Arcade Fire, LG Arena, Birmingham 08/12/10
On the back of a number one album and headline Reading & Leeds appearances, Arcade Fire grace Birmingham as part of their sold-out UK arena tour.
Opening with ‘Ready to Start’ from new album The Suburbs, an appreciative crowd showed why Arcade Fire deserve all the status they have achieved with a rapturous reception. The old-school fans were in for a treat as six songs off debut album Funeral were aired – including early outings for ‘Haiti’ and ‘No Cars Go’. Several songs later Win dedicated the immaculate ‘Neighborhood #2 (Tunnels)’, to the crowd because we “finally had some fucking snow” which was preceded by a minute of the whole arena singing the “ooh’s” after the song had finished.
The Suburbs featured heavily in this tour and ‘Sprawl II’, ‘Empty Room’, the sing-along ‘Rococo’ and the hit single Arcade Fire finally deserved, ‘We Used To Wait’ were all played note-perfect; and after some more words of inspiration from Win comparing Montreal to Birmingham – ‘Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)’ was explosive, energetic, frenetic and imposing; probably the best song I’ve ever heard live.
The perfect pre-encore song ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ had the crowd jumping and clapping for more before the inevitable. On their return, ‘Keep the Car Running’ was abundant in quality and set closer ‘Wake Up’ now holds connotations of the loudest sing-a-long I’ve ever heard.
Tonight, Arcade Fire proved why they are the best live band in existence, and based on this performance that’s not about to change any time soon.
Photo by Mark Salmon
Founding editor of Counteract. Freelance travel and music journalist.
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