Indie darlings come out fighting
For more than a decade Arcade Fire seemed invincible, their stadium-sweeping blend of heart, grandeur and arch principles making them the ultimate indie-rock success story. There were number one albums, Grammy Awards and sell-out arena tours across the world. But then last year came the first significant backlash of the band’s career: their frothy fifth studio album, Everything Now, received muted reviews, while the ad campaign that accompanied it, with its elaborate eye-rolling at capitalism and corporations, was widely derided.
It clearly smarted – and in the face of such opprobrium, the Montreal eight-piece came out fighting on Wednesday night at Wembley Arena. Quite literally, in fact. Performing in a mock-up boxing ring in the middle of the crowd, they were introduced by a compère in the manner of a prizefighter. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed, “it’s now time for the main event.”
With no shortage of bombast, they opened defiantly with the album’s title track – a song about information overload that disarms you with its Abba-like piano hooks and catchy African flute solo. If the audience – not a packed one, it must be said – weren’t rapturous by that point, they were by the next track, as a familiar kick drum signalled the start of Rebellion (Lies), their surging anthem from the 2004 debut Funeral. As frontman Win Butler querulously cried out “Lies! Lies!”, against swelling strings, his multiinstrumentalist brother William, thrashing furiously at a drum, threw himself repeatedly against the ropes.
Indeed, to watch Arcade Fire is to be reminded why they are still such a formidable force. At Wembley, their dynamism, and their ability to find a perfect balance between earnestness and carnivalesque frivolity, appeared not to have been dimmed one iota. Hits such as Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels), Intervention and My Body is a Cage were all given their dues. There was room, too, for Chrissie Hynde, who, looking slightly bamboozled by the miscellany of instruments surrounding her, entered the ring to duet with Butler on her Pretenders number Don’t Get Me Wrong.
On a couple of occasions, Régine Chassagne, Butler’s wife, took lead vocal, her crystalline falsetto flowing over drums and synths on the dreamy Electric Blue and later driving forward the disco banger Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).
As ever, though, the set’s pinnacle came via Wake Up, the thunderous hymn to life for which they were joined by Hynde and support act Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Arcade Fire may no longer be undefeated, but they’re certainly the undisputed heavyweight champions of the world.