Wee Baby Seamus
Yo, Goober, where's the meat?
Arcade Fire/Broken Social Scene - Air Canada Centre - 3 November 2017
Arcade Fire was my formative band. Funeral has been my favourite album since I was 13 and will almost certainly remain as such forever; even if I find albums that are objectively better, that album will always have such huge significance for me. However, I entered this show with decently low expectations. Everything Now is garbage, and my friend who I was going with had to cancel last minute, so I wasn't that pumped going into it. Honestly, I was more excited for Broken Social Scene (who I had never seen before) than I was for Arcade Fire.
BSS went on at around 8:30, and, much to my disappointment (and I'm sure theirs as well), the stadium was pretty much empty when they started. Their set was great and sounded great, but the enormity of the ACC combined with the scattering of people throughout the building meant that the vibe was really weird and distant, and kinda just bummed me out. Feist came and performed with them, which was absolutely awesome, but Emily Haines wasn't there, so they didn't play a bunch of the classics they've been playing the entire tour (for instance, no "Anthem for a Seventeen Year Old Girl." Definitely still a lot of fun, but only 45 minutes of Broken Social Scene in such a strange venue was a bit of a bummer. I hope they play another Toronto show soon in a much better location.
Until Arcade Fire literally started playing, I was expecting their set to be absolutely brutal. In between BSS and their set, there was a lot of obnoxious annoying shit on the Jumbotron with the type of beat-ya-over-the-head edgy Banksy satire that Everything Now is all about, and I was really worried that the Arcade Fire set would be Win Butler up-his-own-ass for 90 minutes.
I should've had more faith. "Everything Now" (the song) provided for a pretty bumping opener, and the energy was high and just buzzing. There was no obnoxious Win Butler commentary, just a fun vibrant show. Even the mediocrity of Everything Now was pretty decent live, and they thankfully did not play any of the pure unmitigatable crap from that album. The setlist was strange. They played just as much from Neon Bible as they did from The Suburbs and Reflektor (which I don't mind at all, I think Neon Bible is far better than Reflektor is). The important thing, though, is that Arcade Fire are just complete performers. They're so exciting live because they fully immerse themselves and just go absolutely insane into the music. I should've had more faith that Arcade Fire's capacity for performing would outweigh the mediocrity of the new album.
Arcade Fire was my formative band. Funeral has been my favourite album since I was 13 and will almost certainly remain as such forever; even if I find albums that are objectively better, that album will always have such huge significance for me. However, I entered this show with decently low expectations. Everything Now is garbage, and my friend who I was going with had to cancel last minute, so I wasn't that pumped going into it. Honestly, I was more excited for Broken Social Scene (who I had never seen before) than I was for Arcade Fire.
BSS went on at around 8:30, and, much to my disappointment (and I'm sure theirs as well), the stadium was pretty much empty when they started. Their set was great and sounded great, but the enormity of the ACC combined with the scattering of people throughout the building meant that the vibe was really weird and distant, and kinda just bummed me out. Feist came and performed with them, which was absolutely awesome, but Emily Haines wasn't there, so they didn't play a bunch of the classics they've been playing the entire tour (for instance, no "Anthem for a Seventeen Year Old Girl." Definitely still a lot of fun, but only 45 minutes of Broken Social Scene in such a strange venue was a bit of a bummer. I hope they play another Toronto show soon in a much better location.
Until Arcade Fire literally started playing, I was expecting their set to be absolutely brutal. In between BSS and their set, there was a lot of obnoxious annoying shit on the Jumbotron with the type of beat-ya-over-the-head edgy Banksy satire that Everything Now is all about, and I was really worried that the Arcade Fire set would be Win Butler up-his-own-ass for 90 minutes.
I should've had more faith. "Everything Now" (the song) provided for a pretty bumping opener, and the energy was high and just buzzing. There was no obnoxious Win Butler commentary, just a fun vibrant show. Even the mediocrity of Everything Now was pretty decent live, and they thankfully did not play any of the pure unmitigatable crap from that album. The setlist was strange. They played just as much from Neon Bible as they did from The Suburbs and Reflektor (which I don't mind at all, I think Neon Bible is far better than Reflektor is). The important thing, though, is that Arcade Fire are just complete performers. They're so exciting live because they fully immerse themselves and just go absolutely insane into the music. I should've had more faith that Arcade Fire's capacity for performing would outweigh the mediocrity of the new album.
