Ecstatic Arcade Fire At The Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, Friday, October 8th, 2010 -by Alyson Camus

The Shrine is the theater where The Academy Awards used to be held before they were moved to the more modern Kodak Theater on Hollywood boulevard, but the Shrine has kept this old-time magical charm, with a fantastic decorum, half gothic-half Arabic, very rococo to play with a song title. It also has a fantastic lightning and movie projecting systems that the band used to its maximum and the result was as sonic as visual. Behind the stage was a large screen on which was projected videos to make the songs more visually alive, and their performance on stage, also filmed, was often projected in this large screen, mixing Régine or Win’s heads with old nostalgic footages. The background of the stage was filled very often with a huge picture of an urban setting, a view from under some freeways that made me think of a typical LA scene.

They arrived a little late on stage, in a bright blinding light and their first song was appropriately ‘Ready to start’ performed in front of an exotic sunset projected on the screen. A crazy and impressive energy filled the large space of the Shrine right away and nobody was still sitting on a seat at this point. There was some kind of car theme in the two following songs ‘Keep the Car Running’ and ‘No Cars Go’, six of them front stage moving the enthusiasm of the crowd higher and higher each minute, with the help of a background of a scrolling road landscape and then black and white female faces looking like coming from a Fritz Lang’s movie.

But Régine was the star of the night, yes, the set was heavy on songs featuring her light and sweet voice, and I think a big part of it was because Win mentioned something regarding his throat not doing so great, although I did not notice anything when he was singing. She gave beautiful renditions of  ‘Haiti’, ‘Empty Room’, and ‘Sprawl 2’ in a row and the audience visibly loved it, the lightning changing for each one of them, with warm oranges and acidic green palm trees for a soulful and voodoo-ish ‘Haiti’, silver blasting and striking lights for an electrified punk version of ‘Empty room’, gold and electric blue disco lights for ‘Sprawl 2’, during which Win ran into the crowd, up to the balcony, at the delight of everyone. Iman would have said that Win wanted to get the attention to himself when it was his wife’s moment, but I will pass on this. Everything was just a true feast for the ears as well as for the eyes. Then three songs later, she performed a song nobody expected, ‘In the Backseat’ from their first album ‘Funeral’, and when the moving lyrics ‘Alice died/In the night/I’ve been learning to drive/My whole life’, came from Régine’s throat with such conviction resonating in the Shrine, I thought it was her night.

‘Rococo’ may have been another highlight of the show, although there was no dull minute, but the triumphant and ascending energy of this song exploded in a loud and burning green light which made the balcony where I was seating move in waves, accompanying the oooh-oooooh-ooohs of the crowd singing-along with the band. Live, this song was like wining the biggest fight of your life, climbing the highest mountain, some true ecstatic moment if there was one.
As they did it before, they played ‘Month of May’ and ‘Rebellion’, one after the other, surrounded by chaos and furious beating silver blue lights, then ‘Power out’ was all red lights flashing in the dark and violent slashing guitars, contrasting with appeasing oooh harmonies. Just before they played it, Win joked a little bit by saying they always make fun of the city before playing this song but last night they had already made fun of the Lakers.

Before ‘Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’, Win said it was their last song, and I could not believe it, but I knew they would do an Encore. He did not speak much during the night, but nevertheless talked about ‘Partners in Health’, the great charity they have supported for a long time, who had a booth in the lobby.