Arctic Monkeys // Hollywood Forever Cemetery, LA, 2018 – Alanah Reid
A 21-year-old girl cradles her first legal pint in the States, noticing sharp blades of grass tickling her toes on a habitually warm Californian evening. With grains of sand from the beaches of Santa Barbara forming quite an attachment with her Hawaiian shorts, the atmosphere was a far cry from messy, drunken nights out ending in taxis to High Green, Sheffield.
While spectators are encompassed by the unnerving tombs and mausoleums of Hollywood Forever Cemetery’s deceased, the intimate crowd waits eagerly for the resurrection of the Monkeys. The eerie feeling of death in the air, alongside futuristic songs depicting a resort on the moon, would make the experience one of exciting contradictions. As coolly as the breeze drifting through the palm trees, a floppy-haired Alex Turner emerges. The girl’s body avoids the touch of another when she gets on her dancing shoes, her voice belting out the lyrics she first heard on the school bus. Her worn-out lungs only take a breath when she smugly consumes unreleased tracks before her friends across the pond.
Shortly before this magical night, her life in England was laid to rest peacefully as she wheeled her rattling suitcase through the terminals of LAX. The piano notes of ‘One Point Perspective’ paralleled her feeling of a new beginning, lightyears away from familiar English hometowns.