Arctic Monkeys, Tame Impala, Miles Kane – Finsbury Park, London

Some gig I didn’t go to.

Rightly or wrongly I always had a feeling of “the one that got away” with the Arctic Monkeys. I had tickets to see them at the 300-capacity Chinnery’s on their last “small tour” in 2005, just before they hit the very big time, but my daughter was born the previous day so I gave the tickets away to a friend. (Probably a good idea, with or without hindsight). Instead, I’m trundling along 9 years later to see them in a fenced off part of London’s green belt with 50,000 other people, most of whom have northern accents and all of whom are off their tits.

Some gig I DID go to.

I hadn’t got a chance to see them live until I was dragged along to this behemoth of an extravaganza. Not all bad news, I thought – I’d get a chance to see Tame Impala, whose Lonerism album was stuck to my virtual record player for all of last year.

Sadly – this wasn’t the exciting experience I expected. I’ve been a bit out of the loop with these kind of “park” gigs and didn’t realise there was a “VIP area” which meant that I was unable to access the nearest 100 yards to the stage because I hadn’t paid extra on top of what was already an exorbitant ticket price. As a result I was unable to hear the subtle nuances of the psychedelic Aussie’s set due to all of the drugged-up boneheads talking and shouting at each other all around me.

The AM experience itself was workmanlike but not spectacular. Miles Kane was pretty good – I interviewed him a few years later and can confirm he is a thoroughly lovely guy.

The highlight of the evening was probably walking to the pub near the station at the end of the set. I can’t remember seeing so many drunk or drugged people wandering into the road in front of incoming traffic either. Pretty sure one of them got his arm broken by a passing car, but he soldiered on all the same.

Needless to say, my photos are not all time classics at this one.