Humbug Tour

The Humbug Tour was a world concert tour by British indie rock^[1] band Arctic Monkeys in support of their third studio album, Humbug. Although Humbug was not released until 25 August 2009, the tour started with a series of shows in Australia and New Zealand in the January of that year. Following this leg, there was a break for the band to put the finishing touches on the record. The tour then resumed in Poland on 2 July 2009. The band proceeded to tour through 2009 and into 2010, ending with 15 dates in April across the United States and Mexico.^[2]

Setlist

The setlist evolved over the duration of the tour, but primarily focused on songs from "Humbug". Songs from Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not were primarily left out of the set, with "The View From The Afternoon", "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", and "Still Take You Home" being the only songs to regularly feature from the band's record breaking debut album. The setlist was briefly modified to include "When The Sun Goes Down" and a snippet of "Mardy Bum" during the November 2009 European Leg. "When the Sun Goes Down" also returned for select shows in 2010, but "Mardy Bum" did not.

Generally, the band opened each gig with a song from "Humbug" (either "Pretty Visitors" or "Dance Little Liar"), followed by "Brianstorm", "This House is a Circus" and "Still Take You Home". The mid-part of the setlist was commonly rotated but generally featured two songs from "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not", three songs from "Favourite Worst Nightmare", seven from "Humbug" and a cover of Nick Cave's 1994 hit; Red Right Hand. In addition, a B-Side from the "Humbug" sessions would often make the setlist (often "Sketchead" or "Catapult"), although Favourite Worst Nightmare B-Side "Nettles" was included during the last US leg in Spring 2010. Following the last song of the main set (usually "Do Me a Favour" in North America and "Secret Door" in Europe), the band returned for a two-song encore.

The encore typically consisted of a new version of "Fluorescent Adolescent", which had been transposed to include a snippet of a different song (most commonly "Only You Know" by Dion or "Strange" by Patsy Kline), as well as closing number "505". Both songs in the encore were generally from the band's 2007 album "Favourite Worst Nightmare" as a few variations included either "If You Were There, Beware", or the aforementioned B-Side "Nettles".

Tour dates (Incomplete)

Personnel

Arctic Monkeys

• Alex Turner - lead vocals, lead & rhythm guitar, keyboards, baritone guitar
• Jamie Cook - lead & rhythm guitar, baritone guitar
• Nick O'Malley - bass guitar, backing vocals
• Matt Helders - drums, percussion, backing vocals

Touring musicians

• John Ashton - keyboards, additional guitar, backing vocals

References