THE ARCADE FIRE
27.05.2007 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
The show opens with the fall of the house lights; the audience cheers and then becomes slightly restless as monitors flicker around the stage; grainy footage of a television evangelist, a hefty southern woman in sequins, paces breathlessly and decries “people pleasers” as “butt kissers” repeating over and over again that “we have no more time, no more time” and tells women to “take off those high heels”. She rushes back and forth whipping her crowd into a hallelujah frenzy, and then fades into static.
The band arrives, and it is immediately apparent that we are in church, and they are the evangelists. They immediately, with no banter, and no introductions, slam into “No Cars Go”; the audience, surging forward as Win invites “There’s plenty of room here at the front, come on down!” Security wrestles with the crowd, and manages to push them back, but not before a few people manage to make it to the space between the front row and the stage. There is a teenage boy held back by security, just to the right of us (we are third row); he has thrown himself against the security guard, just to get those few inches closer. He is punching the air , shaking his head, screaming “I love you Win, you’re beautiful!”; he is in ecstacy. He is the perfect portrait of a pentecostal worshipper, possessed by the spirit, lost in the bliss of his god.
The evangelical theme pervades the evening, with the monitors showing distorted black and white video feeds of the band playing, switching from angle to angle, looking not at all unlike a televised revival from the fifties or sixties. A pipe organ hangs from the beams, while the scrim is a colored projection of the Neon Bible itself. Regine Chassagne plays the perfect Tammy Faye to Win Butler’s Jim Bakker. She flounces, she pouts, she engages the audience, drawing us closer, gesturing to us to sing along, cupping her hands to her mouth on “Neighborhood #1(Tunnels)”, miming the chorus. The rest of the band are the gospel choir, singing along, shouting, making it clear to us that they may be creating something tonight, in this room, but they are experiencing it just as intensely as we.
They play all of the favorites, tightly, flawlessly; rushing around, changing instruments, their energy boundless, their enthusiasm contagious. Regine dances and preens her way coquettishly through “Haiti”, her be sequined Madonna gloves catching and reflecting the light as she dances tirelessly. After “Neon Bible”, they cover “Distortions” by Clinic, and, by the end of the song, the crowd is nearly silent. Someone shouts out and is shushed by someone elsewhere in the auditorium.“I picture you in coffin’s, my baby in a coffin/ i love it when you blink your eyes... I want to know no secrets here....free of distortions.”
Towards the end of the evening, Win thanks the crowd for coming, and segues into “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)”, taking full advantage of the stage lighting, pulsing vertical bars of bright white light into the crowd. The crowd moves as a whole, fists punching the air, feet in constant motion, it seems that it may not be possible to be moved more than this moment... And then the band is jamming, slamming a crescendo onto the end of the song, and slowly, slowly, it becomes “Rebellion (Lies)”. The crowd pushes forward, again, fists in the air , punctuating the chorus of “Lies! Lies” and then Win Butler stepped off the stage.
He stumbled through the front, standing on whatever would support him; the crowd rushed to meet him, some briefly overpowering security. Win stepped over chairs, and climbed onto the back of an empty seat directly in front of us, standing not five inches away, continuing to sing, while we danced and punched the air, enraptured. He turned and headed back to the area in front of the stage where he was engulfed by fans who instead of overtaking him, supported him, helped him onto the back of a chair. Surrounded, he continued to sing, taking a camera pointed at him and turning it back on it’s owner, snapping off photos, singing into someone’s outreached cellular phone, surrounded by love, by bliss.
The atmosphere, by the end of the night, is that of pure ecstasy. My hands hurt from clapping, my throat aches from singing along, shouting, my arms ache from throwing them in the air, my feet from jumping, my legs from dancing. There was not a moment this night that we were still. I look from side to side, watching the crowd move, all of us held in place by our assigned seats. Here and there I see someone standing, arms folded, and all I can think is “How?”
editor's note: the photo above is from the prior night's show at the Sasquatch Music Fest, as we declined to take a camera into the Portland show (stupid!).
Arcade Fire/PDX, OR 5.27.07 "Distortions"
Arcade Fire/PDX, OR 5.27.07 "Rebellion (Lies)"
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