The Montreal band Arcade Fire played a secret show on Saturday night, it was even advertised in the streets, but to fool people they used the moniker Les Identiks! Since the secret gig happened in a recording studio, the Breakglass Studio, which can only fit about 100 folks, it was probably a good idea.
According to a few posts on Facebook and Twitter, they played new songs, ‘which were generally described as fun, dance-y and groovy’, but so far no photo and no recording have surfaced as a strict no-phone-no-camera policy was reinforced at the entrance. Hey, according to someone ‘there was even a guy who had his phone thrown on the wall for trying to take a picture!!!’,… these Canadians don’t joke about it, and this may have been a little extreme if you want my input! I have never understood why bands think that a crappy 3-minute video on Youtube will prevent people from buying the album… Anyway, they played 8 songs, and some of them could be entitled ‘We is pissed? Normale personne? Tonight is going to be a good night?’ and the topic of the new album may be about mid 19th century and black people condition in US, according to a fan who was at the show and removed his post on Facebook a few hours later,… was it paranoia?? I mean, if they don't hesitate to break a phone for a picture, you have to wonder what they are able to do for revealing this!
According to someone else, the crowd ‘was a mix of friends, strangers, randoms, pop volunteers. not at all an industry thing. art installations, costumes, party vibe, songs were great!’ And the admission was free with a used CD.
Someone else said that the new songs had a ‘heavy use of percussion/rhythm section’ with 2 new touring members on percussion, and that the band played ‘only one slow song’, ‘one punk rock-ish song’ and ‘a 7-8 minute song to open the show’, … also all the songs seemed like ‘close to finished versions’.
It sounds all good, beside the phone smashing part, … we’ll see exactly what this album is about when it is released next year.