CityLife

The Last Shadow Puppets

ARCTIC Monkeys frontman Alex Turner can do many things, but one trick his new band The Last Shadow Puppets can’t pull off is making a surprise entrance. 

With a 16-piece orchestra to arrange at the back, there’s no chance of that magical, lights out moment.

So, without this theatrical tool to draw on, they arrive to an intense flurry of strings – five boys in Beatles-style black and mop tops, all looking a bit bewildered that this little side project has got so out of control.

Tellingly, there’s no money-making merchandise in the lobby, which suggests that Alex and his co-writer Miles Kane, of Wirral band The Rascals, really are just in this for the buzz.

Their show – though complex to orchestrate and requiring a whole fleet of cargo vans to take on tour – suggests it, too.

Kane and Turner exchange fittingly wide grins at the intense reception that greets them and, faced with a crowd desperate to party hard, bravely choose a down tempo opener, In My Room.

As a statement of intent, it says The Last Shadow Puppets aren’t resting on the strength of their singles, and title track The Age Of The Understatement follows soon enough, letting the band’s Scott Walker influences loose: strings howl, drums gallop and the frontmen launch into their vocal spar.

Coral-esque

The pace set, Black Plant, the Coral-esque strut of Separate But Ever Deadly and B-side Gas Dance keep things cantering along, while Calm Like You, The Chamber and new single My Mistakes Were Made For You (the strongest example of Turner’s Rotherham bard-meets-Bacharach shtick) eventually give the moshpit a moment to cool off.

Storming moments follow in the shape of David Bowie’s In The Heat Of The Morning, while a two-man, stripped bare version of the plaintive Time Has Come Again leads into shimmying closer The Meeting Place, the orchestra playing on long after the band have left the stage.

Consummate

And these boys may only be 22, but they’re both consummate professionals who know the power of hanging onto that wow moment.

Sure enough, they pull out Leonard Cohen’s Memories in the encore, showing off how far they’ve come with those much talked about harmonies (their four-part performance is breathtaking), and tucking the night in with debut single Standing Next To Me.

Anyone in any doubt that Kane and Turner’s vision is a pale pastiche of the Walker Brothers or 1960s spaghetti western soundtracks is silenced. Leaving one question: where a formidable band formed for pure bonhomie goes from here?

What’s clear is that this lot won’t let them go back to their day jobs without a fight.

What did you think of the show? Have your say.

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