Arctic Monkeys had a packed Wellington Town Hall rocking to the rafters on Tuesday night (13 Januray). The British band is in the country to begin the Big Day Out tour on Friday and kicked off with the Wellington show and a second sold-out warm-up at Auckland’s Powerstation tonight (15 January).
It was the Sheffield quartet’s first show for 13 months as they’ve taken time out for singer Alex Turner’s The Last Shadow Puppets side project and to begin recording their third album. The Monkeys started recording in California with Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme.
They debuted four songs from those sessions in Wellington as well as playing a host of hits from their two acclaimed albums. They encored with a cover of Nick Cave’s “Red Right Hand”.
It was a brilliant show and exciting taste of what this still youthful group is bringing to the Big Day Out, where they have second billing under rock legend Neil Young.