The Orwells Compare Arctic Monkeys To “Hip Backstreet Boys”

June 3, 2014

Illinois up-and-comers The Orwells have continued to lambast recent touring partners the Arctic Monkeys, comparing the UK indie heroes to a boy band and reiterating previous comments about the band’s live performances, which they allege are a synchronised routine right down to the banter.

Speaking to Gigwise back in April, Orwells guitarist Matt O’Keefe said that due to the size of the Arctics’ stage show, things had become routinised out of necessity. “When you’re playing arenas and everything, it’s a huge production then the show has to become synchronised to work. Because you have all these people relying on these songs and this you’re going to do here,” he explined.

“So every night no matter how he was feeling he’d go into that opening riff,” the Dirty Sheets rocker continued. “It was the exact same ad-libs he was putting between the songs. So we were with them for about fifty dates, you saw them once and you’d pretty much seen every date that they’d played.”

This didn’t jibe with Arctics frontman Alex Turner, who fired back via News Limited, “They should have been out trying to get laid instead of watching us every night.” He added that he didn’t think it was fair to call the shows “synchronised” and said it’s better not to mess with what works.

Now, while reminiscing about their support slot for the UK giants to DIY Magazine, O’Keefe opined, “They try and mash together genres. [They’re] kind of like the hip Backstreet Boys or something… the set list was always the same. If you saw the show once, you saw every show that they played. I mean, we learned lessons from good things that they did, but then also – let’s not fucking do that.”

Gallery: Arctic Monkeys – Brisbane, Entertainment Centre 07/05/14

Photos by Charlyn Cameron