“Saint-Saëns: The Renaissance Man” proclaimed the big screen at the first remarkable programme I attended within the 2024 Sheffield Chamber Music Festival. The same epithet could be applied to this year’s curator, Steven Isserlis, so remarkable a cellist that one forgets until coming face to face with his other talents what a unique speaker and programmer he is.

Can there be anyone from Sheffield who has not seen Standing at the Sky’s Edge, possibly several times?

Any chamber music festival that kicks off with Czech genius Martinů's Parisian jeu d'esprit ballet-sextet La revue de cuisine and ends its first concert with Saint-Saëns's glory of a Septet for trumpet, piano and strings is likely to be a winner.

In one sense you know what you’re going to bet with Róisín Murphy. Disco beats, a lot of bright colours, costume changes, goofing about, kick-arse vocals, and hats – lots and lots of hats. And yes, all that was present and correct at the Royal Albert Hall. But in another way, any given show is alien territory.

Buildings can hold memories, the three dimensions of space supplemented by the fourth of time. Ten years ago, I started every working week with a meeting in a room that, for decades, had been used to conduct autopsies – I felt a little chill occasionally, as we dissected figures rather than bodies, ghosts lingering, as they do. 

All theatre is local — if you can’t get to where a show is playing you can’t see it. That is, until a pandemic closes all theatres and forces their shows to go online.

This is a musical homecoming for Róisín Murphy, both geographically and figuratively. She may have been raised in Dublin and spent her gig-going adolescence in Manchester, but Sheffield is where she began her life as a clubber and performer – and it’s with Sheffield scene mainstay of almost four decades, and Murphy’s friend of quarter of a century, Richard “Parrot” Barratt that she’s collaborated here.

65daysofstatic, the instrumentals-only post-rock experimental band from Sheffield, have suffered from the obsessive need to brand every supposed sub-genre of music when, in their case, they are much more than a math rock or glitch band. They are instead just courageous and adventurous, searching for new ways to put sounds together. Their strength and originality lies in the fact they escape categorisation and, as the good artists they are, re-invent themselves at every turn.

So here we are. Over a decade since we all fell in love. So many light years from the rubble to the Ritz. From Sheffield to LA, where half the band is now based. And by the looks of the audience, a fair proportion has been along for the whole ride.

Not that it’s always been easy to support them. Never mind the information/action ratio, what perhaps should concern us about the Arctic Monkeys is the genius/dross ratio in evidence since that first life-changing release. They could hardly be accused of churning out all-killer/no-filler albums. And the recent decidedly difficult (almost) concept album is just as divided between exceptional and disappointing.

“Excellent albums should be awful on first listen,” wrote Jonathan Dean in GQ. True, at least four tracks on Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino have proved to be real growers – and they’re received warmly tonight. “Star Treatment” is a sly earworm and is a sturdy opener for the set. The title track, strange as it is, fascinates. “One Point Perspective” with its paranoid supposition “I suppose the singer must die” just about works in the arena setting, “Science Fiction” – more Last Shadow Puppets than Arctic Monkeys – does not (which seems to annoy singer Alex Turner – “Show me how you really feel,” he snipes at the audience response). “Four Out of Five”, closing before the encore, is already a crowd favourite, escalating as it does until 20,000 voices unite.

But – let’s face it – it’s hard to compete for affection against the older material. “Crying Lightening” and “Teddy Picker” cause mayhem in the mosh pit. Five tracks from AM are absolutely pitch perfect for the arena:  “Snap Out of It”, “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?”, “Do I Wanna Know?”, “Arabella” and encore-closer “R U Mine?”; the mystifyingly ordinary “Knee Socks”, less so.

Unsurprisingly, the band’s intoxicating exuberance has mellowed. Those loveable scraps have grown up and moved on. What’s now missing is the feeling of this really being a band. This is Turner’s show. Even the extraordinary agile beast that is drummer Matt Helders doesn’t get much of a look in, and it feels as if the “Jam of Boston” outro to “505” is there just to give him a chance to demonstrate his exceptional skills. It doesn’t look like fun. You can see why guitarist Jamie Cook suggested that the latest offering be a solo affair.

All epaulettes, no socks and ankle-length flares, Turner’s current stage alter-ego isn’t massively likeable. Large-screen close-ups appear to encourage the amateur dramatics (a small if incredibly talented man filling a huge space). While the showmanship may be a necessary antidote to the awkward old days, it seems that charm has become smarm. What cannot be faulted is the band’s musicianship. Nick O’Malley’s steady bass keeps the whole thing on course, as he hides towards the back of the stage. And Jamie Cook has less interest in the audience than all of them – he’s away with the guitar fairies. Astonishing lighting, rib-thumping acoustics and an understated yet witty set make solid the foundations for this foray.

Holding together such a disparate back catalogue and carrying a multi-generational audience along with you as you do it, is no mean feat. Most things have changed – subject, style, emphasis – but common threads are still distinguishable, not least legendary sparks of humour and an ever-present tinge of melancholy. And a desire to push the envelope more than any right-minded popular music combo should. That's why they're still the best in the game, 13 years since they first bombarded the charts. And why this audience is still in love with them.

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Overleaf: watch an hour of Arctic Monkeys live at TRNSMT Festival in July 2018

It takes a certain kind of perversity to make a true-life drama about a missing girl (Shannon Matthews) who wasn’t missing at all – the danger is that drama will be the only thing that’s missing. Neil McKay’s answer to the problem is to take a leaf out of Shane Meadows’s book of tricks and treat the whole sorry affair as a black comedy.