Arcade Fire Live

Hey! A post after all this time. You know I must be excited. I saw Arcade Fire last night at Glasgow Uni’s Debating Chambers and thought it was worth a post.

There’s a lot of hyperbole about them flying around on the net and I’m reluctant to join in. However they were without doubt the best live band I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen Hue and Cry.

With a singer that looked like a young Christopher Walken and an insane Napoleon Dynamite lookalike percussionist practically every song took on an anthemic quality.

If I said that the percussionist was the most exciting member of the band you’d maybe think I they would be a dull group. But how wrong you’d be. I think he did something different for every song. Climbing the speakers to play on the balcony, cymbals, tambourines, a bass drum, the floor, a crash helmet on his head...

I’ve never seen a band before where I was just too blown away to even applaud at the end of a song.

They ended the show by jumping down from the stage and walking through the crowd, still playing their instruments out the main door.

An incredibly theatrical band they also seemed to have two live parrots in a cage in the bass drum.

When they play Glasgow again or Edinburgh for that matter go see them. You can’t fail to be disappointed.

On the downside of course I was stood next to Christendom’s biggest daftie. One of these rough Glaswegian stoaters who inexplicably love a band you’d never expect them to even have heard of.