Arctic Monkeys

 

Arctic Monkeys

Arctic Monkeys headline Reading Festival live last night

As soon as Arctic Monkeys stepped onto Reading’s Main Stage East last night, tearing into the muscular groove of their calling card 2013 single “Do I Wanna Know”, we were in safe hands

Instead, fans at home who weren’t able to attend the music festival in person will get to catch all the on-stage magic tonight when the performance will air in full. 

It may be a few hours yet before the visuals are broadcast, but at least we have the photographic evidence for now. 

Indeed, onstage, Turner is totally self-possessed as a performer, no longer the deer-in-the-headlights of the band’s earlier days, or as schtick-y as he was around the time of their AM album – the Brylcreem hairdo, for example, is long gone – but more a bit of an underrated eccentric (the band, often categorised in the “indie nostalgia” file in our minds, are actually quite a lot odder than most remember, Turner’s lyrics sometimes impossibly verbose, and full of sly sexuality).

Last night Turner put me in mind of another Pulp member, Jarvis Cocker, as he held court wirily in a suit jacket and 70s-rockstar-at-leisure-esque linen shirt (plus, a pair of sunglasses for Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino’s title track, to truly embody its barstool-dwelling narrator), totally at ease, a born frontman who has settled into the role in front of our very eyes over the years.