Alex Turner was the best dressed man at Glastonbury, the Arctic Monkeys frontman disdaining the colourful scruffiness favoured by revellers to turn out in a lounge jacket and open neck shirt, as debonair as a young Bryan Ferry.
He was in fine voice too, worries about the laryngitis that had threatened a last minute cancellation fading as his fulsome croon filled the night air, gliding above his band’s angular riffs and slinky rhythms.
“Wow, the Monkeys are back on the Farm,” he declared, as if genuinely awed by the immense audience that had come out to see them.
It felt like the whole of Glastonbury was there, flying flags and firing flares. Avoiding his usual air of ironic detachment from the rock-star role, Turner vamped it up and threw guitar hero poses as he led his sleek band through a crowdpleasing set of wordy, dazzling hits.
And they really are a band, a tight unit with their own distinctive style and swagger, who all pull their weight. The sound was loud, crisp and separated, you could hear every instrument as they moved apart and locked together.
