7:45 pm, Nashville, Tennessee, waiting in line. After a lengthy wait, which causes us to miss the opener, we’re finally in our seats: stage left, just below the balcony, and directly in front of the speakers. This could get loud, folks. At least, I hope so. By 8:30 the room is packed. The crowd is lively, talkative, and annoyed with a much heavier level of security than is usual. The Ryman’s stage is littered with instruments: two drum kits, guitars, basses, violins, shakers, tambourines, keyboards, moogs, synths, a piano, an organ, a glockenspiel, a hurdy gurdy, and a marching drum. Arcade Fire’s reputation for a large production and multi-instrumentalist approach to their live shows seems to be true.
Minutes later (8:34, in fact) the band comes trickling onto the stage, and with a simple wave of “hello” they launch into the frolicking and appropriately titled “Ready to Start.” As a few quick instrument changes occur and the tambourine locks in a new tempo, frontman Win Butler yells, “It’s great to finally be in Nashville!” I was right, this is getting loud. Or maybe I’m finally old. Either way, my earplugs are now in, and I’m pounding my fists along with “Neighborhood #2.” I’m not the only one. The crowd is unusually into this show, and the excitement is refreshing… Nashville rarely shows this kind of emotion at concerts.
The band is changing instruments again. I should get used to this, it happens all night. “We’re honored to be here in the Ryman, and we bow down to the historicity,” shouts Win. “It’s really beautiful…but we’re still trying to be ourselves up here… This song’s called ‘No Cars Go.’” “Haiti” quickly follows and we finally hear Régine Chassagne take center stage. It’s at this point I really start to notice the two violin players sawing away and adding the requisite layers of light female vocals. Everyone on stage is pulling double duty tonight, and Régine proves it by finishing the song in competition with Jeremy Gara’s drumming as she jumps behind a second kit. Wasn’t expecting that all!
“Half Light II (No Celebration)” gives way to their newest album’s title track, “The Suburbs,” followed by it’s sister cry “Suburban War.” The album version is beautiful and controlled, but here, as Win repeatedly belts the line, “All my old friends, they don’t know me now!” I start to identify. I’m screaming it too. I can hear the frustration of living on the road, and of life changing as we all get older. This lyric is one I’ve said before. No one back in my sprawling cookie-cutter hometown suburbs knows me anymore either.
More instrument swapping. Win dons a classical guitar, looks behind him to brother William, and grinning says, “Alright, we’re in a church. We’re in a church… let’s give it a try,” and the pipe organ rolls forth. Half way through “Intervention” (from 2007’s Neon Bible), Win throws his classical guitar to a roadie and slings on a Telecaster. David Dark put it well when he described this sort of thing as “somehow medieval and fresh and urgent all at once, with strings and electric guitar, marching band, minstrel-gypsy-troubadour fare coming out of a tavern full of clear-eyed, optimistic, coed worker priests” (The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, 2009).
“Crown of Love,” “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels),” and “Deep Blue” zip along and give way to the staccato of “We Used to Wait.” Halfway through this song, Win removes his mic and leaves the stage to briefly march across the seats in the inner circle, stopping to pick up a folding chair and pass it over the crowd before returning to stage. Then comes the harder driving “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out),” and the crowd’s participation is more obvious now… everyone’s in unison for “Is it a dream? Is it a lie?/I think I’ll let you decide/Just light a candle for the kids/Jesus Christ don’t keep it hid!” And boom, “Rebellion (Lies)” closes us out. Lights die. Band leaves.
It’s not over, is it? No, we know it’s not, but we all play along. Drumming the seats, clapping and screaming. Let the ruckus build the energetic frenzy. Let the band rest for a more frenetic finale.
And soon, Arcade Fire returns to the stage to pound out “Keep the Car Running,” complete with hurdy-gurdy, and “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).” For the latter, Régine skips and dances around carrying colored streamers to augment her sparkly, sequined dress. And finally, for the long awaited closing number, while William spins around mercilessly beating a marching drum, we all sing together the band’s best-known anthem, “Wake Up.” We need the revelation they’re bringing. “It’s time to get busy being born again. It’s time to rock. It’s time to wake up. The time is now,” (Dark).
Suddenly it’s over. Security is urgently ushering everyone towards the exits. And my one complaint surfaces: too short! Clocking in at just under an hour-and-a-half, and ticket prices of $50, I expected to hear more. Guys, you have three albums, so there’s no lack of material… what gives? Were we not a rockin’ enough audience? ‘Cause trust me, we were. Out of the 20-plus shows I’ve seen in Nashville’s quintessential Ryman Auditorium, I can think of only three that were “sold out” shows. That is, sold out, and everyone came, not just your usual “the back seven rows are empty, but there were no tickets left because a bunch of lame-asses didn’t care enough to show.” I recall Neil Young, Ryan Adams, and Sufjan Stevens filled the seats. Sufjan even managed to have more people on stage than Arcade Fire. But not one of those artists ever produced an audience that enthusiastically stood singing along with the entire show. Tonight, Arcade Fire pulled that off. In a town known for it’s stoic, prove-yourself-to-me, hipster, amuse-me, breed of concert goers, a different sort of ethos broke through. “Now the kids are all standing with their arms folded tight,” (“Month of May,” The Suburbs) didn’t ring true here. I saw emotion.
Maybe everyone came from out of town? If they did, it was worth the drive…