Arcade Fire @ United Palace

Lisa, Ellen and I approached the United Palace, way uptown on Manhattan's 175th street, after a delicious meal at the Caribbean restaurant across the street. It immediately became clear that the Arcade Fire had gone through some trouble to select the perfect venue for their trio of New York shows. This theater had been converted from an old church and had its original ornately guilt decor intact. An stately setting, very appropriate for the bands about to play.



First we heard from The National, a band led by the former Silver Jews frontman. I recognized one song that I had recently downloaded, "Fake Empire" (featured below), off their upcoming full length album, The Boxer.



I enjoyed this song most of their set, but I'm not sure if this was due to its familiarity, or because it is actually one of the better songs from the new CD. I think the live setting hurt their performance some as the subtlety of their layered guitars got washed out in the reverb of the large auditorium. Regardless, I anticipate that the studio album is bound for critical success.


The Arcade Fire took the stage with a short B&W video clip of an evangelical preacher and glowing neon bible symbols as seen on the new album cover. Thus the show began with a characteristic snippet of the thinly veiled cultural commentary that permeates Neon Bible.

I'd heard a lot of praise of their live shows which apparently prompted an indie label bidding war several years ago before Funeral was released on Merge. The praise was evidently well warranted as they played an impressive and energetic show. Ten musicians spread out across the stage, making for a newly captivating spectacle at any moment. Frontman Win Butler, who recently had surgery for a throat infection, successfully struggled through vocals on the songs, adding to their passion and urgency. His wife Regina, showcased her musicianship on virtually every instrument available to them: vox, drums, violin, keyboard, hurdy-gurdy, pipe-organ and more. It almost seemed as if the band was playing musical chairs with the large assortment of instruments scattered about the stage left over from a previous performance. This notion was solidified when two other band members clambered over each other for an array of loose drums scatter across the stage during "Neighborhood #2: Laika."

Their set-list (including double encore) contained every song from Neon Bible except (thankfully) "My Body Is A Cage." And they also played about half of Funeral (though "Wake Up" was conspicuously absent). A wonderfully long set -- I couldn't have been much more satisfied with their performance throughout. These guys have really come into their own in my opinion, as demonstrated by an emphatic and well-rehearsed show. Though their sophomore effort never would have lived up to the colossal expectations of their transcendent debut (Funeral), it was still a solid effort that any band could be proud of.