Arcade Fire @ the Bank of America Pavilion 8.1.2010

It was my first time seeing Arcade Fire, and I just don’t know where to start. I’ll lead off with my only complaint: they didn’t play my favorite song on the new album, “Suburban War.” But, in the end, it really didn’t matter.

They played for a little over an hour and a half. The stage setup was awesome. I love their music, but didn’t know too much about them, so it was surprising to see 7 people on stage, all switching instruments every song. Some of the switches were between violin-piano, or drums-guitar-keyboards. It was incredible seeing how talented they all are, although they seem like a pretty odd bunch of people. Especially Regine, who does this weird ballerina-robot dance the whole time, and although she sings great, when she tried to speak in between songs (introducing Sprawl II) she sounded a little nuts. Regardless, the most impressive thing, to me, was how much energy and passion they put into playing these songs. It’s amazing how mellow you would think some of the songs are, particularly off of Funeral, but somehow they just go crazy and jump around and rock out playing them, without taking anything away from the song. With no audio, you’d think they were playing a set of Chili Peppers’ covers. It was great to watch.

They opened with “Ready To Start,” off of the new album, which works really well as an opener; it warmed up the crowd well. What surprised me is how they stepped into high-gear right away with “Month of May” second, which is probably the fastest, most upbeat song that they have. They just absolutely destroyed it. The performance was incredibly enthusiastic, the band was sure to let everyone know that they weren’t messing around – they were gonna give us a hell of a show. About two-thirds of the way through, after playing “Deep Blue,” I thought it was funny that Win said “sorry for confusing you with all of these new songs,” as if almost everyone there hadn’t been listening to the album on repeat since it leaked about a week ago. We were all singing along to almost every song. Of the last six songs after that point, including the two in the encore, the only new tune was “Half Light II” (which sounded great live). The other five were perfect, fan-favorite placements that had everyone singing and going crazy. “Keep the Car Running” sounded particularly spectacular live, from a vocal standpoint, while the jam that served as a seamless transition from “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” into “Rebellion (Lies)” was really spine-tingling. And, while predictable, finishing with “Wake Up” just works perfectly, with everyone shouting the chorus at the top of their lungs. The only song that gave me chills to sing along with live more than “Wake Up” was “Hey Jude” when I saw Paul McCartney last year at Fenway Park. It was a great night. I go to a lot of concerts, and it’s rare that I see someone that I haven’t seen before and have them really blow me away. This was one of those nights.