All Fired Up
- 5 Mar 07, 10:03 AM
March 28, 2005 and I΅―m at the San Diego Sports Arena, waiting for U2 to start their Vertigo Tour. But first, a magnificent ceremony. Before tonight΅―s show ¨C and ahead of each date of the tour, the band will play out a track on their enormous PA system. It΅―s the work of a fairly obscure act from Montreal but it instantly loads up your nervous system with its choirs, its strangeness and its staggering emotion. ΅°Who΅―s that?΅± I mouth, astonished. ΅°It΅―s the Arcade Fire,΅± says Gavin Friday, grinning like someone who΅―s party to a mad conspiracy.
The track is ΅®Wake Up΅―, and it becomes a sure favourite. A few months later and the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ will use the roaring chorus on its trails series. David Bowie will record a version with the band at the Fashion Rocks event while the Arcade Fire album, ΅®Funeral΅― will top many of the critics΅― polls in December.
The band΅―s new album ΅®Neon Bible΅― is out today. Some reviews have been a little sniffy about it, claiming that it΅―s a tad mainstream. But that΅―s surely missing the point, since the beauty of the music is pretty much intact, and the songs still sound like a gospel revival show, fronted by Ziggy Stardust and scored by Bach. It makes all those other chancers ¨C like Muse and The Killers and the silly old Klaxons - sound like creative microbes. Go Arcade Fire, I still say.
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After all the hype i was almost afraid to listen to the new Arcade Fire. As it turns out it is just as good as the reviews suggested. Not quite so sure that will be the case with Grinderman though... have you heard that yet?
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Be careful with that Grinderman! It's the filthy outpourings of Nick Cave's old head - largely repressed in his recent solo albums and never properly vented since the infernal days of The Birthday Party.
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I don't think it's right to compare this album to the albums of Cave and the Bad Seeds as the sound is very different but it's nice to see that these group of men still have what it takes to produce a raw fire in their music that sadly so few can sustain after so many years in the industry!
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