Hopefully getting Arctic Monkeys tickets tomorrow. 9:30 club is ridiculously small, so there should be a bloody mad rush at 10 AM. The Sheffield quartet has steadily gained a solid fan base in the states after years of bloody nuts popularity across the pond. The week their debut was released in 2006, UK magazines dubbed the band as one of the greatest to hit rock n' roll in decades.
When you hear critics and fans making judgements with such haste, you tend to dismiss it as bullshit, feelings that will just die down in a matter of weeks. But for some reason, whatever people said about the Arctic Monkeys was spot on: they were four teen geniuses, wrapped up in a messy, volatile adolescent culture. They were ready to howl about every drunken fight with a dance club bouncer and every debatable decision with a mediocre-looking girl who suddenly became beautiful under the shoddy lighting and the influence of various substances.
What the Arctic Monkeys do better than any of their contemporaries is tell stories. Frontman Alex Turner's lyrics aren't pretentious or abstract or overly-metaphorical. He just tells of what he observes on crowded streets around him, and he tells it with flair. Turner spits out his phrases at a maddening pace, rapping and crooning while leaving any listener who isn't with him behind. It's easy to get lost in his lyrics, but when you have the persistence and the patience to keep up, you realize the genius of his storytelling, however ordinary the stories are.
UPDATE: Though tickets sold out in about 90 minutes, my friend and I were able to snag a pair. Bring on the Brits!
