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Nottingham Arena was packed this Halloween weekend as 9,500 eager punters squeezed in for the opening night of the Arctic Monkeys Suck It And See UK tour.
What’s most striking is that the crowd the Monkeys have amassed seem to have aged faster than the band and instead of the expected plethora of awkward indie kids it was predominantly thirtysomethings and older piling into the venue.
Arctic Monkeys open proceedings with a new track Don’t Sit Down Cos I’ve Moved Your Chair, which got a good response from the excited crowd but as soon as they finished and launched straight into Teddypicker it felt like the night had truly started.
Alex Turner is a most unlikely front man. Pocket-sized, quiffed, with turn-up jeans and a battered denim jacket he rarely spends time away from his centre mic stand and between song banter is kept to a minimum.
Yet somehow within minutes of appearing on stage with his band he had the arena eating from the palm of his hand.
The crowd frantically roared their approval between songs, they rushed against the barriers, formed mosh pits, stage dived and climbed on each other’s shoulders – and yes all this uncontainable energy is at an Arctic Monkeys gig.
The first part of the set was heavily laden towards their first two albums and songs like Brianstorm, View From the Afternoon, and You Look Good on the Dancefloor made the crowd go absolutely wild.
By the time Flourescent Adolescent and When The Sun Goes Down wee played to conclude the main set the atmosphere in the arena was rapturous and the place went well and truly nuts.
A solid three song encore of Mardybum, Suck It And See, and 505 sent the Nottingham fans home content and there is no question that The Arctic Monkeys delivered a blinder.
Support earlier in the night came from The Vaccines with their generic, tried and tested indie tunes.
Unfortunately The Vaccines deemed themselves too important to allow any of the photographers there that night to photograph them so we have no pictures from their set to share.
This band are getting huge amounts of radio love at the moment but what they do has been done before and done much better.
They received an incredible reception nonetheless and the crowd loved them, but the question is whether anyone will care about or even remember The Vaccines in five years time?