Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire tonight played their fifth and final London gig of the week. The first three took place at St John's Church in Westminster and by all accounts they've been a haven for celebrity spotting. Chris Martin and Michael Eavis were both spotted earlier in the week so it's a fairly safe assumption to say that Arcade Fire will be featuring somewhere in the Glastonbury line-up this year (before Bjork on the second stage, perhaps?).

The only famous person that I managed to spot last night was Colin Greenwood from Radiohead kitted out in possibly the most unpleasant brown pin striped suit, similar to something outlandish that Frankie Detorri might wear.

Porchester Hall was a very pleasant venue and the crowd were a decent bunch too, but it was strange to think that possibly half of the people inside had paid hundreds of pounds via ebay to get in. £4 for a warm bottle of Carlsberg wasn't going to improve the budget situation. However, Arcade Fire have recently sold out 5 consecutive nights at Brixton Academy in April (and there is a pre-Glastonbury Wembley Arena date on the rumour mill) so catching them in a venue as intimate as Porchester Hall had a special edge to it.

Anyway, Arcade Fire came to the stage (what must have been at least 10 band members) sometime around 8.45pm, to a restrained audience who hadn't been warmed up by a support band, and played 3 consecutive tracks from their forthcoming album "Neon Bible". Opening the set with 'Black Mirror' the band immediately filled the modest venue with what can only be described as a massive wall of sound.

It's not surprising how full they sound when you consider the sheer number of band members. If I'm totally honest, I never did get round to counting them all as they never stopped moving and swapping instruments for long enough for me to test out my simple arithmetic.

Third on the set list tonight was 'No Cars Go', originally on their EP but given a small upgrade for the new album. This was followed by 'Haiti', one of the few tracks from their first album.

For the whole evening Win Butler, the lead singer, was in high spirits and a talkative mood. He told us how he had been awake until 10am from the previous night and that at 4am he found himself walking the streets of London following a fox for a good ten minutes. No moral to the story other than "I like foxes".

Although the new songs were all very accessible it wasn't until towards the end of the set that the gig really kicked into action. Butler thanked the crowd for being so polite saying that "politeness is a great English quality" before thrusting into Power Out.

For the first time all night there were a few crowd members pogo-ing. However, as the second verse was about to start Butler was scratching around and trying in vain to remember his lyrics. He became resigned to the fact and smirked at the crowd telling them "I always struggle to remember that line".

The band played on only for Butler to say "that's put me off the next line too!!". It wasn't until his wife, and keyboard player, Regine Chassagne came to the rescue that the song was back on the rails. Nobody minded and it was smiles all round. 'Power Out' was immediately followed by 'Rebellion (Lies)' and those who may have been drifting off to a set full of "new ones" were finally appeased.

The final song before encore was another new song called Intervention. "We were on tour and wrote this one the week before the election realising the f***ing idiot will win again" Butler said, "Ah - sweet memories". The encore was short and sharp (maybe a little pointless...) and the band came back on stage to play their final song which had a definite Springsteen strum to it. Just the one song and they were off again after what appeared to be a very low key and underwhelming encore.

However, never a band to disappoint the band re-emerged through a side door and into the crowd to play 'Wake Up' with no amplification and a couple of megaphones. The crowd sang along and I started to feel that I was in the middle of some form of religious cult. A bizarre end to an excellent gig. Arcade have slowly built their faction of committed fans but now seem set to explode with new material that seems slightly less alternative.

Set List:

Black Mirror
Keep The Car Running
No Cars Go
Haiti
Black Wave/Bad Vibrations
My Body Is A Cage
The Well and the Lighthouse
Windowsill
Power Out
Rebellion
Intervention

Antichrist Television Blues

Wake Up

FUTURE GIGS

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