The started with Wake Up

The Arcade Fire began late, after the band agreed to play Conan in the 25th hour. With no time to sound check the enormous arsenal of instruments; the band took a devastating long time line checking each instrument. (There was feedback/ volume issues with all the microphones and amps scattered on stage.)
The crowd grew restless with excitement and anticipation. Dana, Matt and I had the undeserving pleasure of standing in front of loud complainers who kept miss-identifying the instruments and the reason for the show’s delay. They obviously thought they were very witty and insightful because they tried to share their observations with an entire auditorium. We received the brunt, directly in our ears at full volume, as they began to even heckle the opening act (who, ironically, they came to learn was in The Arcade Fire.) Dana and Matt tagged teamed an opposition to the wet bottomed cranky babies’ nay saying. To my delight, at least for a short time period, we were standing in comfortable silence once again.

One of the two violinists in the Arcade Fire opened for the band as Final Fantasy. He played 4 originals by playing his violin through a delay pedal, building percussion, bass, melodies and harmonies while singing. It was really quite amazing.

The Arcade Fire was astonishing. They played flawlessly. There was an impressive energy on stage as 8 musicians worked as one; a wonderful representation of the material on the album (& not on the album). The instruments included: a rack of guitars ranging from Telecasters, Gibsons to Danelectros; an electric and upright bass, an accordions, two violins, keyboards and an organ, a handful of tambourines, and a large bass tom marching band type drum. They took turns on the core instruments. I was concerned they wouldn’t represent well live with the album’s heavy instrumentation; I was impressed.

I returned home in the early hours of the morning after Dana and I experienced a life threateningly fast taxi ride across the Manhattan Bridge. While speeding precariously over the water, weaving between cars, the driver screamed into the phone about wanting to be picked up and demanding his twenty dollars back from “the bitch,” who later he said he would slap like she was a bitch. (I assumed he meant to bitch slap a lady.) I quickly removed myself from the vehicle and scurried down the sidewalk. Dana traveled solo for another block and later reported the driver running into another car when he pulled over to let her out. He blamed “the bitch” for distracting him.

I watched The Arcade Fire on Conan before going to bed and dreamed of a rack of guitars ranging from Telecasters, Gibsons to Danelectros.