Alex Turner has been labelled many things over the past couple of years but on stage he is nothing if not polite.
"You look lovely, by the way," he told 12,000 fans as Arctic Monkeys finally made their Sheffield Arena debut. "I just had a good look at you."
A couple of years ago the lads from High Green declared they weren't really 'an arena sort of band'.
But a lot has happened since, including a lot more shampoo judging by the longer locks. Even drummer Matt 'Agile Beast' Helders has let an Afro flourish.
The day after mixing it with new heavyweight world boxing champ David Haye on the Jonathan Ross show, the Monkeys were playing a show 10 times larger than anything they'd done previously in Sheffield.
Yet compared with their Leeds festival headliner this summer or two 50,000-a-night shows at Old Trafford last year this was a modest gathering.
It remained their biggest hometown fixture, nonetheless, and their first in more than two years.
Were you there? What did you think of the show? Let us know by adding a comment below.To put it into perspective, the hospitality boxes high above the bubbling cauldron of hardcore fans were about the size of the pub room that hosted their earliest shows.
Since then the entire world has played an Arctic role and an arena tour for third album Humbug was a practical move, even down to the big screens displaying arty live footage.
With their music also having evolved from the precocious energy of I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor and The View From The Afternoon - the spark for frantic manoeuvres around the venue - the net result was largely triumphant.
Where new songs Pretty Visitors and Cornerstone were a little lost at Leeds, undercover in Attercliffe they countered the exuberance of the likes of Brianstorm.
So while the talk in the gents was of tactics for joining the masses around the mixing desk, on stage the quartet - plus extra guitarist/keyboard player - gave a solid, sometimes dramatic and brooding account of a fast-track career.
"We will play a couple more for you, if that's all right," said Alex at the encore, punters still brushing gold ticker tape from shoulders. "We don't want to cut into your Saturday night too much."
While there have been mixed forecasts for these prodigal sons amid their stylistic shift, on this evidence plenty still want to Monkey around.
Even for a band renowned for taking modesty to new levels the sight and sound of 12,000 Sheffielders giving backing vocals to When The Sun Goes Down must have ranked as a highpoint.
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