Arctic Monkeys Concerts

Arctic Monkeys is a British rock band founded in Sheffield, England in 2002. The founding members were vocalist and guitarist Alex Turner (born in 1986 in Sheffield, England), drummer Matt Helders (1986, Sheffield), and bassist Andy Nicholson (also 1986, Sheffield).

The three founders were high school classmates and close friends, Turner and Helders also being neighbors. They founded the band mid-2002, and got their first Arctic Monkeys concert gig a year into their formation, in June 2003. They went with the name “Arctic Monkeys” from the get-go, perhaps a reference to the slang term “northern monkey” for people from Northern England.

The new teenage band kept doing live gigs, but also recorded a demo tape with 18 songs. They gave them away to the audience at their live Arctic Monkeys concert shows, who were sharing them with their friends over the internet. By 2004, it was widely spread across the then-popular file sharing sites. This 18-song demo tape has been dubbed “Beneath the Boardwalk” by fans of the band later on. The Arctic Monkeys also became one of the first musical acts to gain a big following on the late social media site Myspace.

With their growing grass roots popularity, the media started to report on them, even the BBC. This all ultimately led to the band signing with the London-based independent record label Domino Recording Company. They released the Arctic Monkey debut album in January 2006, with the wordy title “Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not”. It became a massive success, topping the charts in their home country of Britain, and even peaking at the #24 spot on the Billboard 200 list over in the US.

At this point, the band consisted of the three founding members, along with rhythm and lead guitarist Jamie Cook. Nicholson left the group shortly after the release of the debut album, originally naming “fatigue” as the cause. First as a temporary measure, then permanently, he was replaced by Nick O'Malley.

Since then, the Sheffield-based rockers have put out 5 more albums. The best selling among them so far has been “AM” from September 2013 with over 2.7 million copies sold worldwide. Meanwhile, the latest new Arctic Monkeys album came out in May 2018, titled “Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino”.

The biggest hits in the Arctic Monkeys setlist to date are "Fluorescent Adolescent" (2007) “505” (also 2007), “Do I Wanna Know?” (2013), and “R U Mine?” (also 2013). The band had a 3-year hiatus without any live Arctic Monkeys concert shows between March 2019 and August 2022. They finally returned to the stage in Istanbul, Turkey.