Review: Arcade Fire - UIC Pavilion, Chicago

By Jon Stone |@jwstone - April 27, 2011

My relationship with Arcade Fire has, for years, been a conflicted one: The hype. The swagger. The spectacle. The brilliance. All of it has fascinated, confused, and at times chaffed at my music sensibilities. Perhaps it is because if Funeral had come out in 1994 instead of 2004, it would have been precisely the kind of record I would have been hopeless for: room plastered with posters, hand-drawn reproductions of the current "Arcade Fire" font on my notebooks, matching Win Butler haircut. In 2004, though, I was reevaluating my obsessions with bands and artists -- like Win, my older heart had grown colder. So, instead of adulation I hung back, like a cynical, aging, hipster-in-denial. "Mtv, what have you done to me?"

Truth be told, Arcade Fire kind of frighten me. Like many, I find their menacing steampunk appearance and the stark cultural critique on all three records eerily prophetic and often bitingly so. But the critic in me is tempted to downplay prescience and focus instead on posturing. Confidence, especially in a large, mulit-membered band, usually plays publicly as hubris. It's been hard not to see Arcade Fire through that lens.

My perspective, though, is shifting. Since The Suburbs was released last year I've been watching and listening more closely to the band. Somewhere between Win and Will's goofy but upbeat interview on NPR last May when "Month of May" and "The Suburbs" were premiered, Richard Reed Perry's smiley appearance on stage with the National at the pre-Lolla show at the House of Blues, and, most of all, the band's devotion to Haiti through organizations like Kanpe and Partners in Health, I've become convinced that they aren't obsessively self-centered. They may even possess humility, which among arena rock stars, is a rare and precious gem. Humble confidence, it turns out, may be the perfect paradox for summing up a band like Arcade Fire.

Last night, Arcade Fire closed out their three-day residency at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago. The National opened the show with a short but intense set (see set list below). And while anyone who is a fan of The National would agree that we'd rather see them with the freedom of the headliner, they were gracious. They kept what could have been a show-stealing performance within respectful bounds. In other words, Matt (sadly) didn't come unglued. Both Richie and Win joined them on stage during their set, the latter for some lovely harmonies on "Start a War."

Without expecting it, Arcade Fire came out and blew me away. It's that simple. Maybe it was the fact that I spent the first three songs of the show in the photo pit two feet away and snapping as many pictures as I could. Those first three songs, "Ready to Start," "Keep the Car Running," and "Haiti" will be seared in my memory. It was one of the most thrilling moments of my concert-going career. Post photo-pit, I had to move out to my more conservative (but still great) seat in the bleachers where I enjoyed the rest of the show. I quite like that perspective. Watching the crowd go all dance-party when "Wake Up" shifts from anthem into "You-can't-hurry-love" sock hop was a priceless thing to witness.

I'm also finding that it's the moments -- the details --  that make a live performance: The white pants and unrelenting energy of Will Butler; the extended phone-off-the-hook piano intro on "We Used to Wait"; the moment when I looked around fruitlessly for the horn section during "No Cars Go" only to realize it was Régine Chassagne's accordion(!). They closed the main set with Funeral's "Rebellion (Lies)" and my favorite moment of the night, perhaps, was when, after the band left the stage, the crowd continued to sing the little violin melody that closes that song. The stage was dark, the band absent, but the audience was unified by a single stirring little melody. Loved it.

The whole show, really, was one of the best in recent memory.

Additional hi-res photos from the show can be found here.

I've been looking at the set lists from all three nights, and while the order shifted around a bit, there were only small deviations. Monday we got "Empty Room" and "Suburban War", Sunday's set included "City With No Children" and "My Body is a Cage" (two of my favorites. darn!), and on Friday they played "Sprawl I (Flatland)", which, I believe, was its live debut.

