Gig review: The Last Shadow Puppets at Bridlington Spa

Granted, one of the reasons may also have been I was distracted by Alexa Chung chilling out about 100m to the side of me. Not in the toilets, obviously.

Nevertheless, everyone has moved on since then but I still always thought it was a considerable faux pas.

Fast forward a little while, and the elongated delay before seeing them was certainly worth the wait as Kane and his ‘Super’ band colleagues rocked Bridlington Spa.

There will always be some critics who argue The Last Shadow Puppets only enjoy success due to what must, presumably, be Alex Turner’s Arctic Monkeys’ reject tunes but that would be too one-dimensional a theory.

Unquestionably, Kane and Turner have their own unique imprint on their alter-egos and – given here there was none of the bizarre posturing seen of late and they ditched the 80s tracksuit vibe – it is a positive one.

They started fast; Miracle Aligner on new album Everything You’ve Come to Expect followed by the eponymous Age Of The Understatement from their classic first album, prove instant crowd pleasers.

As chants for “Miles” get louder, the Scouser’s admirers are deafened by retorts of “Yorkshire, Yorkshire”, the ‘home’ crowd clearly referring to Turner’s Sheffield roots but also another sign of how even their own fan base are sometimes left all a little confused.

However, it is fleeting; Aviation, the third single from that latest release, arrives as probably the punchiest of their new material, fully eight years on from that superb debut, and instantly unites the audience as one.

A rousing The Bourne Identity follows before the anthemic Bad Habits while their much-maligned take on The Fall’s Totally Wired actually goes down well before Only The Truth is a welcome return to 2008.

During the encore there is a fine nod to David Bowie – and the so-called “ghost” of Ziggy Stardust, who played at the same venue on June 28, 1973 – as Turner sings Moonage Daydream.

Meeting Place has always been, in my eyes, Puppets’ finest work and so, fittingly, that’s where we met at the very end.

For all those who contest the validity of The Last Shadow Puppets, it stands alone as a purely brilliant song.