Now that the dust has settled since winning the Grammy for best album of the year for “The Suburbs,” everyone finally seems to be onboard with who Arcade Fire is. After having given everyone who was left scratching their heads, wondering, “Who are they again?” enough time to find out, Arcade Fire played in Phoenix this past Wednesday night at the sold-out Comerica Theatre.
The band looked relaxed as all eight members took the stage, yet they came completely charged and ready to rock, too. Lead-singer Win Butler looked intense, as early on he moved to the foot of the stage, peering into the depths of the crowd from beneath the bright lights overhead, baiting them almost to get as excited as he already was.
The band knew what was in store for everyone in attendance. For those who have been patiently waiting for any kind of a return since the last time Arcade Fire played in or around the Valley (at Trunk Space, reportedly seven years ago), the band could do no wrong.
Not that they could or would try to disappoint. They enjoy what they do too much to let that happen. Besides, the crowd was too eager and upbeat to let this mid-week show be anything less than what it was intended to be — what it came to be, in fact. An introduction to some, sure; but more importantly, a well deserved reunion.
Where Arcade Fire has, until recently at least, garnered mostly just critical acclaim and acknowledgement, they find themselves now in a unique situation. With an influx of new listeners, their live performances will gradually become more than what they could have possibly imagined.
Some bands, whose fan bases gradually grow over time, can reach moments in their careers where their older material not only loses ground with even their most-loyal of listeners, it also loses ground within the band itself. What separates Arcade Fire from this seemingly inevitable black hole of doom is the virtual overnight recognition that they have earned recently, even after three full-length album releases.
As many show-goers will now experience live performances of tracks from earlier releases of “Funeral,” “Neon Bible,” tracks like “Old Flame,” “No Cars Go” and “Wake Up” will certainly begin to take on a life of their own. In many ways, this resurrects the willingness, likelihood and general desire of the band to not only dig these pearls up and out for everyone to enjoy in the future, but perhaps explore more fully their own potential in future set-lists, an element of their performance that they alluded to sparingly throughout the night.
Not surprisingly, Wednesday night’s show featured a set-list heavy with tracks from “The Suburbs” album. Wasting no time at all, “Month Of May” pounded through the amplifiers with feet stompin’ fervor. Switching extremes, the hands-waving-in-the-air anthem “Rebellion (Lies)” from their first full-length album, “Funeral,” filled the tall ceilings of Comerica Theatre before the rhythmic and almost hypnotic tracks “City With No Children” and “Rococo” came forth.
Returning for a three-song encore that included “Ready To Start” and “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” wife and fellow bandmate to Butler, Régine Chassagne, cooed the crowd one last time with “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” before calling it a night.
All in all, for the novice or experienced concertgoer, Wednesday night’s show served as the proof of the pudding that Arcade Fire has been serving all along. In short, it was absolutely delicious.
Reach the reporter at jbfortne@asu.edu