So I wake up with some Arcade Fire news… first the announcement they would play two dates at the Forum on August 1st and 2nd – and the Forum is a large place so this gives me a good chance to get a ticket – then a bit later, the news they were doing a surprise show at the Roxy,… tonight? With these scenarios, I am always a looser, but Arcade Fire make it even more complicated!
First you could win tickets by listening to Alt 98.7 all day. Great! Another opportunity for unemployed people who can listen to the radio all day long and spend the whole day hooked on the busy tone of their smart phone. This is nothing new, a lot of ‘secret show’ giveaways work this way, but there was another way to get in the Arcade Fire gig and this is where it gets tricky. Arcade Fire posted this on their Facebook wall early morning:
‘We’re playing a small show at The Roxy in Los Angeles tonight and have 30 pairs of tickets to give away. Upload your Reflektor photos to our Facebook wall or Instagram Gallery for the chance to win a pair. Winners will be contacted at 4pm PDT. http://arcadefire.com/thereflektortour’
And this is where I have a lot of problems! The link leads to a page of Instagram pictures uploaded by fans with the top recommendation:
‘UPLOAD YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS FROM THE REFLEKTOR TOUR AND INCLUDE THE HASHTAG #ARCADEFIRE OR #REFLEKTOR TO BE FEATURED IN THE ARCADE FIRE ONLINE GALLERY’
How should I take this? I am losing right away because I don’t have any Reflektor tour pictures, because I haven’t attended any of your Reflektor shows yet! This is precisely why I want to get in tonight. Does it make sense? No, Arcade Fire is only giving a chance to people who have already paid to see them?… totally unfair, I know it is a free show but it would be nice to welcome everybody for once.
I posted a picture anyway – showing the Reflektor sticker that I have pasted on the gas cap of my car since September – but then I looked at the pictures posted on Arcade Fire’s Facebook (and there were a lot of them) and I realized that these fans were beyond dedication,…wow I had absolutely no chance at all compared to these people! The Facebook thread was filled with people wearing white jackets printed just like the one worn by Win Butler, kids in homemade sophisticated costumes, holding lots of silver shiny masks and all kinds of accessories inspired by their Reflektor album. It looks like all these people were attending a Venice carnival. I had no chances. Arcade Fire fans are crafty and they have a lot of time on their hands.
Then, when I looked at the Reflektor Instagram page advertised by the band: It is a shrine to the greatest live band in the world, or at least this is the message,… look at us we are so shiny, so feast-y, so artsy, so crafty, so friendly… Do other bands have something even close to this? All I know is that you have to work very hard to get to their free shows, make funny costumes, make artsy elaborate stuff, use Instagram and all this hashtag business. I can’t sweat for this craziness, I work, and I don’t have all this time to dedicate to Arcade Fire.
On Monday night, I bet the Roxy was filled with medias and celebrities (Aaron Paul and Jake Gyllenhaal were spotted) who got in even though they didn’t really care, and many fans will stay at the door despite the amount of pandering that was going on on Twitter and Facebook. There was a no-picture-allowed policy, as usual for this kind of events, so not too many pix filtered, but I learnt that their performance at the Roxy was taped for the inaugural iHeart Music Awards Show on May 1. So yeah, nothing is left to chance with Arcade Fire, and I had no chance to get in,…. How much are these tickets for their shows at the Forum finally?
