Seven or eight years ago, I would’ve never imagined myself saying this, but I’m really impressed with how Arctic Monkeys have grown up. I’m an outlier here, but I was actually never that much of a fan of the band’s early music, and far prefer the directions they’ve explored on their last two releases, and I’d definitely argue that the band’s songwriting and Alex Turner’s sense of melody have both grown by leaps and bounds as they close in on the decade mark of their career. But, also, these guys just have just come to exude an effortless sense of a a kind of bygone version of rockstar cool. Onstage, they’re all calm and low-key confidence, deftly laying down one infectious, chunky groove after another. As expected (and, by me, appreciated) the set leaned heavily on material from last year’s AM, with a few of the old favorites sprinkled in. The bratty spark of their earlier stuff has grown up a bit, songs like “Brianstorm” having acquired more of a sense of swagger and muscle that lets it sit comfortably alongside the thump of newer stuff like “Do I Wanna Know?” On another end of the Arctic Monkeys’ current spectrum, “Fluorescent Adolescent” fit neatly in between “Knee Socks” and “One For The Road,” two of the more R&B influenced AM tracks. The sun was in its most vicious mood of the weekend during Arctic Monkeys’ set, and this version of the band thrived under it. There’s just that right amount of sweat and grit in their sound now — it’s the kind of stuff that should play in the background when you leave a seedy bar in the desert and walk out into a glaring, biting, unforgiving morning.