Man, between LCD Soundsystem on Wednesday [mb] and Arctic Monkeys last night, the springs under the floor at the Showbox have gotten quite a workout. I hope everything holds up tonight. If not, sorry about that, Circus Contraption. We had some dancing to do.

We arrived at the Showbox just after Be Your Own PET finished, because we are the worst set time predictors in the world, and waited for our chance to wriggle into the crowd. Arctic Monkeys are at that weird point in their tour where the new album is just out, so no one really knows any of the songs, and they did an excellent job of mixing the set. The first half was filled largely with numbers off of the first album, “Dancing Shoes,” “Still Take You Home,” and the like, and after everyone was comfortable they mixed in more and more of the new songs, which are in line with the old material and fit just fine.

Alex Turner was charming as always, with his adorable Yorkshire accent and rockstar haircut, teasing the crowd in between songs. He called the shaking the floor was doing a “pleasant wobble” and taunted the people up in the bar about how they only had five songs left, so coming down into the dance party would make their evening better. I can’t say that Arctic Monkeys put on a great show, at least not in the name of being engaging, but their showmanship is so entirely beside the point; no one is there to watch them, really. Everyone is there to dance. We wound our way through to the middle of the dance party/edge of the mosh pit and proceeded to do just that right as the band stomped into “I Bet That You Look Good On The Dance Floor.” I’d be lying if I said that that moment wasn’t a little bit of show magic.

We were content to stay on the edge of the supercollider, although Josh would occasionally bound into the thick of it to indulge his moshier impulses, and I really enjoyed watching some of the worst crowd surfing I’ve ever seen.

Seriously, teenagers of Seattle, I know you don’t have much experience with this, but you’re really bad at it. I don’t mind all-ages shows, as a rule; I appreciate the fact that when the music requires it I can dance my fool ass off and you’ll be right there with me. But you’ll suck a lot less at crowd surfing if you just remember this:

1. Try to stay on your back. This should be obvious, but so many people were surfing face down last night. If you fall, you really don’t want to fall on your face. And do you honestly want to give everyone completely open access to manhandle your junk? Get down and try again.
2. Sometimes people won’t be there to move you along immediately. When this happens, do not flail. If you flail you’ll kick someone in the head, and they’ll be disinclined to help you out. Just stay relaxed. If you fall, you fall. Go with it.
3. If you’re way bigger than most of the audience, I’m sorry man, but you should probably sit this one out. No one appreciates being crushed.

Despite repeated screamed entreaties from the crowd the band never played “Perhaps Vampires is a Bit Strong, but…” and instead closed with “A Certain Romance.” They played no encore, regardless of rounds of stomping and yelling and, probably, begging. We stumbled out into the street at the relatively early hour of just after 11, slightly sweaty and worked out.