Someone Please Cut The Lights

Arcade Fire @ Madison Square Garden 8/4/2010

Ready To Start / Laika / No Cars Go / Haiti / No Celebration / Rococo / The Suburbs / Crown Of Love / Intervention / We Used To Wait / Power Out / Rebellion (Lies) / Month Of May / Tunnels // Keep The Car Running / Mountains Beyond Mountains / Wake Up

As can be expected, the Arcade Fire did great at their first Madison Square Garden show. I mean, duh, right? They’ve always been an arena band, and playing this show was basically them living out their destiny. I’m not really sure where they could go from here, actually, other than decline. They’re probably not going to get any bigger, and if you look at the albums, Win Butler has basically gone through his story arc in reverse: grew up in the suburbs, got alienated and decided that he doesn’t wanna live in America anymore, moved to Montreal and had meaningful experiences in the city. Unless he wants to go further back the next time around — Arcade Fire’s The Babies? — they’re going to have to dream it all up again. Or not! This show made it perfectly clear that they can dine out on Funeral for the rest of their lives.

The strange thing about this concert is that whenever the band played oldies, particularly the tracks from Funeral, the non-Win members would all be super energetic and animated. You know, they’d be doing their Arcade Fire thing, jumping around and banging on things and everyone singing and playing and moving at once. This plays very well in an arena, and that energy is reflected by the audience. However, with the exception of “Month of May,” whenever they would do songs from their new album, they all just kinda played their parts and didn’t put on much of a show. I’m not sure why they did this. Maybe they’re not confident enough in playing the new songs to indulge in theater while performing them? Maybe they don’t like those songs as much as Win does? I have no idea. I get the feeling that they’re misdirecting their energies, though — the audience doesn’t need to get more amped up for the Funeral hits, they respond to those with an intensely passionate fervor. They do, however, need to get led on the new songs, and aside from Win, the group doesn’t seem invested in doing that.

Arcade Fire “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)”

I’ve read some very harsh criticism of the new Arcade Fire album that basically makes it out to be this big blinking sign reading SUBURBS BAD, CITY GOOD. I feel like that misses the point somewhat. There’s not a lot of ambiguity on the album, but it’s not quite as reductive as that. “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” the album’s best and most aesthetically surprising song, essentially summarizes the entire record, and it’s basically the same song we’ve heard hundreds of times in rock music: “I’m bored with my life! I want to express myself! I want escape! I want excitement! I want salvation!” When I was a teenager living in the suburbs, this song was “Silent Kid,” it was “1979,” it was “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.” This is just an essential part of rock and pop music; it’s a major part of the human condition. Does the record overstate the promise of the artsy city life? Yes, of course. Does it over-romanticize the purity of youth, and state a distrust for the institutions of adult life? Sure. But this is rock music, and that’s par for the course.

“Mountains Beyond Mountains” is beautiful and effective in part because it is fairly nuanced — you get the desire to leave, the dissatisfaction with the sprawl and the malls and the endless nothing-much that characterizes so much of the space in North America, but more than anything, you hear this excitement for possibility and change. The album starts out in an idyllic rut, but it ends with this song which looks off to the future, hoping for something better. The singer is still stuck in the same old place, but she’s got a destination in mind, and suddenly the world just has more of a sparkle to it.

Buy it from Amazon.

Spoon @ Madison Square Garden 8/4/2010

Me And The Bean (Britt solo) / Nobody Gets Me But You / The Underdog / Stay Don’t Go / Trouble Comes Running / The Ghost Of You Lingers / Written In Reverse / Don’t You Evah / I Turn My Camera On / Don’t Make Me A Target / I Summon You / Jonathon Fisk / You Got Yr Cherry Bomb / Got Nuffin / Black Like Me

Spoon “Nobody Gets Me But You”

I wasn’t sure how Spoon would translate in an arena, but I think that they did pretty great. This is mostly thanks to the presence of Britt Daniel, whose swagger and charisma comes across very well without having to do anything in the way of Bono-ish antics. A horn section added oomph to a few of the songs, but they didn’t really need it — in fact, the songs that relied the most on groove were the ones that went over the best. They are ultimately more of a club and large theater band, but they play with enough style and authority that I think they could do well in most any venue. When this set ended, I was totally satisfied, and the imminent Arcade Fire set was like a bonus round.

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Owen Pallett @ Madison Square Garden 8/4/2010

This Lamb Sells Condos / This Is The Dream Of Win & Regine / Midnight Directives / Lewis Takes Action / The Butcher / The Great Elsewhere / Lewis Takes Off His Shirt

Owen Pallett “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt”

Owen Pallett is a one-man string ensemble with a pretty, delicate voice and arty. Needless to say, his music is not exactly built for arenas. Nevertheless, I think he came off well, especially given that he was playing in the “people slowly trickle into the room” time slot. I think his singing is more impressive live than on record — there’s a reedy quality to his voice that has a more appealing resonance in a big room than transmitting through small speakers. He was very charming too, which helped a lot. I find it easy to get on this guy’s side.

Buy it from Amazon.