 'Still Take You Home' and 'Dancing Shoes' due to crushing at the front of the barriers. Despite these minor fluctuations, it is clear that the LCCG concerts cemented Arctic Monkeys' status as the defining band of their generation, as Oasis and the Stone Roses had done before them.
The band began their first long North American tour in June 2007, playing headlining gigs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., amongst others. The band was one of three Sheffield-based bands playing at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas.[9] In addition to these, the band was the opening act for Oasis show at the 19,800-capacity Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
Also 28 June 2007 they played in the Hamburg Stadtpark with The Coral Opening for them
Arctic Monkeys played at Byron Bay's music festival Splendour In The Grass.
They played the Summer Sonic Festival, split between Osaka and Tokyo, Japan.
The band performed in Buenos Aires, Argentina at Luna Park's stadium. The band also played in three cities of Brazil: Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Curitiba
In December, Arctic Monkeys made a welcome return to Britain, playing a relatively small tour of large venues across the nation. They played Alexandra Palace in London twice, G-Mex in Manchester twice and finally the AECC in Aberdeen twice.
The tour was supported by The Rascals and The Horrors, the latter were the subject of much controversy amongst Arctic Monkeys fans and the division of opinion resulted in an assortment of missiles such as bottles and plastic cutlery being thrown at the Horrors; particularly at the two G Mex dates in Manchester. The G Mex dates were generally perceived as to be the worst nights of the tour due to the level of hostility shown towards The Horrors and the audience being subject to a large amount of thuggish behaviour from drunken revellers.
Arctic Monkeys played relatively well however on both G Mex nights, Turner, at one point on the first night insulted the crowd over their treatment of The Horrors - calling them "wankers" on the first night and "dickheads" on the second.[10] The apathy felt between the crowd and Arctic Monkeys at the two G Mex dates was mostly resolved by the end of the second night, Turner remarking that the crowd of the second night were "a lot better" than the crowd the night before.
To create a DVD, the band played a secret gig the week after at the Apollo. The DVD is entitled Arctic Monkeys Live at the Apollo and was also released in cinema.
The band performed on all six dates of the 2009 Big Day Out throughout Australia and New Zealand. They also performed sideshows before the East Coast legs of the Big Day Out. The setlists usually included four titles from their upcoming third album and a cover of Nick Cave's Red Right Hand, plus many titles from their first two albums.
On 30 March 2009, the band announced on their website that they would be headlining at the Reading and Leeds Festival on bank-holiday weekend in August stating 'Arctic Monkeys are pleased to announce that they will be headlining the Reading & Leeds Festivals 2009. The band will headline the Leeds Festival on 28 August and Reading Festival on 29 August.'
The band also played a warm-up to the Reading and Leeds festival at Brixton Academy, when the newly formed super group Them Crooked Vultures supported them.
It was announced that the band were billed to perform at the Osheaga Festival in Montreal, performing alongside headliners Beastie Boys and Coldplay. The festival will also include performances by The Roots, Girl Talk, The Ting Tings and Jason Mraz, amongst others.
Kicking off in Antwerp's Lotto Arena on 3 November 2009, Arctic Monkeys returned to tour a section of Europe and then a welcome return to the UK to play some of their biggest shows to date in a selection of major Arena's across Britain. Following Antwerp (Belgium), they played two dates at Paris' Le Zenith, Berlin Arena and two dates at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam before heading to the UK.
On 13 November 2009 they played at Liverpool Echo Arena, Sheffield Arena, Newcastle's Metro Arena, and then two dates at Wembley Arena. They then played at Birmingham's NIA Arena before playing their biggest show of the tour at the MEN Arena in Manchester. The English part to the tour then concluded on 22 November in Nottingham at the Trent FM Arena. Arctic Monkeys then headed to Scotland to play at the Glasgow SECC Arena. This gig was criticised by many primarily due to the unusually rowdy audience, and Arctic Monkeys had to temporarily stop playing twice during the concert due to the crowd throwing things and generally becoming too violent.
Arctic Monkeys then travelled to The Odyssey in Belfast, before concluding their tour on 26 November at The O2.
Across the 10th and 11 June 2011 the band played two massive homecoming gigs at Don Valley Bowl,[11] in Sheffield. Playing to approximately 20,000 people across the two days, the gigs took place in a festival style tent to celebrate the release of fourth studio album "Suck It And See" out that Monday (June 6). On Friday the 10th, the opening slot was taken by local band Dead Sons, upcoming London quartet The Vaccines took the penultimate support slot, and Liverpudlian solo artist and friend of Alex Turner Miles Kane took the main support slot. On the 11th of June, another local band Mabel Love opened the show, with female singer-songwriter Anna Calvi taking the penultimate support slot before Miles Kane played the role of main support once again. It is believed that Alex Turner's father David Turner was in attendance, along with Alex's current girlfriend Alexa Chung. It was also rumoured that Reverend and the Makers' frontman Jon McClure also made an appearance at the show on Saturday. Both of the concerts were praised for their ticketing systems, by which the attendees had to produce the card which the tickets were purchased on in order to gain access into the venue. The concert merchandise was also humorous, with one of the T-Shirts taking on the Sheffield City Council logo instead reading 'Monkeys' [12] where 'Sheffield' usually is and 'Don Valley' taking the place of 'City Council'. Alex Turner wore this particular shirt during the performance on Friday night. On both nights, Miles Kane returned to the stage to perform Favourite Worst Nightmare track "505" with the Arctics. The band walked onto the stage to Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing" from Sheffield film "The Full Monty" and also brought out tracks such as "The View From The Afternoon" [13] as well as "A Certain Romance" and an acoustic performance of "Mardy Bum" as part of the setlist, songs from their debut album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" and which they haven't played since 2007.
The full setlist was:[14]
Encore:
On June 9, 2011 the boys announced [15] a nationwide arena UK tour to promote "Suck It And See" across the months of October and November 2011. The tour starts at Nottingham's Capital FM Arena on October 28, hitting London's O2 Arena, Cardiff Motorpoint Arena, Manchester MEN Arena, Birmingham LG Arena, Newcastle Metro Radio Arena Aberdeen AECC, and Glasgow SECC (Hall 4) before finishing at Liverpool's Echo Arena on November 9, 2011.
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