The Arcade Fire - at the PNE Forum
Chris. David, Stephan and I ventured out to the roller rink confines of the PNE Forum to catch The Arcade Fire. I'd heard only great things bout their live shows and I'll tell ya they didn't disappoint. We had to wait until about 7:30 before we finally breached the walls of the building and found our church pew confort seats about five rows up with a good view of the stage. Then we waited another half hour.
At 8:00 the first opening act Bell Orchestre hit the stage. The band is made up of a violin, drums, french horn, trumpet, cello and a variety of other wonderful instruments and musical devices thrown in. It was lyricless but it was amazing. They were very good and full of life and the music was very well arranged and the performance was about forty minutes of greatness. The band left to a great ovation and the lights came back up .. and again we waited.
At around 9:00 not long after the second opening act Wolf Parade came out. They unfortunately were having difficulties as they got stuck in the great traffic of BC and couldn't quite get the sound right for their set. The audio was far too loud on the instruments and the vocals just could not be heard. Regardless they sounded good for what they were and certainly couldn't be blamed for how it went down.
Finally The Arcade Fire made their way onto the stage to a huge ovation. They took their places on the simple yet beautiful set. They opened up with Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) which is one of my favourite tracks. They did it with a great energy and everything was just so perfect. They performed for what wasn't long enough but was likely a good amoun tof time. Every song just as full of energy and beautiful as the one before it. The rocked out to the singles with an energy that rocked the crowd. They left to a standing ovation before coming back for an encore. They brought up the other bands, and a girl from the stands, and performed Wake Up which was like everything else, Amazing! They left again to a bigger standing ovation one that didn't stop until they came back on for a second encore. They had run out of their own songs, he had said, so they played a New Order cover. As it ended the all had acoustic instruments and continued playiong through the crowd to the back of the forum and then back. The waved goodbye to the loudest ovation I have ever heard.
It was a wonderful set. The lead singer was vocally perfect and had some great jokes and randomness between songs. Including breaking a guitar after a song you would nay expect it to happen. We left smiling after what was a mind blowing show. We got to the car in the asians persons yard and drove towards Chris'. We were stopped by a rather attractive girl who asked if we were going downtown, we were kind of and agreed to give her and her boyfriend a ride. She sat on Davids lap and we drove them several blocks down.
After we droped them off we went over to Jacqui's apartment to watch most of Run Lola Run, which is a crazy and wonderful movie. I kind of met some people there, I am sure I will meet them all for real in time. We were all tired so we drove David to catch the late UBC B-Line and then drove back to Chris' so he could pick up his stuff. He slept here cause he had to work at the hotel like three blocks from here. I woke up he wasn't here.
It had been a pretty good week with rundandancy sandwiched between two watchings of Serenity (WOW) and the greatest live event I have ever been to. Thanks Stephan, you pick em good. :D
Rock On,
Michael
At 8:00 the first opening act Bell Orchestre hit the stage. The band is made up of a violin, drums, french horn, trumpet, cello and a variety of other wonderful instruments and musical devices thrown in. It was lyricless but it was amazing. They were very good and full of life and the music was very well arranged and the performance was about forty minutes of greatness. The band left to a great ovation and the lights came back up .. and again we waited.
At around 9:00 not long after the second opening act Wolf Parade came out. They unfortunately were having difficulties as they got stuck in the great traffic of BC and couldn't quite get the sound right for their set. The audio was far too loud on the instruments and the vocals just could not be heard. Regardless they sounded good for what they were and certainly couldn't be blamed for how it went down.
Finally The Arcade Fire made their way onto the stage to a huge ovation. They took their places on the simple yet beautiful set. They opened up with Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) which is one of my favourite tracks. They did it with a great energy and everything was just so perfect. They performed for what wasn't long enough but was likely a good amoun tof time. Every song just as full of energy and beautiful as the one before it. The rocked out to the singles with an energy that rocked the crowd. They left to a standing ovation before coming back for an encore. They brought up the other bands, and a girl from the stands, and performed Wake Up which was like everything else, Amazing! They left again to a bigger standing ovation one that didn't stop until they came back on for a second encore. They had run out of their own songs, he had said, so they played a New Order cover. As it ended the all had acoustic instruments and continued playiong through the crowd to the back of the forum and then back. The waved goodbye to the loudest ovation I have ever heard.
It was a wonderful set. The lead singer was vocally perfect and had some great jokes and randomness between songs. Including breaking a guitar after a song you would nay expect it to happen. We left smiling after what was a mind blowing show. We got to the car in the asians persons yard and drove towards Chris'. We were stopped by a rather attractive girl who asked if we were going downtown, we were kind of and agreed to give her and her boyfriend a ride. She sat on Davids lap and we drove them several blocks down.
After we droped them off we went over to Jacqui's apartment to watch most of Run Lola Run, which is a crazy and wonderful movie. I kind of met some people there, I am sure I will meet them all for real in time. We were all tired so we drove David to catch the late UBC B-Line and then drove back to Chris' so he could pick up his stuff. He slept here cause he had to work at the hotel like three blocks from here. I woke up he wasn't here.
It had been a pretty good week with rundandancy sandwiched between two watchings of Serenity (WOW) and the greatest live event I have ever been to. Thanks Stephan, you pick em good. :D
Rock On,
Michael