The owner of the Sheffield pub that hosted the Arctic Monkeys‘ first gig has shed light on a secret visit made by frontman Alex Turner.
In 2003, the band took home just £17 after playing their first ever show at The Grapes, and, to mark the 20th anniversary of debut single ‘I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor’, the pub’s landlady Ann Flynn has looked back at the gig in a new conversation with the BBC.
“Someone said to me that night, they’re going to be really, really big,” she recalled. “And I said, ‘Oh yes, we’ve all heard that before’. I had no idea they would become global – and I only like Irish music.”
That night, they performed a series of covers of Fatboy Slim, The White Stripes, The Undertones, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix tracks, as well as two scrappy early numbers, namely the ‘Ravey Ravey Ravey Club’ and the only ever performance of ‘Curtains Closed’.
Flynn said Turner had come back to the pub for a secret visit about 10 years ago as a sort of pilgrimage to the band’s early days. “He came in once and told my niece, who was working here, that he would love to just go upstairs and stand in the room where it all started.
“It was just a store room then, and he said he just wanted to walk up there and stand there again,” she said, adding that she would recognise Turner if he came in now “because he’s so handsome”.
She also called the band “lovely lads” who never forgot their roots. “They always say on TV their first gig was at The Grapes and I think that’s very gracious,” she said. “When they played in Hillsborough a few years ago they mentioned us and the pub was absolutely packed.”
Reverend & The Makers’ Jon McClure was in attendance at their first gig, and told NME his favourite memory was the boys walking onstage to James Brown’s ‘The Boss’.
“I thought that was dead cool and set them apart from other bands their age,” he told us back in 2018. “The fact they’d even know that song at 16 or whatever they were spoke volumes. It’s mega seeing them sell out venues across the world. What’s really great is to see them playing such big shows whilst making such a left field new album. People need more weird music. I’m all for it.”
The post Sheffield pub owner recalls Alex Turner’s “secret visit” – 10 years after hosting Arctic Monkeys’ first gig appeared first on NME.