Isn't there supposed to be an official indie rock band playing in the sold-out Frankfurt Festhalle? One that started 18 years ago with-jagged post-punk and later flirted with stoner rock and desert rock? Which, as expected, would appeal to a rather male, rather no longer youthful audience? But in front of the entrance to the Festhalle, a very young, very female audience lines up in long queues, which feeds the thesis that the salvation and future of rock music are in women's hands – at least if the music is presented as versatile as in the case of the Arctic Monkeys.

Christian Riethmüller

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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The quartet from Sheffield around the charismatic frontman Alex Turner and guitarist Jamie Cook swam on top of the last big Britpop wave with their 2006 released, now legendary debut album "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not" and the hit "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor", but unlike many other of their contemporaries, they did not remain unconditionally attached to the snotty, scratched-up guitar thrashing.

When the wave had run out, the Arctic Monkeys simply reinvented themselves, integrating hip-hop beats and soul melodies as well as earthy, sometimes even lead-heavy blues rock into their sound and no longer sounding like punks from central England, but more like an American band with the songs from their masterpiece "AM".

They have further advanced this development with their latest studio album "The Car", on which they anticipate a possible Las Vegas engagement with gently flowing lounge music and Turner's stylish coquetry with the role of the crooner, but now turn their backs on the stadium in which they arrived as festival headliners.

Depicting these different musical facets in a concert program without ending up in the general store is certainly a challenge, but one that the Arctic Monkeys master convincingly in the sonically quite delicate Festhalle, even if the almost one-hundred-minute performance does not seem to be made of one piece, but allows itself small breaks, also because the four accompanying tour musicians are not present for all 21 songs offered or the instruments are changed. There is little room for subtle moments, even if Turner sometimes sits down at the piano himself on a new song like "Big Ideas" and lets the Sinatra in him.

Turner as conductor of the events

Otherwise, however, it may remain a distant idea, as Turner and Cook swing the guitars with vehemence and bassist Nick O'Malley and drummer Matt Helders drive the band mightily, especially with the already danceable bangers like "Brianstorm", "Crying Lightning" or "Teddy Pecker" from their early albums, while Turner, with his left leg casually placed on the monitor box, how a conductor orchestrates what happens on stage.

Characterized as rather reserved and also not a friend of big audience speeches, the singer, who often owns the spotlight alone, also seems very confident in the obvious pose and at least so gripped by the enthusiasm of the audience that his thanks to the auditorium do not sound like a hollow platitude.

He doesn't have to knock out sayings anyway, but rather reminds us of his own or some kind of puberty with songs like "Do I want to Know" with its concise hookline, of the time of aching heartbreak, but also sky-high exultant feelings, which screaming out into the night together to shimmering and clanging guitars is one of the most haunting memories, regardless of whether this memory was fresh or a few years ago. To be able to screech "I want to Be Yours" in a collective union with the verses of the poet John Cooper Clarke or "R U Mine?" comes pretty close to happiness. It is also called rock music.