Arcade Fire at the Roundhouse

The Reflektors (aka Arcade Fire)
Roundhouse, 11 November 2013 

It's been six years since I last saw Arcade Fire and since then they've become a huge arena band so I thought I would never get the chance to see them in a smaller venue again. Fortunately for me in support of their fourth album the band have been playing a bunch of not-so-secret warm-up shows as The Reflektors.
I'm sure no one was fooled by the fake band name so I was lucky to grab a ticket for the first night of two at the Roundhouse. Of course I was helped by the fact that the band, wanting the tickets to go to the fans rather than the touts (which is getting worse and worse these days), put in strict measures, much like the Radiohead and Who gigs I've been to, so only the credit card holder who originally bought the tickets could attend, otherwise I'm sure it would have been impossible to get tickets. I think this is amazing and I completely applaud them for doing this. It was also really amusing to see the few non-fans who had obviously bought tickets to resell without realising this complaining they were now stuck with tickets for a show they had no interest in going to. Full points for that Arcade Fire!

The gig was pretty short notice though, happening only a week after the tickets went on sale, and although I was excited by this sudden cool gig that dropped into my lap in my otherwise sad gigless November, there was one thing I was was slightly worried about: apparently fancy dress or formal wear was "mandatory". Yikes. Obviously I wasn't going down the fancy dress route, so I nervously picked out something I thought might pass for formal. I needn't have worried though as most people went the formal route (although there were some amazing costumes too) and there were also masks being handed out and Bowie-esque face painting going on in the lobby before the show. To add to the party atmosphere, when I walked into the Roundhouse I heard the Mexican band The Mariachis aka the Mariachi band who interpret pop classics on the Doritos TV adverts, and there they were in full traditional Mexican regalia on the balcony singing The Human League's Don't You Want Me Baby. Apparently they accompanied the band as they walked into the Roundhouse earlier playing the song Reflektor but alas I missed it.

When we were finally let into the main space again the party feel was clear: there was silver tinsel all around the walls, a huge disco ball glittering in the middle of it all, large decorative photos (which we later learned were images of Haiti taken by late photographer Alexander Joseph Gordon) and people wandering through the crowd wearing the big paper mache heads of the band as seen in the Reflektor music video (Win Butler would later make good use of his during the show). The stage itself was covered by a big curtain onto which was projected "The Reflektors" (although I don't know who they thought they were fooling at this point).This combined with the crazy costumes and people dressed up looking like they should be going to the opera made it all feel rather strange and thrilling: there was no doubt this was something out of the ordinary and rather special. 

A support band at something like this would have seemed out of place so thankfully instead the band arrived on stage just after 8.30pm with the curtain dramatically dropping to reveal them all, Win in a weird mirrored pillow mask thing and black trousers covered with drawings of eyes and his wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne in a silver and blue sparkly dress with a silver fringe that swayed as she moved. As they were playing as The Reflektors not surprisingly they opened the show with the new album's title track, Reflektor. The whole band, all ten of them!, looked and sounded awesome but it was clear that Win, and to a lesser extent Régine, are the main focus points. Butler took the microphone and leaned into the crowd, singing to us yet completely removed as only a true rock star can be. Reflektor sounds even cooler live than on record: both danceable and rocking. There were rumours that Bowie might turn up and reprise his part but alas he was a no-show, not that it mattered as the crowd were clearly utterly thrilled by the band as they were.

The set, of course, was heavy on material from the new album, which was more than fine with me as I think it's one of the best this year. Joan Of Arc and We Exist (which was played with a woman in front instructing the audience in simple dance moves - mainly arm swaying - which is a pretty fun idea even if I didn't participate) in particular already sound like classic Arcade Fire songs and Win treated us to a little a cappella My Body Is A Cage before going into new song Afterlife. In fact, one of the joys of these so-called warm-up shows is that the new songs don't sound perfect yet, the band are still getting used to playing them live and so they sound edgier and rawer to my ears and that makes them all the more exciting. Of course there are old favourites too: Chassagne beautifully swirled around streamers as she danced through Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) and Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) still sounds as frenzied and brilliant as ever but in a way it's more thrilling to hear these fresh new songs finding their way in a live setting.

Elsewhere there was a beautifully noisy Devo cover (Uncontrollable Urge), which saw Butler rocking out in his paper mache head and the Funeral track Crown Of Love, which apparently they haven't played in a long time. It was requested by the daughter of late photographer Alexander Joseph Gordon, the man whose photos of Haiti adorned the walls, and dedicated it to him. Fittingly they then ended the show with the Chassagne-sung Haiti, a homage to her homeland ("without Haiti, I wouldn't have a wife", Win told us beforehand), the final two songs bringing the band back to their beginnings.

This was a tremendously fun gig with a band that, despite being around for ten years, aren't afraid of taking chances and trying new and different things, even taking on another name. "We're a fake band," Win says at one point during the night, "formed in 90-fakety-fake" but despite what he says there was absolutely nothing fake about this amazing performance.