Friday, February 04, 2005
The Arcade Fire, Cat's Cradle, 1/28
I had three tickets to a sold out show, and two of them went unused. Yes, that’s right: I’m totally lame.
I drove to Carrboro last Friday night, hoping to arrive at the Cradle around 8:30, just as the doors opened. The lesson I learned Friday night is that parking spaces in Carrboro are surprisingly scarce on Friday nights. I need to keep that in mind tonight when I drive up there to see Kristen Hersh with Cross and Craig.
I finally got squared away in a bank parking lot about a quarter mile from the venue. It was a cold and breezy night, so the warmth of the club was a welcome relief. I set up camp in a nook between one of the speakers and the stage, on the left hand side. I stayed in exactly that spot for the next three and a half hours.
The crowd seemed young to me. Maybe that’s just because I’m old. Two gayish-looking (more importantly, gayish-acting) black kids stood next to me, acting (and looking) gayish. One of them was a hulking sort of thing, with at least six inches on me in both height and girth. The other one was meekly bespectacled and multiply-pierced, wearing a Pixies t-shirt, jeans, and a white leather belt. He thought it was cool to try to talk to the performers, and every time they acknowledged his outbursts, he’d feign fainting. It was so gay. And he kept it up all night.
The opening act, Final Fantasy, was certainly… different. Around 9:40, a tall, skinny blond kid with a pronounced limp walked out on the stage. He had a cane and a stool in one hand, a violin in the other. He set the stool down and took of his shoes – one red Converse high top, one white. Then he introduced himself: “Hi. My name is Owen, and I am from Toronto. I have a band called Final Fantasy. I’d like to play a few songs for you.” He then began plucking a melody on the violin, which – and here was the trick – another guy looming high over the stage in the “control room” with a laptop sequencer looped. So, the basic melody now looping, Owen played another melody, this time with a bow. That melody would be looped, too, creating a more and more complex piece, over which Owen would sing in an odd little falsetto. Sometimes he’d beat the violin, which would create a percussion track, and on at least one occasion, he screamed into his violin. It reminded me a little of some of the tracks on Notwist’s Neon Golden, but the overall sound was much different. If I were Pitchfork, I’d feel compelled to label it: "emo classi-folk… core."
It was an impressive little half hour set, and the assembled crowd took to him nicely. Owen left the stage at 10:15 to an appreciative roar.
Owen came back out on the stage at 10:40, as one of two violinists who play with the Arcade Fire. A quick look at Funeral’s liner notes tells me Owen played on the record, too. It sure does pay to network. I bet that kid sold 200 copies of his $15 CD that night. Not bad for one gig.
I’ll tell you this about The Arcade Fire: they sure do enjoy what they do for a living. Considering they played every song from Funeral, and every one of the songs on that CD has a strong undercurrent of melancholy running through it, they band was remarkably smiley. Part of it is the pure theatricality of what they do: they incorporate a great deal of performance art into what would otherwise be a straightforward rock’n’roll show. And they have a blast doing it. They seem to really be enjoying themselves, and each other, even as this potentially oppressive wall of indie success crumbles down around them.
It’s hard to label the core members of the band by what instrument they play (drummer, keyboardist, guitarist, singer, etc.), as they routinely switch instruments from song to song. The main drum kit was manned by both the girl (who also sings lead, plays keyboards AND xylophone) and a Jerry Harrison look-alike. The tall, geeky-looking redhead (“Richard,” as he pointed out to the bespectacled black kid when asked “everyone calls you Napoleon, what’s your REAL name?”) played keyboards, xylophone, upright bass, and impromptu percussion (we’ll get to that in a bit). The blonde guy who looks like Crispin Glover played three or four guitars, and the tall guy who looks a bit like a depressed Matthew Sweet plays several types of guitar and sings lead. All of them sing along to nearly every song.
Three songs stood out: Neighborhood #2 (Laika) has become their signature live track, and they performed it on Conan recently. While performing it, Richard dons a motorcycle helmet and begins beating anything he can beat (including his head, the drum kit, a plastic nativity cow, monitor speakers, walls, girders, etc.) while bouncing furiously around the stage. During this performance, he inadvertently stepped in the gap between the stage and the speaker in front of which I stood. He fell, on top of me, and I (and several others) had to help him back up on the stage. He never stopped hitting things the whole time, which made the whole experience seem kinda dangerous. Bits of drumstick splintered off and flew into my face, and a beaten, torn, and warped high hat (you can see it in the Conan clip) flew off its stand and bopped a kid next to me on the head (he was kind enough to return it to its post).
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) has earned the most radio play to date, and the crowd knew it. They sang along to every word, turning the song into a call & response exercise usually reserved for bands whose songs were released years ago... not months.
The Arcade Fire close their set with In The Backseat, which is sung by Regine (the girl, who is married to the singer guy, and who is a fine looking lady). She had some problems with her earplug filters (she kept touching her ears), and she missed her pitch a bit, but she injected a sense of drama into the performance that wound up looking like a genuine display of emotion. It was the only time during the evening that the sadness of the band’s music was really brought to the forefront. The song ended on an extended beat at 12:01 am, with each band member grabbing a percussion instrument, jumping off the front of the stage one at a time, and slowly walking through the parting crowd into the back of the venue. It was a fitting end to a truly impressive live performance.
