As a large mirror ball danced above head, the crowd jumped up and down, most in their Portland-esque Doc Martens while shouting the lyrics back to the band, the energy inside the Moda Center was electric. On Sunday night, Arctic Monkeys took the stage to a nearly sold out crowd at the Rose Quarter. The band opened up with, “Sculptures of Anything Goes” off their latest release, “The Car.” While the album came out back in October of 2022, the band was finally able to hit the road to play the new songs off this album live and the crowd was eating it up.

Dressed in what truly looked to showcase their “sunday best,” lead singer Alex Turner wowed the audience with his exceptional vocals on tracks such as Teddy Picker and Arabella while additional members Jamie Cook, Nick O’Malley, and Matt Helders really brought the heat with sensational sounds on the guitar, bass and drums. An exceptional ending before the encore brought it home with a 5 minute extended outro of the track, “Body Paint” including solo’s from each member getting to leave it all out on the stage while absolutely impressing the audience with their artistic ability.

The setlist expertly touched on each of the bands era’s while slightly favoring one of the bands more popular releases from back in 2013, “AM.” Arctic Monkeys curated a night of the crowd favorites, the deep cuts, and the slow jams incredibly well. There was truly something for every type of fan no matter if you had been listening since 2006 or 2016. As the band completed the set with their ritual “R U Mine?”, the crowd screamed one last time and every person in the venue got up to cheer and dance.

Easily put, Arctic Monkeys is a band that is a must see live. They are the true definition of a rock band who have got their sound, and performance down to a science and it is truly an amazing thing to see and hear. They don't need any fancy pyro’s or confetti to make the crowd engaged or in awe, the shredding guitar riffs and catchy lyrics is more than enough to impress any goer at the show. All in all, Arctic Monkeys put on one hell of a performance. From Alex’s vocal’s sounding like a spitting image of the recorded tracks, something I was personally impressed by, to the great instrumentation you get to see live, this is a 10/10 show, no doubt about it.

Review & Photos by: Taylor Sher

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Arctic Monkeys Play a Career-Spanning Set List at Portland's Moda Center