Review: Arcade Fire – Montreal + Day in Montreal

Waking up to a head full of cobwebs is not the best way to start your Saturday in Montreal! We were all feeling a little rough (except for Philipp who probably had the help of the two schwarmas before heading to bed) so we took our sweet time getting ready to hit the road.

We ended up at Schwartz’s for a smoked meat sandwich which amazed me as there was no lineup and there was a table available for us! I was ecstatic! It was a good sandwich and I love the pickle I had to order on the side. Philipp was not impressed with his frankfurter as it was a weiner.

Carrie, Mike and I walked around downtown for awhile, hitting up Simons along the way where I got two pairs of jeans. Can’t go wrong. I dig Simons. It’s a trendy store and I always find good deals there. We then headed for Old Montreal where at the point in the day after three hours of walking we all decided it was time to get to a pub and have a beer. We ended up in my favourite watering hole down in Old Montreal called Les Deux Pirouettes and had some soup and beer. We were also next to the water which was nice. I would like to go at night one day as I have been told that there are a few live bands during the night.

After heading home and having a glorious pasta dish by Philipp, Carrie showed me FaceBook which is a pretty neat piece of web-ware. Mike and I then headed out to the Arcade Fire concert at the Maurice Richard Arena.

After hopping off the subway we entered this massive lineup which I quickly found out was the lineup for people who had to pick up their tix. Lucky for us, I got them mailed to us and we skipped the line. My excitement was building as I had only seen the band open for U2 in 2005 so I was interested in seeing their entire show.

Unfortunately we hit a snag. Mike showed the ticket person our tickets and she told us they weren’t floor tickets! I was dumbfounded as we walked up the stairs to the arena sitting section as we were holding general admission tickets. How is this possible? How could general admission not be the floor section?

Our answer appeared before us as the entire arena was a free-for-all. That’s right…finding two seats together was like finding a needle in a haystack. It was awful. I was really discouraged. We finally found a couple of seats near the back of the arena. On the positive side, it wasn’t a huge arena like the ScotiaBank Place or the Bell Centre…it was a local hockey rink so in the grand scheme of things, we weren’t too far away from the stage. But it was a pain when one of us had to stay with our seats at all times. Plus, they hard seats. I had to manage carrying four beer back to our seat which wasn’t accomplished without spilling a few drops on myself.

St-Vincent opened the show…it is fronted by Annie Clark who is also a member of The Polyphonic Spree and Sufjan Steven‘s touring band (info taken from their myspace site). While I was super impressed with her guitar playing, the arrangements of the songs were erratic and could have flowed better. All in all, I give her and then band a thumb up performance.

After checking out the merchandise booth and scoffing at the $30 tour poster which listed all the Canadian dates (I would only buy a $30 poster if it would just list the Montreal dates I think) I returned to the seats and waited for the lights to fall.  (Edit: In the year 2021 when I re-read this post I had a good laugh because I just bought this poster from Ebay for $100 thinking “I wonder why I never bought that poster in the first place?  Now I know!  I was frugal.)

The concert started with five small round video screens showing us a woman going on a biblical tirade which fit into the whole Neon Bible theme of the album. The band (with ten members!) appeared on stage and got into Black Mirror which is a decent tune off of the new album. The crowd on the floor was pretty intense whereas the stands were pretty lackluster. No standing up whatsoever. Seeing that my state of mind was “I NEED SLEEP!!!” I didn’t bother standing up at all either.

The sound was pretty muddy throughout the arena and Mike commented that it wasn’t loud enough. This got me wondering if this is always the case when sitting so far away from the stage as it was the same when seeing The Who in Ottawa.

I was super impressed with the set list as they pretty well played most of both the Funeral and Neon Bible albums. This is a rarity on this tour as they tend to focus more on their new album. I also read that a few tunes made their first appearance on the tour at this show so we were in for a treat! I actually got a bootleg of the concert already so I am excited to take a listen to it.

While the two percussionists weren’t as wild as the first time around in Ottawa (with ski-doo helmets and drumsticks) the entire band was full of energy – always moving around the stage and rocking out hard.

We ended up standing up near the end once Power Out and Rebellion started playing. At this point, the night took the most amazing turn. The concert had ended and the crowd just cried for more as well as singing the last refrain of Rebellion until they came back out. I was amazed that it kept up but the Arcade Fire know how to create some memorable chants in their music catalogue. They ended with My Body Is A Cage and Keep the Car Running. They then left the stage again but were called back once more because the crowd demanded it (at this point I congratulate the Montreal crowd in giving them a warm welcome home. You could feel the magic in the air at this moment in the night!) and they ended with their anthematic tune Wake Up.

All in all, I give the show two thumbs up and would probably add a third thumb if we were on the floor and if they played Black Wave. 😉 But really, these are minor points and I’m glad that we experienced this grand event.

After the concert we hopped onto the subway which was hell as I messed up and when transferring we went the wrong direction! We then had to wait awhile in the muggy, humid, stinky subway station until we finally caught one back to Philipp’s place. After having a few drinks, Carrie managed to get us in the party spirit (it was 2 in the morning!) and we headed down the street to this amazing bar where the band was unfortunately done playing but they had these great tunes from the 50s-60s playing so Carrie and I danced the rest of the night away. I also spoke to the drummer of the band who thought B.B. King had passed away last year and was in awe that I was seeing him the next night in Ottawa. We also had a good laugh looking at the drunkest man alive – you know the guy – the one who at the end of the night is struggling to finish his last beer but can’t just put it down as he had paid good money for it. But then he stumbles out of there.

We also had another Quebec treat on the way home – a nice poutine from Rapido. Mmm boy it was great!

Setlist:

• Black Mirror
• No Cars Go
• Haiti
• Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
• In The Backseat
• Une Année Sans Lumière
• The Well and The Lighthouse
• Intervention
• Ocean of Noise
• Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)
• (Antichrist Television Blues)
• Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) ->Rebellion (Lies)

Encore: My Body Is A Cage, Keep The Car Running, Wake Up