Who the **** are Arctic Monkeys?

I could do this quite succinctly by saying "Wow". But I don't half like a good ramble, so I'll go into a bit more detail.

What an amazing gig that was. Me, Rob and Dave had a few oranjebooms at home (tradition) before making a move into town to meet up with Si, Leanne and a couple of her friends. Everyone was pretty damn excited - even Robs parents who we met up with in St James (the venue).

I quite enjoyed the Grates who were supporting. The lead singer bird was a bit of a mentallist but a good laugh, the songs were pretty good and the drummer girl was a total nutter.

Anyway, to the business end of things...we made our way right to the front where it was starting to get busy. After the heckling of the sound checkers and some wait the lights went out and the band came on.

I was a bit suprised when they started with Riot Van, but it worked well. I intended to try and remember a rough set list, but there was no chance of that. It really was like winding back the clock to December '94 and Oasis in Sheffield. I was 17 then, and 12 years on I was moshing (a word I don't like but have to use) like a kid again.

By the end I was soaked through (5% beer, 5% water, 90% sweat), but it was totally worth it. I'm pretty sure they played every song off the album, and about 3 or 4 others. The venue was pretty good too - an area at the front, then a raised standing area, then two tiers of seating.

There was no encore, but they finished with A Certain Romance which I hoped they would do.

Top notch performance and a bit of banter with the crowd made it a great night. I was a fraction of a man by the end, and today I feel terrible. I'm hungover, not through the booze (which I unusually didn't have that much of), but through sweating out every last drop of fluid in my body.

Just read this back and it's rubbish. Definitely not NME material. But I'm far too tired to do it all again.

In summary - this knocks Oasis '94 off the top of my best gigs ever list.