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Arcade Fire


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Just now, Hugh Jass said:

Not really a criticism, more a humorous observation... They didn't need a smoke machine that big.

REGINE'S GONE INTO THE SMOKE BOX!!! OH GOD, SOMEONE GET HER OUT OF THERE!!! SHE'S GOING TO ASPHYXIATE!!!! WHY ARE THE BAND STILL PLAYING?! WHY WON'T THEY DO SOMETHING?????

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Oh yeah, amazing crowd. 

 

Shout out to the couple who thought they could force their way onto the barrier (and push others off it) halfway through the set because they knew someone who was there.  When the surrounding people kicked back, they awkwardly stood 3 rows back, stiff as a pole as if they'd never heard an Arcade Fire song in their life.  

 

Bizarre.

 

Other than those idiots, it was a stellar crowd.

Edited by fowls
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Wonderful night. Seen them a fair few times over the years and this was probably second best (after seeing them in 2005 - the impact of seeing them for the first time was something else).

Don't think Everything Now into Rebellion works anywhere near as good as Power Out into Rebellion and wish they'd found room for Laika. Those were the only things that stopped it from challenging for a spot on my GOAT list though. So much energy on stage and they just sound a lot heavier than on the last tour, Power Out was my highlight for that reason. New stuff like Creature Comfort sounds so much better live. 

Great venue too even if the sound wasn't always the best - felt a little like I was watching them on the Park! Minus the grass underfoot obviously. 

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It was very good. It wasn't brilliant, but it was very good. Sound was muddy, sight lines were poor, there were a lot of talkers in the crowd. But great bands always come out on top, and they definitely did. Not a patch on the Glastonbury headline set though, nowhere near. Not many bands could make me think £55 for a gig in a ditch under a bridge is worth it, but they did.

Edited by GETOFFAMYLAWN
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Found most of the crowd around me extremely annoying tbh. Very into it for the most part but being the loudest isn't always a good thing. No need to scream every word to quiet parts of songs or try to sing every instrumental or jump around to The Suburbs as if its Rage Against The Machine. 

Also people loudly talking all the way through the Love Will Tear Us Apart bit at the end was not ideal.

Edit: But it was a great performance. Enjoyed the reaction Tim's fuck up. 

Edited by bocumaroy
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3 minutes ago, jonodillieono said:

Did they sing a bit of Temptation during Afterlife or was it just the oo's?

Not sure, but doing the oos showed that they understand what they're doing in their songwriting.

"You know how Temptation has that simple little melodic hook everyone likes to sing?"
"Yeah, it's really good"
"Let's put one of those in all our songs."

And then they play Creature Comforts which is obviously their most New Order influenced song to date.  They're well aware of their influences, they're not just stumbling into this shit intuitively.  Are any of them trained in composition?

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Excellent gig, excellent venue. Loved the restart of Afterlife (not sure if they regularly do that at gigs?).

Thought the sound was a bit ropey for Everything Now though, couldn't hear a word from where I was.

They need to spread the toilets around the venue if possible rather than all in the same place too, nightmare being on the other side and needing a piss.

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15 minutes ago, ConorC said:

Excellent gig, excellent venue. Loved the restart of Afterlife (not sure if they regularly do that at gigs?).

Thought the sound was a bit ropey for Everything Now though, couldn't hear a word from where I was.

They need to spread the toilets around the venue if possible rather than all in the same place too, nightmare being on the other side and needing a piss.

I feel you with the toilets. I was absolutely dying for a piss from the 3rd song but managed to hold it together until the end, probably enhanced my dancing to be fair.

Great gig all round, agree the sound was a bit patchy at times but didn't hamper the experience for me.

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What a gig! We could see sweet eff all for the first few songs (top of the seated bit) so we went to go downstairs and managed to stand on the bottom steps. Security gave up trying to move people in the end. 

I'm guessing we weren't the only ones singing Wake Up on the way home! 

IMG_20170706_215830840.jpg

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Last night was outrageously good. Back to basics Arcade Fire doing wall to wall hits. No gimmicks - just pure energy and huge sing alongs. It was like the Karma Police moment from Tuesday extended to an entire gig! The band seemed genuinely moved too. Great weather, cool venue. Magic

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9 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Are any of them trained in composition?

Richard and Sarah have both composed solo albums (available on Spotify), though I think Sarah is just a gun for hire these days. Both their solo projects are far more classically inspired - bit odd seeing Richard sat in sweater and glasses musing about his compositions.

Edited by fowls
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9 minutes ago, fowls said:

Richard and Sarah have both composed solo albums (available on Spotify), though I think Sarah is just a gun for hire these days. Both their solo projects are far more classically inspired - bit odd seeing Richard sat in sweater and glasses musing about his compositions.

 

I think the way they arrange so many instruments shows off their compositional skills. Only band that really competed on that front for me were Menomena when Brent Knopff was still in the band (the moment he left the compositions suddenly became far less complex).

Exactly what I was thinking. It's not just the arrangements, it's the fundamental nature of the compositions that allows them to pass a melody around the band, giving a hook to the keyboards here, the guitar there and over to the strings. As evidenced by some of their covers, you can't just take any old song and do it in an "Arcade Fire Style", there just aren't enough distinct melodic ideas to do that on most songs. You certainly couldn't pass a Noel Gallagher composition around the band like that, they'd just end up doing the same melody.

It actually reminds me of Beach Boys vocal arrangements they way that the main melody (I.e. the bit the crowd sings) jumps from person to person or instrument to instrument. 

 

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17 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Exactly what I was thinking. It's not just the arrangements, it's the fundamental nature of the compositions that allows them to pass a melody around the band, giving a hook to the keyboards here, the guitar there and over to the strings. As evidenced by some of their covers, you can't just take any old song and do it in an "Arcade Fire Style", there just aren't enough distinct melodic ideas to do that on most songs. You certainly couldn't pass a Noel Gallagher composition around the band like that, they'd just end up doing the same melody.

It actually reminds me of Beach Boys vocal arrangements they way that the main melody (I.e. the bit the crowd sings) jumps from person to person or instrument to instrument. 

 

Yeah it's interesting, I remember the crowd last night spent a lot of the show singing along to little instrumental bits that I never would've thought of as a singalong sort of thing. Like basslines and little piano melodies and things. They're surprisingly distinctive. Found it a bit annoying at the time but it does show how bloody great they are!

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10 minutes ago, Mash011 said:

Yeah it's interesting, I remember the crowd last night spent a lot of the show singing along to little instrumental bits that I never would've thought of as a singalong sort of thing. Like basslines and little piano melodies and things. They're surprisingly distinctive. Found it a bit annoying at the time but it does show how bloody great they are!

It wasn't so much the singing that I found strange, it was how frequently the singing slipped into a laddish chant - it was like a Fratellis gig at times (or a night at 5th Ave...). The Ooooohs were far outnumbered by Laaaas and Duuuuhs. I've never heard that at an AF gig before.

 

I would have excused it as people not knowing the songs and grabbing onto any hook they could find (pints of lager with the lads, get a bit lairy etc), but there was plenty of singing to fairly obscure parts of songs too.

 

I found it endearing as a one off, but hope it doesn't become a habit. Very British sounding though!

Edited by fowls
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