This was the one
we'd all been waiting for. The Arcade Fire (A.K.A. The Reflektors for this
mini-tour) were back on the road celebrating the release of their latest album,
Reflektor, and Blackpool was the last stop on the tour.
As with other recent
shows, the band requested everyone turn up in either fancy dress or formal wear
to help create a party atmosphere, and boy did they oblige! There was
everything from spacemen to dancing unicorns to Zippy from Rainbow! As for the
atmosphere, this was my 15th time watching the band and I have never been in an
Arcade Fire crowd like it - they were awesome!
The show itself was
truly memorable. Very rarely have I seen the band in such a jovial mood. At the
start of the show, the curtain dropped to reveal the band playing the
introduction to Rebellion (Lies) whilst wearing enlarged papier-mâché lookalike
heads. After a few seconds, the real band then appeared and ushered the
imposters off stage! They then launched into the opening song, Normal Person,
and the place erupted when it reached its rousing chorus. The sprung floor of
the Empress Ballroom, with something like 2,000 bouncing bodies on it, is a
feeling every concert goer should experience at least once in their lifetime!
As great as the show
was, I'm sorry to say it is not reflected in the recording. After the show, I discovered that my
left-hand mic had started playing up just after the recording had started.
Couple this with the fact that, from where I was stood, the vocals were quite
low in the mix and (unusually for Arcade Fire) the bass was also top-heavy. I
therefore had to do more processing on this recording than I would normally
care to do and even had to copy data from the right-hand channel to make it
listenable.
For any other show I
probably wouldn't even upload it here for people to download but, despite all these problems, I know this
show was very special for the majority of the people who were lucky enough to
witness it, so here's the chance for them to hopefully enjoy it again.
Enjoy!
Here's a sample of the recording for those who want to know the quality: Afterlife.mp3
544MB RAR archive, FLAC format
142MB RAR archive, variable bit rate MP3s (min. 245 kbps)
Setlist:
01. Intro
02. Normal Person
03. Flashbulb Eyes
04. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
05. Joan of Arc
06. You Already Know
07. We Exist
08. It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)
09. Porno
10. Afterlife
11. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
12. Wake Up
13. Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World [Ramones cover]
14. Here Comes the Night Time
15. encore break
16. My Body is a Cage
17. Reflektor
18. Haiti
02. Normal Person
03. Flashbulb Eyes
04. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
05. Joan of Arc
06. You Already Know
07. We Exist
08. It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)
09. Porno
10. Afterlife
11. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
12. Wake Up
13. Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World [Ramones cover]
14. Here Comes the Night Time
15. encore break
16. My Body is a Cage
17. Reflektor
18. Haiti
