In case you weren't aware. There are three bands dominating the world indie stage these days.
Four years ago it was The Strokes, the White Stripes and Franz Ferdinand.
Today it is Modest Mouse, Interpol, and Arcade Fire. No, neither the Arctic Monkeys nor Bloc Party qualify.
I had only just reached the corner of Flinders and Swanston streets when it became apparent that many, many fans of Arcade Fire missed out on tickets. It was here that I first began to get hassled to sell my own to the desperate. The heckling continued all the way up Flinders, to the Forum, and around the corner, where the line to get in went further back than I could see. I noticed that majority of the people who had pleaded with me to part with my precious ticket, were middle-aged, male, fat, and Canadian. No surprise considering the band themselves are Montreal-based, but it made a stark contrast to majority of the ticket holders waiting in line. I had never seen so many indie kids in one place at one time (granted, I do not attend Pogo, St. Jerome's or shop at Savers often). The cream of the cream of Melbourne's indie crop had emerged from their bedrooms tonight, removed from their oversized headphones (but not their Wayfarers), most attired in generic indie fashion, as my housemate affectionately calls them; "storebought indie". These are my people, I feel at home amongst them. If there were one gig that would collect such a vast amount of such people, it would be this (moreso than the still-not-sold-out Interpol gig in February).
The doors opened late, and it was slow-moving to get inside. The entire journey into the actual venue, through the foyer, via the merchandise stand was rather long-winded and slow. There was no support band. Spoon had pulled out from tonight's show, but not tomorrow's. This suited me just fine, however, as I often find support bands tiresome, and judging by the myriad of instruments and contraptions set up along the entire length and width of the stage for Arcade Fire, I presume the task of setting up the stage for them would have taken a good hour after Spoon had finished.
I looked up and momentarily mistook the roof for the night sky, it was a pleasant feeling. The venue was perfect for Arcade Fire; gloomy and haunting.
When Arcade Fire took to the stage at 8.30pm precisely, the first thing that became apparent as the stage lit up, was that Arcade Fire were a big band. I know there are seven core members of the band, and tonight in addition, were three others. They covered the stage from end to end! First song in, Win Butler, the lead male singer, almost launched himself into the crowd. And the crowd in turn launched themselves at Arcade Fire, figuratively. It took only half a minute for everybody to start dancing, hand-clapping and singing. It was hard not to give in to the energy that the band gave off, even the old dude beside me was shaking his booty!
If there was one member of the band that became the 'centre' of the stage, the attenion-seeker(-and-getter), it was Win's wife, the lead female singer, Regine Chassagne, who also proved to be apt when seated in front of a drum kit, or keyboard, accordion, xylophone, and, er, hurdy-gurdy. She was full to the brim with attitude, pure attitude, it was written all over her face, when she snarled at the crowd, shouting the lyrics at us. She sure plays a mean tambourine. Yet when it came to her songs in the set, she transformed into the sweet, childish girl you would expect to be behind the gorgeous voice on Une Annee Sans Lumiere.
The two multi-instrumentalists, who switched between, to name a few; trumpet, clarinet, tuba, baritone saxaphone stayed very much in the background. Up the front, left of stage, were two violinists/celloists, who also kept their stage-presence low key. Then there was the drummer, and three others who switched between percussion, guitar, bass and synth duties amonst themselves, Win and Regine. As much as it would on their recordings, the abscence of any one of the instruments or band members would leave a gaping hole in the unique, complex, beautiful and ethereal sound that makes Arcade Fire exactly who they are.
The crowd's enthusiasm hardly waned as the band traversed through all four songs in the Neighbourhood series found on Funeral, and were particularly energentic during #3 (Power Out) (predictably so, as it's 'everybody's favourite Arcade Fire song'). As well as other old favourites Wake Up, Rebellion (Lies), Une, and newer Keep the Car Running and Black Mirror. During Neon Bible it was magical to hear the crowd cooing the chorus in hushed voices 'ne-on bi-ble, ne-on bi-ble' along with Win.
The set list was almost equally divided between Funeral and Neon Bible material, though slightly skewed towards the former.
During the latter part of the set, one got the feeling of deja vu during the songs, as if they had already played that song, but then I realised, they hadn't, it was just that Arcade Fire's songs, blasphemous as it is, all sound very alike. Is it just me or are most of their songs in the same key? Maybe that's where the sense of repetition originates.
After an hour and a quarter of blissful music, they left the stage.
In reponse, the audience began to start singing the melody from the last song that was played, to woo the band back. When they did return, for the encore, they did seem impressed by our encore tactics, and started playing along with us. Eventually, the drummer got us to stop, and they launched into their encore, consisting of No Cars Go. Exactly an hour and a half after they began, Arcade Fire left the stage, leaving their crowd well impressed and more than satisfied.
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