Arctic Monkeys Cover the Beatles at Madison Square Garden

The Arctic Monkeys joined in the Beatles anniversary celebrations last night, kicking off the encore of their New York show with a cover of “All My Loving.”

“So apparently almost to the day, I believe, it’s 50 years since Ed Sullivan first brought the Beatles to the United States,” Alex Turner told the crowd toward the end of the band’s first ever headlining gig at Madison Square Garden.

“We thought, seeing as we’re in New York, as they were all those years ago, that we’d play a little Beatles song for you tonight. Apparently one in three Americans actually watched that performance, so if we’re lucky one or three Americans might watch this YouTube video.”

With that, the band launched into “All My Loving,” one of the three songs the Beatles played on their historic Ed Sullivan Show appearance on February 9th, 1964. Taking the pace down quite a bit from the Beatles original, the Arctic Monkeys gave the classic tune a sultrier spin. It wasn’t the first time the Sheffield rockers have used a huge venue to pay tribute to their fellow northerners: at the opening of the London 2012 Olympics, they covered “Come Together” during the event’s salute to British pop music.

Last night marked the eighth date on the Arctic Monkeys’ U.S. tour in support of their 2013 album, AM. Tomorrow night, they hit the Madison Theater in Covington, Kentucky.