My friend and I waited anxiously outside the Ukrainian Federation amongst about a hundred and fifty other persons ahead of us. The night was cold, with temperatures hovering around 10°F. I could barely feel my hands. To pass the time, we drank some beers, which actually kept us warm, and plotted how we were going to get in the front of the stage. Shortly before 8pm, the line started to move and people were being let in.
We immediately rushed downstairs. There, we split up. I went to coat check with our coats while he stood in the entrance line. Once we accomplished our mission downstairs, we ran upstairs where we found a row of seats, an upstairs balcony and a small area in the front where a small group gathered. We went up front and were ecstatic as to how front and centre we were. We were beyond belief. To celebrate, we took turns buying drinks.
The stage set up was simple, yet spoke volumes. There were numerous instruments all over the place. More so than usual. A bright and big neon bible adorned the center of the stage. I couldn’t find the set list, but didn’t care for it that much.
At approximately 8:45pm, Arcade Fire came on. The crowd went absolutely ballistic! The fans sitting on the seats immediately went up. The crowd in the front where I was didn’t push or shove, but instead clapped hysterically. A welcome relief to the usual.
They opened up with "My Body Is A Cage", which is a fantastic song from Neon Bible! The video captures the song at its peak, where Win's slow, melancholy voice then resonates with the "thud" of electric organs:
“Black Mirror” then followed which was a lot stronger live than in the album. “Keep the Car Running” was a tremendous surprise to me as well, with the energy just resonating throughout the song. “Antichrist Television Blues” was next, followed by a revived version of “No Cars Go.”
“Haiti” was next and Regine was as playful as ever:
She was even doing the whole “cowboy roping the cattle” motion with her arms. She was just delightful to watch. She sang again during “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” but Win took the limelight in this one.
“Windowsill” has that tremendous line about not wanting to live in America no more. After visiting Montréal twice and just experiencing the greatness that is this city, that is this country, Canada, and the people that reside there, I actually shouted “I don’t want to live in America no more.” Montréal is a fabulous city, with some of the nicest people around. I love people greeting me “Hello, bonjour.”
After “Ocean of Noise,” my friend and I shouted “Come back to San Francisco!” Win gave a puzzled look, and Richard asked to repeat what we said. I then said, “We flew all the way from San Francisco to see you guys!” And my friend said, “Come back to San Francisco!” Richard got a kick out of it. Regine then asked Richard what we said. After Richard repeated it, Regine gave us a smile.
Anyways, “Ocean of Noise” was a decoy to the insanity that is “Power Out” (video). At this point, Win went down from the stage and into the crowd. My friend and I were just going berserk at this point, and the video captures that insane moment.
We went even crazier during “Rebellion (Lies)”:
Win was again down with us and my friend and I were taking turns blindfolding one another. We shouted our hearts out as we yelled out “LIES! LIES!”
“Intervention” was just brilliant and I think this is when Win started ripping out the strings from his guitar. I hopped around like mad during the last song, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” and just shouted my heart out. Granted, I wasn’t the only one singing and shouting, the nearly 650 people in the audience were doing the same. I may have jumped the highest out of everyone though.
At this point, I knew that Arcade Fire was playing either the back of the venue or the basement. My friend and I immediately escaped the crowd in the front and tried to go to the back. However, our effforts were futile since security didn’t let us pass. Instead, we waited and listened to the security guard, in French, tell us what to do (video). I knew they had to go back up, so I wasn’t too worried. Apparently, they did “The Well and the Lighthouse” acoustically.
I was standing near the stairs when Win and the camera guy came up. In my hysteria, I put my camera on video and captured a good majority of Win, Richard and one of their trumpet players play an acoustic version of “Wake Up” (video).
At this point, with sweat running down my clothes, voice nearly gone from all the singing and aching joints from the icy cold temperatures and hopping around, I was in bliss. I can’t believe I’m this close to Win and here he is asking me for a guitar pick, laughing at me because of my horrible singing and patting him on the back every now and then. Richard told me to watch out since I almost got hit by the bow of his viola. It was just amazing. Purely amazing. Look how close I was:
After the show, I went downstairs to get a poster. As we left the Ukrainian Federation and walked outside the cold night, dripping in sweat and just plain exhausted from the concert, we couldn’t get the smiles off our faces. Maybe the cold had something to do with it, but we just couldn’t stop smiling and just recapping every minute of that show. When we found a nice bar to go to, we talked some more about Arcade Fire and how wonderful Montréal is.
If you want to see all my photos of this show, you can see them here.
Best show of the year so far.
Beer Rating: 0 Beer
2 comments:
thanks for that HAITI video. i forgot how fun they used to be
This is hilarious! Sometimes flying across two countries on a red-eye for a weekend IS worth it.
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