The next stop in the 2007 ACL Music Festival Preview tour-de-force takes us to Sheffield, UK, where Arctic Monkeys have burst onto the music scene over the past couple of years. Their first effort, Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not won the 3rd annual Jon G Album of the Year Award (quite the honor), and while the follow-up Favourite Worst Nightmare lacks that certain uniqueness that initially caused me to be a Monkeyphile, I am nonetheless waiting with bated breath for their appearance at ACL 2007.

People have formed some strong opinions of these guys (varying from “the next Beatles” to “ruiners of indie rock”), but the fact of the matter is that they’re only 21/22 years old and still learning the ways of rock stardom. When I caught them in Austin last summer, I got the impression that they didn’t really know how to hold down the stage like stars. In fact, NME described their appearance at the 2006 Reading Festival as “self-conscious” and that they failed to be “the rock stars they’ve actually earned the right to be”.

In 2007 so far, they’ve booked some pretty big gigs (including their very own “mini-festival” at the Lancashire County Cricket Grounds), and headlined Friday night at Glastonbury (no word from Jerry Blackbird on this show). Hopefully by the time they hit Zilker Park in September, they’ll be struttin’ the stage and leading a raucous crowd. I know I’ll definitely be front row center for that bad boy.