Arctic Monkeys @ The SSE Hydro, 21 November

You can take the boy out of High Green… and, given nearly a decade of writing guitar hits and amassing a crowd big enough to fill Glasgow’s 13,000 capacity Hydro, he’ll be a completely different person. Or, he’ll have a new persona, at least. The Alex Turner who swaggers onstage before an enormous, glowing A and M, each shivering with trails of sparks, could only really open with Do I Wanna Know, writhing and twisting behind his guitar like some sort of Elvis-Bowie hybrid.

It takes about six songs for the sound to do justice to the slick sleaze of their new material, but by the time the pop-perfect backing vocals of One For The Road ring out, everything becomes crystal clear: the Turner who has by this point abandoned his guitar to sex the mic is by now, quite simply, a rock star. And whilst it’s the effortless hits of their first albums – I Bet You Look Good On the Dancefloor, Brianstorm, Fluorescent Adolescent – that still get the crowd panting, it’s the knowing charm with which they sustain the momentum, wedged in between the newer material, that secures Arctic Monkeys' right to be playing a venue this size. 

This knowingness has never been more apparent than in the encore’s slowed down, almost waltz-like rendition of Mardy Bum; somewhere between the stadium-sized lasers and confetti clouds is the band’s own realisation that this is the only version they could have played, a lighters-in-the-air tribute to the cocksure boy-next-door who’s long since left Sheffield.