Coachella 2005: The Arcade Fire

I've seen The Arcade Fire play 3 times previously, and every time I am reminded of just how great they are.  They take the concept of leaving everything up on the stage to an entirely different level.  It started off nervously with the main mic not working.  After a verse of Wake Up, Win's voice boomed through to the roar of the crowd.  And from there it was on.

I can't describe how amazing they sounded.  Richard and Will climbed high above the stage on the supports, clawing and banging at each other. Will apparently cut himself so bad he wrapped his hand in a towel for the rest of the song, playing with one hand.  But when it came to a part of the song where he needed both hands, the towel came off and he fought through it, sucking on the wound every chance he had.  They were playing like it was their last show on earth.

The crowd was enormous.  Usually reserved for only the night sets, the big screens came on behind the band to the approval of the masses behind me.  They blew through perfect versions of all the expected songs, and finished with Power Out into Revolution (Lies).

Somewhere in between the transition, Winn's guitar got all tangled up on stage.  With time running short on their set, he decided to just drop it and take the mic to finish off.  He held it in front of his face while waving the stand in the air.  Then towards the end, he cleared some room up front and jumped in to the crowd, to what could have been the loudest roar in the history of crowd roars. He climbed back up, finished the song, unscrewed the mic and flung it 50 feet in the air out into the crowd before saying their final goodbyes. People stayed and chanted for them to come back out.  It was like no other concert experience I had ever seen.  My camera battery died right after the first few songs, and Nora's memory card filled up shortly after, so I let her use my card for the rest of the day.  The last two pictures above were taken by her.  The rest of the day was great, but after this, I could have not gone to another concert for a year and not complained.  Truly Magical.

(last pic via ArcadeFire.net)

Previously...
Coachella Day 1
Coachella Day 2

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