Arcade Fire's setlist: Ready to Start / Keep the Car Running / Haïti / Rococo / Empty Room / Suburban War / The Suburbs / The Suburbs (Continued) / Month of May / Neighborhood #2 (Laika) / No Cars Go / Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) / We Used to Wait / Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) / Rebellion (Lies) Encore: Intervention / Wake Up / Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

The National's setlist: Anyone's Ghost / Secret Meeting / Bloodbuzz Ohio / Slow Show / Squalor Victoria / Afraid Of Everyone / Conversation 16 / Apartment Story / Driver, Surprise Me / Fake Empire / Start A War / Mr. November/ Terrible Love

Review: The Antlers - House of Blues, Chicago

By Jon Stone | @jwstone - August 13, 2010

Last Saturday night, after a long day in the sun at Lollapalooza, I walked the six or so city blocks from where I was staying in Chicago to the House of Blues for the pre-Lolla appearance of The Antlers and The National. The House of Blues, notorious for its Vegas-esque swank and commercialized kitsch is situated on one of the prettiest corners of Chicago, right across the river from Dearborn and Wacker and at the foot of the Wilco-famous Marina Towers. It’s quite a beautiful place to be out walking especially on a clear summer night.

The show didn’t start until 11pm, and after being deer-tagged incorrectly, they wouldn’t let me up to my balcony seat until I went back (twice) to get the right wristband on. The main room at the House of Blues (there is a “back porch” room too) has a mid-sized foor area with two balconies that are mostly standing room only. I wasn’t down in the pit, but from my position on the first balcony, I seemed to be looking directly down on the stage. So, for all its over-the-top “we-are-the-rock-&-roll venue” posturing, I have to say that there isn’t really a bad seat in the house (of blues).

The venue sounds really great too, so they myst be doing something right. It was the first thing I noticed when The Antlers took the stage and fired into “Kettering” from last years’ Hospice. I saw them in the Spring and was still pretty on the fence then about whether or not I thought they have the staying-power they are going to need to last. After Saturday’s performance, I’m beginning to think that, indeed, they do.

Maybe it’s been touring with the National that has launched these guys into a new level, but something felt different on Saturday than it had earlier in the year. It wasn’t that the quality of their sound had improved, necessarily. In fact, lead-man Peter Silberman had a rasp in voice when he shot for some of his stratospheric high notes that can only be the indication of touring nearly incessantly for the last two years. Rather, there was certain confidence in their performance. Hospice is a thematically heavy record – one that might lend it self to timidity, or airlessness after so many nightly performed repetitions. Saturday night, though, the music seemed fresh. The highs and lows of “Sylvia” and the story of “Two” both made the goose bumps rise and when that kind of internalization occurs, I know that (at least for me) a band is onto something special.

Again, I can’t help but think about this band’s future. Albums like Hospice are brilliant but risky because of their cohesive “concept.” The songs hang together so well; they pick up on one another’s lyrics and emotion and in a lot of ways rely on each other for the full emotional impact. But this can be frustrating for some folks. The girl I stood next to said she had seen The Antlers play several times, but the songs all kind of blurred together. I can empathize with this sentiment. I think what needs to follow for this band – to push things to the next level, so to speak – is a record that packs the same kind of emotional impact as Hospice, but does so in a way that single songs can stand on their own and survive in the wild as distinct entities. The National’s “Mr. November,” for example, is a brilliant closer for the band’s record Alligator, but it also works anthemically for the band’s diverse live sets which contain songs across the National’s catalog. Pull that off, Antlers, and I think you’re here to stay.

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A few brief words about the National’s set that followed. I’ve seen them play now four times and save for that first performance – which initiated me into complete and utter fandom -- the House of Blues was the best I’ve ever seen them. Matt Barninger seemed in an especially good mood and the band joked their way through most of the set announcing several songs by saying, “Alright, this is our party song.” Like he would the next day at Lolla, Richard Reed Parry joined them onstage for all of the songs from High Violet. He was barefoot and all smiles and very different than the crazed, costume-wearing member of Arcade Fire that I would see the next night.

The song that stuck out for me at both this show and the one that would follow the next day was “Apartment Story” from Boxer. It's a simple tune but has that great, classic-U2ish chorus ("Tired and wired we ruin too easy” and the line “we’ll stay inside  till somebody finds us, do whatever the TV tells us… so worry not, all things are well, we’ll be alright, we have our looks and perfume on..” I love the imagery here and the rare positivity followed immediately with irony. This is why The National is an amazing band. Four times isn't enough. I can't wait to see them again.

Here’s the setlist for the evening:

Runaway / Afraid of Everyone / Brainy / Mistaken for Strangers / Anyone’s Ghost / Bloodbuzz Ohio / Squalor Victoria / Available / Conversation 16 / Sorrow / Apartment Story / Abel / England / Fake Empire / (encore) Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks / Secret Meeting / Mr. November / Terrible Love