Arcade Fire & LCD Soundsystem

It may seem a peculiar place to witness the Arcade Fire live show for the first time – Columbus, Ohio – but then again, it’s not. It was actually the final stop on the indie collective’s North American tour in support of Neon Bible, and somehow it makes perfect sense to pair a state self-billed as “the heart of it all” with such visceral, maddening rock musings.

So this performance could have been seen by the band as the final countdown, but they did anything but dial it in. It’s just not in these people to trot out some half-assed tunes and duck into the truck for home. Ringleader Win Butler noted at the mic that Columbus was to be their last stand stateside for a while – two years?! – but he promised the faithful that they’d make good.

A tone was set before any of Arcade Fire’s ten players touched the stage. Startlingly, four circular screens flipped on and showed clips of various televangelists working themselves up into states of holy sweat. The screens hung parallel from the amphitheater ceiling, a couple neon bible logos glowing red around them. At first there was one preacher, and then four, their howling building to a crescendo – an ocean of noise? – as a sort of panic started to permeate this congregation.

Just in time, the band members marched to the forefront and paranoid guitar rumblings of “Black Mirror” kicked in. And that, friends, is a segue. The first track from Neon Bible gave way to the second, “Keep The Car Running,” a driving exercise in beatkeeping. Every night my dream’s the same/ Same old city with a different name. As Win Butler laid into the lyric, you knew full well that, though this song is a mainstay, he was singing an ode to the night at hand. The song’s chorus provided parishioners – err, audience members – with the first sure sing-along of this eve. There would be more, not that the band’s own energy and sound wouldn’t at times captivate to the point of dumbness.

That’s just what this crowd was rendered at certain moments, dumb if not at all deaf. “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” took off at a sprint from the start, Butler’s song-and-life partner Regine Chassagne wielding a mighty fine accordion as instruments crashed and Win sang of an older brother nee Alex who might as well have been named Laika. (Laika, as it turns out, was the name of a common cur the Soviets intended to shoot into space via Sputnik. She died after takeoff due to overheating.)

A note about the stage’s backdrop on this night: Indeed, the screens, the bibles, the panels of the drum stand all glowed an eerie neon rouge. The ongoing question is whether this is mindful of the fierce anger of some songs or l’amour itself, or both. That’s the beauty of the Arcade Fire: Their love is furious, their frustrations raucous, pressing, and the two are inextricably bound to each other.

“No Cars Go” continued the night’s heat-seeking ride. Obviously ten people can create a lot of sound. Here touring hornblowers Colin Stetson and Kelly Pratt showed their stuff, Regine traded her keys off for drumsticks, and Sarah Neufeld and Marika Anthony-Shaw’s strings swirled up and around everything for one of the night’s harmonious highlights. We know a place where no planes go/ We know a place where no ships go – the audience swayed and shuddered at these words, even as a starry night overhead revealed blinks of light from aircraft and concrete towers alike.

“Haiti” followed, and Regine took center stage on this love song to her home country. La famille Chassagne left Haiti in the �60s under a hostile regime, and the song itself is bouncy but staggering in what it harbors: All the tears and all the bodies bring about our second birth. Mrs. Arcade Fire twirled and dipped and generally lulled the crowd into a heat all its own on this number. She was sprightly and sensual without being ridiculous. (Take note, pop tartlets.)

For the record, $1 from each concert ticket went to Partners In Health’s work to aid those hard-up in Haiti, which is almost everyone with a pulse (PIH.org for more info). Indeed, spelled out in duct tape on Win’s guitar for this and most every other performance on the continental trek were the words “sak vide pa kanpe” – “That which is empty cannot stand up,” a Creole proverb speaking to Haitian poverty.

“I’m Sleeping in a Submarine” and “Ocean of Noise” made for a handy one-two punch at sea. The former reminded of a persistent theme in the Arcade Fire oeuvre, that this life can be “a cage,” while the latter extolled the crowd repeatedly to “work it out.” In particular, the mid-tempo “Ocean of Noise” was the calm before the squall.

Another harbinger of coming storm arrived in the opening pipe-organ chords of “Intervention,” Neon Bible’s centerpiece. Onlookers responded immediately with arms raised in sheer delight. It’s ironic that songs speaking to such things as “useless seed sown” and fathers forsaking their young incite such fervor where despair would seem boundless. Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home? Yep, that’s the gospel of Arcade Fire. Call it another testament to sound, to a musicality that splices through layers of despair and finds a root of hope.

Win Butler lingered on his branded leitmotif here with “(Antichrist Television Blues).” His familiar fractured yowl worked to good effect on a track that bemoans – no joke – the lives and times of the family Simpson. To wit, that’s Jessica and father Joe, et al, a pop-music Mafia out of Texas, where Win once lived. Oh, my little mockingbird, sing! The abrupt on-the-upbeat ending to the song was as theatrical live as when pressed to disc.

Keeping with that tone marrying wistfulness to loss, “The Well and the Lighthouse” charged that “the lions and the lambs ain’t sleepin’ yet” and a Funeral standout, “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” capered in its snowy soundscape of twinkling piano, groaning all about colors and ashes. Purify the colors! Purify my mind! By this point the show seemed a dream.

Not done yet. Hardly. “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” came next, and the full-throttle Arcade Fire took over for good. Backing vocals rose thousands strong behind what’s arguably Arcade Fire’s most muscular song: The power’s out in the heart of man/ Take it from your heart, put it in your hand. Swirling “woohoo”s spliced the night air as the thumping bass drum on stage became the beat inside everyone.

“Rebellion (Lies)” came and went with mild fanfare – Now here’s the moon, it’s all right! – and it’s strange to see a song that would be an anthem for a lot of other bands reduced to a cool-down number. Even so, it led into the inevitable encore. “Headlights Look Like Diamonds” emerged, the best song from the EP that ignited this band. Tell me how this story ends, Win warbled, and we the crowd rose as a swelling mass as if to say, No, you first. Perfecto. Then stage lights flashed and the crunchy guitars of “Wake Up” permeated the place, this most intimate of amphitheater venues. Every tongue present joined in: I guess we’ll just have to adjust!

Not long after they bounded to the finish and were gone for good until next time.

Curiously, Arcade Fire did not unleash either of their dramatic album closers, the sweeping “In The Backseat” or the gothic, trembling “My Body Is A Cage.” In effect, the night’s actual lowlight was that both songs were no-shows, a relatively small gripe in light of the night’s exquisite quality.

Lending support on this tour was LCD Soundsystem, a more-than-capable opener brimming with sonic flair and thick beats. The punk-funk-disco group relied heavily and smartly on its lauded 2007 release, Sound of Silver, starting with “Us Vs. Them” (replete with cowbell!) before frontman James Murphy and players launched into their best-known track, the infectious “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House.” Murphy showed off some vocal gymnastics including a fluttery falsetto and, at that, audience members who started off coolly to the band worked themselves into a frenzy.

Nancy Whang built a wall of synths and effects on latest single “Someone Great” before the grimy electro-beat of “Tribulations” came on strong. Ever manhandling the mic stand, Murphy serenaded the Columbus crowd with the cracked ballad “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down” to close out the set: Like a death of the heart/ Jesus, where do I start?/ But you’re still the one pool where I’d happily drown. Pat Mahoney’s fiendishly tight drums and some thundering guitars entered to finish the job.

It was plainly clear why these two bands get along. Their sounds differ, but they share the same innards.

No related posts.

blog comments powered by Disqus