This is an understatement: I love the Arcade Fire.
I found out about the band through a friend 3 months before Neon Bible. I got Funeral and it immediately struck a chord with me...then it was Neon Bible (over and over again, just like Funeral), then it was the EP, and now its Live Recordings.
I saw them live on June 2 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley. Through the dense clouds of pot smoke, behind the glowing pillars of light, and basking in the neon light of an ominous turning bible, my stoned eyes glimpsed upon music incarnate. All which is good and pure in music was present that night. We danced, head banged, sung, moved any way possible in our tiny excuses for personal space in a sold out crowd - and all of it, everyone, intoxicated. You see, Arcade Fire is not so much music as it is a cerebral phenomenon, a drug in itself, a moment of transcendence that lasts two hours. You have not really begun to experience this band until you see them live.
Before the Arcade Fire, I was a mess of hormones and teenage angst. Beginning with the first mysterious piano notes of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" to the last resounding organ chord of "My Body is a Cage", the music was a spark of hope which warmed my wayward soul ("Wake Up" holds particular significance). It made me, a once devout practicing Catholic who grew up in a conservative family in a conservative neighborhood, question God.
Which is why Neon Bible is hardly just an album. It's the founding of a new religion, one whose creed is non believing - non believers of hypocritical Western religions, non participants in the reckless commercialism which as shaped the culture and future of a nation. When you are touched by a band or by music with a message as pure and as strong as Arcade Fire's, its not hard to imagine a world without God because all the tools for redemption, salvation, and happiness are all already within ourselves.
I am 16 years old. While all of this may seem like self-righteous indiekid bullshit, all I have to say is this:
Do you remember when music had the power to change people?
