The Throwback Tuesday weekly post is a opportunity for me to revisit the good, cheesy, forgotten or essential parts of music, film, tv and books from my childhood, the past few years or the generations/eras/works of art that have influenced my life in some way.
With the announcement of festival line up’s coming at us pretty much every single day, it’s a tough decision to decide which one to go to and which line up merits the best. Is it Disclosure, Bastille and Tensnake at Parklife, Foals headlining Bestival or the iconic Reading and Leeds with blink-182, Arctic Monkeys, You Me At Six and more. For me a festival isn’t just about the headliners, it’s about getting value for money out of my ticket, seeing as many bands as I can in one weekend from huge acts to tiny stages with early slots for bands just starting out – some of the best sets in my opinion.
The point of this is that Arctic Monkeys being announced as headliner for this year’s Reading and Leeds reminds me of the first Leeds Festival I attended back in 2009. Arctic Monkeys headlined the Friday night and though I was a fan of their first two albums, their 3rd recently released album put me off them for a while, I hated it so I went to see Bring Me The Horizon instead. Epic choice as they were brilliant and I was at the barrier of the Festival Republic Tent. All my friends went to see Arctic Monkeys and they all seemed pretty disappointed with their set.
However, 5 years later after releasing two brilliant, no excellent, follow up albums in the form of ‘Suck It And See’ and ‘AM’, I refound my love for them and they have quite rightly found their way back into many people’s hearts, setting themselves up as the biggest indie band around from the UK and have significantly improved. After seeing them at the end of last year, they were indeed completely great, they not only put out great albums but bring that energy and an extra Monkey’s edge to their live shows. They command the stage and that was clear to see after their 2013 Glastonbury headline set.
Give me the choice this time between Arctic Monkeys and any other band on at the same time as them and I will choose Arctic Monkeys. Unless Friendly Fires, Foals, Bastille or The Maccabees were playing at the same time obviously, but the point I’m trying to make is that Arctic Monkeys have quite clearly become a band of status in the way that you see them as a festival headliner, you see them as a band constantly putting out good album after good album, you see them as a band that are the best at what they do in the UK right now. I don’t think their headline set 5 years ago was premature I just think ‘Humbug’ didn’t resonate with as many people and it was a time for the band that was very different and really not as up to scratch with everything else. Now after 5 albums, 10 years in the industry and plenty of shows and festival sets under their belts then this slot at one of the most iconic festival can not be argued with, will be much anticipated and they will surely be the headliner to see over the August Bank Holiday weekend. If you are planning on going to a festival this year just for headliners then R&L seems like a very good bet.
With that in mind I’m going to pick one song that will no doubt be one of the biggest moments from the band’s set and it definitely was from this particular set which is a different but still brilliant version of it.
Mixtape Couture 