GangstaFam said:

i think so! in the same way that bowie's music is fun. fun, catchy melodies that make you wanna bounce around coupled with lyrics that make you think.

the opening acts were both incredible, also. belle orchestre (or someting like that) and wolf parade...they were both phenomenal! orchestre is made up of members from arcade fire. some people think the band is so good that they should have been the ones to get popular rather than the arcade fire. i dunno...i just think they should all be popular!
[Edited 9/29/05 22:30pm]

SassyBritches said:

I've been hearing good things about them.

btw, how you been?

how was the show, kitty?

I know I should wait a few days to say this but...that was the best show I've seen this year. Seriously.

I'll be back again with some more thoughts

endorphin74 said:

Seguin said the same thing. She also said that now that there's no smoking at First Ave., there's no smoke to hold down the funky smell. That's almost worse than coming home stinking of smoke!

RipHer2Shreds said:

dang! it's gonna be hell on new year's eve there, then...

endorphin74 said:

Even better than Sigur Ros?

endorphin74 said:

I was at the First Ave show last night, too! It was AMAZING!!!! I didn't care for Wolf Parade, but the other band was good. The only bad part was that Arcade Fire's vocal mic sounded too low during the opening song, my favorite of theirs, "Tunnels" ("Tunnel?"). But otherwise the show was fantastic.

The show sold out very quickly. My wife and I got tickets a long time ago, and a friend of hers was able to put a buddy of mine on "the list." A good time was had by all....my favorite concert of the year...

KingSausage said:

Hey you!

GangstaFam said:

crazy, huh?!

RipHer2Shreds said:

But did she tell you the AWESOME change?!! (well, for me anyways). They are no longer barricading all the drinkers upstairs at All Age shows. They just give you a wristband and you can drink all over the place. WAHOOO!!!

KingSausage said:

I noticed that during Tunnels, but the sound was just fine from that point on.

So, did you brave the floor? Man it was packed up in there...

No...fuck....I didn't know that you could drink on the floor now. Shit! Nobody told me. They didn't even card me on the way in, as the ticket taker assumed somebody was doing it outside. So we got two X's on our hands AND a little orange bracelet. Annoying, to say the least.

But I had a spot right on the front of the railing up top, so my view was pretty good...right over by that Tetris machine, you know? I'm short, so I probably wouldn't have braved the floor anyway.

Damn that show was great. I wish I wasn't at work right now, so I could go home and listen to them...I was very happy to hear so much EP material, and "Five Years" nearly made me soul my trousers.

endorphin74 said:

KingSausage said:

Well, it sounds like you had a much better view than I had. We moved around a few times at the show and finally settled on the side of the stage, where they stack all the stage equipment. We couldn't see everything from there, but we were very close to the stage and were able to see 1/2 the band

As for the drinking thing we walked about 10 feet into the bar, I saw people with beer, I looked at the wristband and said "HALLELUJAH!"

That's hilarious...I actually looked over at that area and thought "what a terrible spot. Feel sorry for those fuckers..."

endorphin74 said:

Again,let me just give a big FUCK YOU to everyone who went to see The Arcade Fire.

I'm so fucking jealous

that is all

sermwanderer said:

here's a review to make you feel better!

Arcade Fire rocks to power of 9
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune
September 30, 2005

Having nine members in a band usually means there is either going to be a lot of soloing or somebody let the roadies and T-shirt sellers on stage.

In the case of burgeoning Canadian indie-rock band Arcade Fire -- whose concert Thursday at First Avenue sold out weeks earlier -- going from a quartet on record to a nine-piece on stage resulted in something completely mesmerizing, like a mini-orchestra full of mad-scientist musicians.

Led by husband-and-wife singers Win Butler and Regine Chassagne -- he's a mournful high-wailer like Roger Waters, and she's an animated squealer à la Björk -- the Montreal band returned to town in a position where acts such as Radiohead and the White Stripes stood years ago. The band has one acclaimed album to its name, 2004's dramatic opus "Funeral," and now the members only have to prove themselves as a live act before critics fawn over them forever.

Let the fawning begin.

Thursday's 70-minute set started with a French horn player blowing from atop the club's DJ booth, which led into the gradual crescendo of piano, violins, guitars and pulsating rhythms of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)."

Many of the songs worked that same formula, starting out mellow and haunting before building into a raging, hyper, string-fueled overture. The best ones in this batch were "Crown of Love" and "Headlights Look Like Diamonds" early in the show and "Rebellion (Lies)" before the one encore. A gorgeous and inspired cover of "Five Years," from the catalog of key Arcade Fire supporter David Bowie, also fit this mold.

