As the Arcade Fire’s current arena tour has crisscrossed the country, the band has selected a geographically significant cover song to perform each night — sometimes in full, sometimes just barely — and last night in Atlanta, the group performed a full version of R.E.M.’s 1981 debut single “Radio Free Europe.” Below, check out a couple different fan-shot videos.
PREVIOUSLY ON SLICING UP EYEBALLS
- Blondie’s Debbie Harry joins Arcade Fire at Coachella to sing ‘Heart of Glass’
- Stream: Arcade Fire covers Peter Gabriel’s 1980 classic ‘Games Without Frontiers’
- Stream: Tears For Fears gives Arcade Fire’s ‘Ready to Start’ an electro-orchestral makeover
- Video: Arcade Fire covers The Smiths’ ‘Still Ill’
To be honest, I’ve never heard of Arcade Fire until a couple of weeks ago.
^ Same. Madison is always plugging them on FirstWave. Me and Madison, we have opposing tastes.
They make great music, but they are soooooooooo pompous. I hate them.
In the words of Arlo Guthrie, “That was horrible.”
Nonessential Echo and the Bunnymen tribute band, this lot.
Bunch of drama nerds exerting themselves, rah, rah. NEXT!
The comments on this post are way off the mark. I just saw Arcade Fire at Coachella a few weeks ago, and I did so only partially familiar with their material, and not yet a fan. The band is anything but “pompous”. What I witnessed was one of the singular best examples of a band that truly strives to come in direct contact with their fans. At the end of Coachella’s 1st weekend this year, AF marched into the crowd and proceeded to play more music with acoustic instruments. In a serpiginous path, they wound their way through the entire crowd and brought the music to a mass of thousands of fans. They energized a crowd of weary people who had partied hard and long for 4 straight nights – no small task. They then marched down the back production lines of Coachella with hundreds of attendees in tow. When they got to their tour bus, they stood and gave “high fives” to countless fans. It was a magical moment, the likes of which is not often seen in music today. They made me a fan that night.
It’s also worth stating that a band who takes the time to learn and then play the songs of other bands pertinent to the city they are playing in that night is demonstrating their respect for that local band AND the community it is a part of. Simultaneously, that band is also demonstrating the joy they continue to experience as musicians and artists participating in their craft. This is an exhibition of humility and professionalism. It is any thing but negative.
In an era when too many bands play over recorded music during “live performances” and do little to engage the community they are visiting, Arcade Fire brings showmanship and skill that is to often missing. I stood inches from them in the crowd at Coachella as they played from our midst. The passion for what they do was written on their faces, and they made me a fan for life with that show.
Yeah but we don’t like ’em.
Polemic aside, they still sound like Echo and the Bunnymen. To paraphrase Whispering Bob Harris in his comparison of the New York Dolls to the Rolling Stones, “a pale and [not very] amusing derivative.”
Harris was wrong about the Dolls, too.
Yes, but I didn’t say I agreed with Harris about the Dolls, did I? I was quoting what he said as it applied to Arcade Fire in relation to Echo and the Bunnymen. First time I heard “Keep the Car Running,” I honestly thought, “Oh dear. Ian’s not making an effort at all. And where’s the jangle to Will’s guitar?”
Like ’em if you want to, but I can’t forget what I know.