Is Arcade Fire trying too much? Do we need all these shenanigans to appreciate a pop-rock show? I am not sure but for Arcade Fire’s shows at The Roundhouse in London on Monday and Tuesday nights, fans were informed that formal attire or costume was ‘mandatory’. I mean I am not sure anyone who had decided to come in casual attire was turned back at the entrance, but knowing how many people want to enter these shows, who would have taken the risk to disobey Win Butler?
‘To anyone who felt uncomfortable dressing up – I’m not sorry. At least 70 percent of you are getting laid tonight… As long as you showered. That’s the secret, boys’, he said during the concert. Sure it was a joke but for some reason, it’s hard to imagine Win Butler joking, everything he says sounds so serious and solemn!
So not only Arcade Fire made you dress-up, but they also wanted people to have the full experience as some staff members were decorating the crowd with face paint and a mariachi band was there to greet people with rock classics. Too cool or too much?
Plus the band continues to play this little game, which plays like this: they aren’t really Arcade Fire, they are the Reflektors, a fake band made by art school people who pretend to play guitars and pretend to make art, mocking those who had always questioned Arcade Fire’s credibility. And when they play ‘Neighborhood #3’, they play a cover of this other band… right! Is it still funny? Should bands ask you to dress-up, paint your face and tell you they aren’t who you think they are?
Then they thanked the crowd for being number one in the charts and Win said: ‘For at least a week, the world can seem like an OK place’,… an OK place because your album is number one? I know it is a joke, but such a self-centered joke that it sounds very weird taken out of context like this. And then they covered Devo and the Clash. Don’t get me wrong I will still see Arcade Fire when I get the occasion, meaning during their next US arena tour, but I will not dress-up or do any other gimmick they will ask me to do! Come one, I want to be entertained not be the entertainer.
Plus I read this exchange between two fans on the Arcade Fire board writing about the show at the Palladium in Los Angeles:
‘Win tripped and got super pissed, so I don’t think he enjoyed the second half of the song (I think he tripped on a photographer at the base of the stage because after the song, he was yelling “Get the f out!” really angrily).’
‘It wasn’t a photographer. It was one of the stage crew guys whose job it is to hold up Win in exactly that situation. He let Win slip and when Win re-gathered himself, he looked straight at the guy and told him to “get the fuck out.” The guy quickly walked away with his tail between his legs. I felt kind of bad for him, but he was back out later.’
Hum, where is Wayne Coyne when we need him?