Arcade Fire have played their largest headline show to date in this country after storming Hyde Park.
Arcade Fire have reached a new level in their career. The Canadian group recently released an expanded version of their album ‘The Suburbs’ and took off on a typically massive series of concerts.
Having opened 2011 in Grammy winning style, Arcade Fire have rarely looked back. Announced earlier this year, the Canadian outfit played an enormous concert in Hyde Park last night (June 30th).
Support included Mumford & Sons, while a series of vintage cinema ads and clips from recent film ‘Scenes From The Suburbs’ acted as a warm up.
Emerging onstage to an enormous cheer from the 60,000 strong crowd Arcade Fire opened with ‘Ready To Start’. Delighted by the response, Win Butler creeped up to the mic: “I can’t tell you how happy we are to be here, this a song we normally do later in the set but I want to fucking do it now.”
Launching into ‘Wake Up’ the song took fans by surprise, given that it is normally used in the encore.
The set largely on ‘The Suburbs’ although Arcade Fire dropped in tracks from across their back catalogue. Playing ‘Month Of May’ the band pulled things back, with Win Butler declaring: “You know all the rich people who live near this field, they make sure you can’t make a little noise”.
A reference to the tight curfew placed on the concert, the remark drew cheers from the massive crowd. Ripping through ‘Keep The Car Running’ Arcade Fire finished with prawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ which makes extensive use of Regine Chassagne’s vocals.
Waving to the crowd, Arcade Fire left the stage with Win Butler hinting that it could be a while before the band tour the UK again: “Goodbye London, we’ll see you in a couple years!”
Arcade Fire played:
‘Ready To Start’
‘Wake Up’
‘No Cars Go’
‘Haïti’
‘Intervention’
‘Rococo’
‘Speaking In Tongues’
‘Crown Of Love’
‘The Suburbs’
‘Month of May’
‘Rebellion (Lies)’
‘Neighborhood #2 (Laika)’
‘We Used to Wait’
‘Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)’
‘Keep The Car Running’
‘Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’
‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’