LIVE REVIEW: Arcade Fire at O2 Arena

“I wanna try experiment on this song” Win announced, about half way through Arcade Fire’s set at the first of two sold out shows at London’s 02 Arena. “Everyone on this side stand up; just everyone in the place stand up”, he went on, as us on the floor shockingly realised that people were actually sat in the first place. “Now, let’s just all pretend we’re at a fucking rock show, 2, 3, 4”. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) kicks in, every light on stage suddenly power on, and the place goes absolutely fucking mental. If I wasn’t so busy thinking about the possibility of me crying at this point, then I might have just cried.

You see, a 17,000 capacity arena is hard to make intimate, but some how AF managed it and totally rocked the house last night. It jumped straight into my Top-10-Gigs-Of-All-Time and I remember thinking during the Encore break, is there a better live band in the world right now than these?, and there ain’t. The choice of songs (7 tracks from Funeral, 4 from Neon Bible and the best 5 (plus Month of May) from The Suburbs) and pacing of the setlist was perfect, the sound was spot on from the start and there was always plenty to look at on stage. I mean, just look at this setlist…

Ready to Start 
Keep the Car Running
Neighborhood #2 (Laika) 
No Cars Go 
Haïti 
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) 
Rococo 
My Body Is a Cage 
The Suburbs 
The Suburbs (Continued) 
Crown of Love 
Intervention 
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) 
Rebellion (Lies) 
Month of May 
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) 

Encore:

We Used to Wait 
Wake Up 

And breath.

Greg