Arctic Monkeys, Milburn - Astoria, London - Thursday 6th October 2005

What can I say - a truly historic gig, and a real "I was there" event. It's already been written about endlessly since it happened, by the usual likes of NME, and XFM, as well as the majority of the broadsheet press.

For the record, the gig was better than the already very high expectations of it. I had heard a good number of Arctic Monkeys songs, but it was my first time seeing them live. I expected them to be good, but they were much, much better than that! And, most of the rest of the audience agreed - for a band that has sold only 1,000 records in their whole career, the majority of the 2,000 here tonight knew most of the words to many of the songs. For the penultimate song, the band even let the audience sing for a verse, and they knew every word.

Occasionally, you see a band live at the start of their career, and just know 100% that something really, really special is happening. The last time I felt it quite like this was at this same venue in 1994, seeing Oasis play. Arctic Monkeys deserve the comparison.

An amazing band, who are actually better than all of the hype! They will be the band of 2006.