A few other songs, including "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)," started out hyper and became all the more high-strung. During these tunes, the nine musicians bounced wildly between instruments and/or danced with each other like performance artists. Pretentious, yes, but this music could make a mime seem dramatic.

And then there was "Wake Up," which the band saved for an encore -- the same song U2 took the stage to at Target Center only six nights earlier (Arcade Fire also opened for the Irish quartet on tour this summer). "Wake Up" had the First Avenue crowd chanting a chorus of "ooh-ooh's" the way U2 fans do in "Pride (In the Name of Love)" -- except in this case, it wasn't the 9,563rd time, and it felt downright divine.

Fuck FUCK FUCK!!!!!

I so want to see this band again. SO much!

They're SO GOOD live, far beyond what your imagination can even conjure. In fact, I'd be willing to venture that your entire life is a meaningless shamble of steaming gorilla shit until such time that you can see The Arcade Fire in concert. They're that good.

endorphin74 said:

Told you you didn't need the lyrics. Oooh's is all you need.

("Ooze is all you need?")

KingSausage said:

Can you believe Endo just went like, "naaaah. don't think so" in the beginning?

Hehehe. I am glad BOTH of you's had such a great experience.

I just got back from the show – I’m sure the performance was excellent, but unfortunately I couldn’t tell because the sound was stunningly awful, and exceptionally LOUD – this gig was louder than the Motorhead show I saw two or three years ago (seriously). I like loud music, and I love noise-rock, but I’m not a masochist, and I feel like I’ve just gone through 70 minutes of punishment. The only time I’ve heard such poor sound quality at a major concert was at a Dylan show in ’88, and that was at an arena. This show was at the Walker, a small theatre that has excellent acoustics.

I’m trying to think of appropriate references to describe what I experienced: The section of My Bloody Valentine’s You Made me realize where the song cuts out and that glide guitar comes in, maybe…or that feedback-crazy piece of Sonic Youth’s Catholic Block…or noisy part The Beatles’ She’s So Heavy, if you took all the bottom end out and played it at maximum volume. That ought to give you an idea of the painful white noise I heard. When I looked at the surrounding people, I saw a lot of grimacing and fingers plugging up ears.

I’m really frustrated, because I was ready to fall in love with this band tonight. I like Funeral, but it’s never quite become a daily obsession with me; I was hoping that this show might be the catalyst that made me become an avid fan.

Just speculating: the band played Minneapolis last night, and it’s a 12 hour drive to Winnipeg, so perhaps there wasn’t enough time to perform an adequate sound check. During the final section of the main show and through the encore there was near-constant bass feedback as well, which I think would support the lack of sound check theory. Another possibility; I was in the balcony - perhaps there was more 'bottom end' to be found on the floor. Unlikely, I think, but I'm no expert on acoustics.

I really hate to sound like a complainer when everyone else is saying such glowing things – I realize this was not the band's fault. I’m just extremely disappointed.



EDIT - I should mention that they performed covers of State Trooper (Sprinsteen) and Queen Bitch (Bowie).
[Edited 9/30/05 23:06pm]

I'm sorry you had such horrible sound at your show! I too was going into the show hoping to get a performance that cemented my wavering love for the band, and that's just what I got. It's unfortunate you didn't get the same

Accoustics can destroy a show though. The theater we saw Beck in lastt week was the same type of thing. They have simply AWFUL sound in that place. We eventually chose to stand much further i the back of the floor as I found us a spot where the sound came together decently. Originally we were up very close to the stage but couldn't tell what was heppening as there was an icredible echo happening. From folks I know who went to that show and were in the balcony, they HATED it as the sound was just too off to be able to hear the show.

I hope you get a chance to catch them again in a better venue/better sound set-up.

HamsterHuey said:

You were sooooo right. About everything. Thanks for being such a hard-core supporter of the band. Were it not for you and all your excitement I would not have been at the show and would've missed the best performance of the year.

endorphin74 said:

Yer SO welcome. When I am excited about sumthing it often becuz of a reason, as I never amimpressed easily. I have heard TOO muchsic not to be able to hear sincerity.

At first I thought the whipped up media frenzy might proof to be a lil distracting, but this band just deserves all the attention they got.

Whoa...they did "State Trooper" last night? Sweet!!!!!