About that Amazing Arcade Fire Show

Arcade Fire's view of the crowd at last thursday's show - not the work of the author

26 September 2011/ Listening to David Byrne & Brian Eno/ Apartment is hot-as-hell, Indian Summer’s a happening, but for how much longer?

About that show…

I had to be there. Work got in the way of the last two opportunities I had to see the Arcade Fire perform, so I couldn’t afford to miss it.

I got there unfashionably early and planted myself in what would later be described by various people I encountered at the concert as ‘the happy zone’ to contrast it with the many ‘angry zones’ around the Place des Festivals where people had got boxed in and forced to listen to the show while facing the opposite direction. Not the band’s fault of course, I think they prefer smaller venues.

But in part I think that may have changed last Thursday.

I was enchanted with them, their presence, their palpable joy. Despite the fact hat an poorly-placed tent and cherry picker obscured my view partially, it didn’t seem to matter. In a strange twist it seemed as if it was fundamentally more important for the band, this quintessentially Montreal concoction, to see the crowd that came to see them. I cannot imagine what it felt like to stand on that stage and see the sea of people, citizens united under a common joy, a shared sentiment expressed by Time Magazine’s ‘most intriguing of Canadian bands’ (fuck it, they’re all intriguing – Nickleback’s fan-base perhaps most of all ;-).

Like what you just read, keep on trucking by clicking this link!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.