(all photos by Keith Klenowski)
In a way, it’s dazzling, the amount of hot-blooded energy that comes across on an Arctic Monkeys record. And live, there’s no doubting that they’re proficient players. Their songs sound just as tight in person as they on their respective albums. But despite a delivery that sometimes borders on feverish, these Monkeys looked unaffected at last Friday’s Madison Theatre show. Not vacant, not bored, but like they’re performing – quite coolly – a job they’ve done thousands of times before. Which is true.

Thing is, much of the crowd didn’t seem to care. The band pounded out crowd favorites at breakneck speed without missing a note, Alex Turner often playing entire songs while parked at his mic, his face completely obscured by an unflappable mop of hair. So much of their repertoire consists of post-punk tunes making hairpin turns, often with breaks in between these changeups. It’s a chance for listeners to catch their breath, an absence of sound that punctuates the stuttering noise both before and after it. Live, each little pause and break is drawn out and the audience obligingly goes wild, but song after song it becomes exhausting and borders on pointless.

Which, again, isn’t to say that they don’t sound good. Turner’s best known for his rapid-fire delivery, but he’s also great to listen to when he has some lyrics to chew on, as in “Crying Lightning,” or “Cornerstone.” But it might be their take on Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand,” which trades the slow-paced original’s haunting organs and heartbeat bass for a fast-forwarded thrashing jolt of a cover, that really proves just how much they can rock. There are probably purists out there who think it’s some kind of abomination, but instead of vamping it up to cover for the song’s creepy narrative – something cheeky British youngsters such as themselves might have trouble pulling off – they play it straight, and sell it. It’s a great example of what bands are supposed to do when they play covers: love the song so much that they reinterpret it as their own. If you didn’t know about Nick Cave, you might actually think it’s one of theirs.

Other than that, crowd favorites like “This House is a Circus” and “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” were played true to form, and there’s something odd about fans who weren’t even alive in 1984 moshing to a line about doing the robot to Electro-Pop. Their only other musical deviation came during the encore’s welcome breakdown of “Florescent Adolescent,” which, at points, nearly had a sidewalk Parisian café feel. Moments like that leave you wondering how much Arctic Monkeys wants to deconstruct and rebuild what they’ve written, and how much space they actually have to do that when touring.

Openers Sleepy Suns are fun for a song. Two, tops. The male/female dynamic of two lead singers is nice, as is the steamy Louisiana night feeling they evoke, but their Blues-meets-Black-Sabbath bag of tricks runs out quickly. Shaking off a sultry, slow rock song for a rocking jam session might be cool their first, but the antic wears thin pretty quickly. But they didn’t seem to feel that way. Lead singer Rachel Willams belts out like Janis Joplin on occasion, which is probably both because of her raw talent, but also a calculated move on their part. Sure, their opening song sounds great, but you’ll hear nine similar iterations of it by the end of their set. Translation: it’s not for the sober.

-MaryKate Moran