(And to think, you could have had one of my two extra tickets!)
I drove to Carrboro last Friday night, hoping to arrive at the Cradle around 8:30, just as the doors opened. The lesson I learned Friday night is that parking spaces in Carrboro are surprisingly scarce on Friday nights. I need to keep that in mind tonight when I drive up there to see Kristen Hersh with Cross and Craig.
I finally got squared away in a bank parking lot about a quarter mile from the venue. It was a cold and breezy night, so the warmth of the club was a welcome relief. I set up camp in a nook between one of the speakers and the stage, on the left hand side. I stayed in exactly that spot for the next three and a half hours.
The crowd seemed young to me. Maybe that’s just because I’m old. Two gayish-looking (more importantly, gayish-acting) black kids stood next to me, acting (and looking) gayish. One of them was a hulking sort of thing, with at least six inches on me in both height and girth. The other one was meekly bespectacled and multiply-pierced, wearing a Pixies t-shirt, jeans, and a white leather belt. He thought it was cool to try to talk to the performers, and every time they acknowledged his outbursts, he’d feign fainting. It was so gay. And he kept it up all night.
The opening act, Final Fantasy, was certainly… different. Around 9:40, a tall, skinny blond kid with a pronounced limp walked out on the stage. He had a cane and a stool in one hand, a violin in the other. He set the stool down and took of his shoes – one red Converse high top, one white. Then he introduced himself: “Hi. My name is Owen, and I am from Toronto. I have a band called Final Fantasy. I’d like to play a few songs for you.” He then began plucking a melody on the violin, which – and here was the trick – another guy looming high over the stage in the “control room” with a laptop sequencer looped. So, the basic melody now looping, Owen played another melody, this time with a bow. That melody would be looped, too, creating a more and more complex piece, over which Owen would sing in an odd little falsetto. Sometimes he’d beat the violin, which would create a percussion track, and on at least one occasion, he screamed into his violin. It reminded me a little of some of the tracks on Notwist’s Neon Golden, but the overall sound was much different. If I were Pitchfork, I’d feel compelled to label it: "emo classi-folk… core."
It was an impressive little half hour set, and the assembled crowd took to him nicely. Owen left the stage at 10:15 to an appreciative roar.
Owen came back out on the stage at 10:40, as one of two violinists who play with the Arcade Fire. A quick look at Funeral’s liner notes tells me Owen played on the record, too. It sure does pay to network. I bet that kid sold 200 copies of his $15 CD that night. Not bad for one gig.
I’ll tell you this about The Arcade Fire: they sure do enjoy what they do for a living. Considering they played every song from Funeral, and every one of the songs on that CD has a strong undercurrent of melancholy running through it, they band was remarkably smiley. Part of it is the pure theatricality of what they do: they incorporate a great deal of performance art into what would otherwise be a straightforward rock’n’roll show. And they have a blast doing it. They seem to really be enjoying themselves, and each other, even as this potentially oppressive wall of indie success crumbles down around them.
It’s hard to label the core members of the band by what instrument they play (drummer, keyboardist, guitarist, singer, etc.), as they routinely switch instruments from song to song. The main drum kit was manned by both the girl (who also sings lead, plays keyboards AND xylophone) and a Jerry Harrison look-alike. The tall, geeky-looking redhead (“Richard,” as he pointed out to the bespectacled black kid when asked “everyone calls you Napoleon, what’s your REAL name?”) played keyboards, xylophone, upright bass, and impromptu percussion (we’ll get to that in a bit). The blonde guy who looks like Crispin Glover played three or four guitars, and the tall guy who looks a bit like a depressed Matthew Sweet plays several types of guitar and sings lead. All of them sing along to nearly every song.
Three songs stood out: Neighborhood #2 (Laika) has become their signature live track, and they performed it on Conan recently. While performing it, Richard dons a motorcycle helmet and begins beating anything he can beat (including his head, the drum kit, a plastic nativity cow, monitor speakers, walls, girders, etc.) while bouncing furiously around the stage. During this performance, he inadvertently stepped in the gap between the stage and the speaker in front of which I stood. He fell, on top of me, and I (and several others) had to help him back up on the stage. He never stopped hitting things the whole time, which made the whole experience seem kinda dangerous. Bits of drumstick splintered off and flew into my face, and a beaten, torn, and warped high hat (you can see it in the Conan clip) flew off its stand and bopped a kid next to me on the head (he was kind enough to return it to its post).
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) has earned the most radio play to date, and the crowd knew it. They sang along to every word, turning the song into a call & response exercise usually reserved for bands whose songs were released years ago... not months.
The Arcade Fire close their set with In The Backseat, which is sung by Regine (the girl, who is married to the singer guy, and who is a fine looking lady). She had some problems with her earplug filters (she kept touching her ears), and she missed her pitch a bit, but she injected a sense of drama into the performance that wound up looking like a genuine display of emotion. It was the only time during the evening that the sadness of the band’s music was really brought to the forefront. The song ended on an extended beat at 12:01 am, with each band member grabbing a percussion instrument, jumping off the front of the stage one at a time, and slowly walking through the parting crowd into the back of the venue. It was a fitting end to a truly impressive live performance.
(And to think, you could have had one of my two extra tickets!)
posted by Bill Purdy, 10:48 AM