The Arcade Fire
There's this little local band from Montreal -- they initially set up in the next neighbourhood over from me. I had first heard of them when WXRT was talking them up a lot in Chicago circa 2007-2008, and they have been raking in the accolades the past couple years. So when Aurélie posted that they were doing a free show downtown, I figured I should go.
I... hadn't realized that Keep the car running was theirs. The lead singer doesn't enunciate enough for me to understand him much, so I had no idea what the lyrics were. However, the chorus (which is the title, and is the one thing he speaks clearly) basically echoed my feelings then, and the music was frequently playing when I was keeping the car running on the highways through Chicago; I rather associate it with that period of my life. One day, I kept the car running all the way to Montreal, and I haven't really heard the song since. So when up comes this song that meant rather a lot to me at the time, and now I'm in Montreal, their home town, and now mine; with 100,000 of my favourite fellow citizens... that was a heck of a punch in the gut. In a good way.
The band started with the lead singer, Win Butler, emitting the typical "BON-jew Mon-RAY-al!" that always gets a cheer for the effort; he also interspersed a few "MARE-see" and, as usual, didn't really go any further with the French. He was also probably stoned off his ass, and didn't really say much in English even.
Later, the lead musician, Régine Chassagne, got up and did the usual "I love this city better than all the others." But, as you may guess from the name, she did so in the local vernacular, referring to how she grew up here; obviously that got a much louder cheer. Later she was all bubbling -- in Quebec French -- like a tongue-tied teenaged fangirl about this amazing book about someone who has done great things for Haiti and it's not very well know and the book was translated to a lot of languages and for a long time you couldn't get it in French but only recently it got translated to French and we absolutely have to get it and OMG it changed her life and the book is about someone doing amazing work in Haiti and he's not well known so she hopes we'll all go read the book and could we please all welcome Paul Farmer. I'd spend most of the time of her book review (at a rock concert) wondering who this book would be about given it was obviously not about the Partners in Health guy which I think of as being hugely well known. Anyway, he then walks on stage and -- in French (obviously second-language but fluent) -- talks about how he's never had the chance to address a hundred thousand people before all at once. After a few sentences of that, he switched to what was obviously a more comfortable language for him: creole. I really rather adore this multilingual stuff.
Apart from Keep the car running, my favourite was the last number, which included lit balloons bouncing among the crowd and Chassagne singing (and dancing and playing keyboard) with the most giant happy smile on her face.
I... hadn't realized that Keep the car running was theirs. The lead singer doesn't enunciate enough for me to understand him much, so I had no idea what the lyrics were. However, the chorus (which is the title, and is the one thing he speaks clearly) basically echoed my feelings then, and the music was frequently playing when I was keeping the car running on the highways through Chicago; I rather associate it with that period of my life. One day, I kept the car running all the way to Montreal, and I haven't really heard the song since. So when up comes this song that meant rather a lot to me at the time, and now I'm in Montreal, their home town, and now mine; with 100,000 of my favourite fellow citizens... that was a heck of a punch in the gut. In a good way.
The band started with the lead singer, Win Butler, emitting the typical "BON-jew Mon-RAY-al!" that always gets a cheer for the effort; he also interspersed a few "MARE-see" and, as usual, didn't really go any further with the French. He was also probably stoned off his ass, and didn't really say much in English even.
Later, the lead musician, Régine Chassagne, got up and did the usual "I love this city better than all the others." But, as you may guess from the name, she did so in the local vernacular, referring to how she grew up here; obviously that got a much louder cheer. Later she was all bubbling -- in Quebec French -- like a tongue-tied teenaged fangirl about this amazing book about someone who has done great things for Haiti and it's not very well know and the book was translated to a lot of languages and for a long time you couldn't get it in French but only recently it got translated to French and we absolutely have to get it and OMG it changed her life and the book is about someone doing amazing work in Haiti and he's not well known so she hopes we'll all go read the book and could we please all welcome Paul Farmer. I'd spend most of the time of her book review (at a rock concert) wondering who this book would be about given it was obviously not about the Partners in Health guy which I think of as being hugely well known. Anyway, he then walks on stage and -- in French (obviously second-language but fluent) -- talks about how he's never had the chance to address a hundred thousand people before all at once. After a few sentences of that, he switched to what was obviously a more comfortable language for him: creole. I really rather adore this multilingual stuff.
Apart from Keep the car running, my favourite was the last number, which included lit balloons bouncing among the crowd and Chassagne singing (and dancing and playing keyboard) with the most giant happy smile on her face.