By: David Schultz

Whether the Arcade Fire are ready for it or not, with next month's release of Neon Bible, the follow-up to their critically beloved 2004 breakthrough hit Funeral (an Earvolution top 10 that year), the delicate art-rockers from Montreal, Canada are poised for even greater success. Without major label support, the indie-superstars, led by Win Butler and his wife Regine Chassagne, stumbled forth from the Great White North and captured the imagination of many fans with their descriptive lyrics, humble charm and eclectic mix of instruments. The world seems to be their oyster, if they can only stay out of their own way. Already they've presided over the inadvertent release of the wrong advance track from the new album and Neon Bible has already been leaked well ahead of schedule. Nevertheless, Internet maladies did nothing to diminish the excitement over the Arcade Fire's fiercely anticipated five night residency at New York City's Judson Memorial Church. With no tickets available after the initial sale, crowds braved hellacious weather to line up hours before each show to purchase the limited number of tickets made available each night.

Besides falling in line with the thematic structure of their upcoming album, the Arcade Fire's occupation of the JMC also fell in line with the band's status as emerging purveyors of thoughtful, passionate reveries. Long a sponsor of the arts, the Judson Memorial Church has progressively supported a wide-ranging array of music and artists, hosting theater, dance and avant garde performances since the sixties. Before eager crowds that included a nightly smattering of celebrity sightings, Butler and his cohorts essentially played the same set of songs each night, though they did change the order. Preciously dressed in unstylish button-up shirts and thrift store wares, the Arcade Fire took the stage on Thursday night to the recorded strains of "Black Mirror" before claiming their right to the Judson stage with all the disheveled charm they could muster.

Playing underneath a neon replica of the album's emblematic tome, Arcade Fire previewed a number of songs from Neon Bible, creating their own chapel within the church while they nicely reproduced Funeral and Neon Bible's layered arrangements. As the room wasn't designed for concerts of this magnitude, especially Arcade Fire's amalgamation of guitars, keyboards, strings, horns and drums, the sound was a tad muddy. However, the venue's cozy confines didn't require much, if any, amplification.

Likely stemming more from familiarity than a difference in quality, "Haiti," "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" and "Rebellion (Lies)" received a bigger response than the Neon Bible material. A rockabilly beat underscores "(Antichrist Television Blues)," the horns and strings push along "No Cars Go" with a furious new wavy bent and "Keep The Car Running" bounces right along. Slower pieces like "Windowsill" and "Neon Bible," provided a nice change of pace, moodily contrasting with the more upbeat material. The soft spoken Butler politely kept thanking the crowd between songs, continuously introducing the band and making sure the few hundred in attendance knew they were from Montreal. He traded vocals with his wife throughout the evening: Butler's voice providing an off-kilter aura while Chassagne's vocals sometimes fought with the music, running more towards punky new wave.

Musically, no one from the Arcade Fire steps forward to steal the show. Quite versatile, they switch instruments every couple songs or so, often requiring a scorecard to keep track of their whereabouts. Without any virtuosos in their mix, Arcade Fire's whole greatly surpasses the sum of their parts. Working with the Church's modestly sized space, Butler led the group through a briskly paced seventy-five minute set. For the haunting "My Body Is A Cage," the horn section strolled up to the Church's balcony, providing the brassy undertone from the rear of the crowd; for their finale, they ambled to the middle of the crowd, for an acoustic, unamplified rendering of "Wake Up." As they finished a number of their European shows by leading the crowd to the streets, there were minor expectations of a similar finish in the adjacent Washington Square Park. If there were any plans of concluding outside, they were scotched by the snow and sleet that greeted the Arcade Fire's arrival. But, in finishing within an arms' length of their fans, using a megaphone for a microphone, the "band of the people" still found an original way to cap off a show at one of the stranger Metropolitan venues.

Labels: Arcade Fire