the Arcade Fire go bowl’ing

The fire started in Austin, Texas on Sept. 15 and has since touched Colorado before finally striking the Hollywood hills on Sept. 20, running thousands out of their homes.

The fire I speak of is Canadian indie rocksters Arcade Fire, and (if you’ll forgive one more pun) they set the Hollywood Bowl ablaze last Thursday on the third date of their fall North American tour.

I left after class Thursday morning and made it with enough time to eat a quick bite before getting there as the gates opened.

Before the show I saw members of the band walking around.

Watching Will Butler and Sarah Neufeld walking around amongst us mere mortals stupefied me, and I remained that way for most of the night.

My Los Angeles radio friend was unable to attend, but I found someone via the Arcade Fire fan board, Us Kids Know, that was willing to buy my ticket. With a Pool D ticket (seven rows back from the stage) I could have sold the extra for $300 or so, but I hate to rip people off, and I’d rather have someone that I know is a true fan sitting by me.

Opening band Wild Light played a brief 20-minute set and my new friend and I saw another band member, Richard Reed Parry watching in the pool section. The next act, LCD Soundsystem, came on pretty quick and rocked a good set out.

Music video for LCD Soundsystem’s “North American Scum”:

Arcade Fire started their set in the same way all their shows have been this year promoting their new album Neon Bible. First with a grainy quality video of a raving preacher:

After that they launched into the same opening number I saw at the Coachella music festival and their show at UC Berkeley on June 1, “Black Mirror”.

As close as my seat was, I rushed the stage with some others at the opening and ended up being second row back from the stage.

Regine Chassagne singing “Haiti”:

The set list for the show was a tad disappointing. They went mostly through songs from Neon Bible for the first half before dropping more songs from their debut album Funeral.

The only surprise was a pared down, shortened cover of Cyndi Lauper‘s “Money Changes Everything” that spun out of the end of “Windowsill”. Besides that, the band didn’t pull out any surprise b-sides or rarities from their early recording sessions. The complete set list:

• Black Mirror
• Keep the Car Running
• Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
• No Cars Go
• Haiti
• Intervention
• (Antichrist Television Blues)
• My Body is a Cage
• Windowsill
• Ocean of Noise
• Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
• Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
• Rebellion (Lies!)
• The Well and the Lighthouse-Encore
• Wake Up-Encore

Lead singer (and husband of Regine Chassagne and older brother of Will) Win Butler injected a few quips in between songs, one referring to the unusually chilly weather and that L.A. people were “lucky bastards” because this was probably the coldest night they’d have.

It became obvious Win likes the crowd to get into the music when security guards tried to prevent some fellow fans and me from rushing the stage and he pointed at them and said “Hey, don’t start that shit” to laughter from the audience.

The crowd in the pool area where I was at was pretty into the show, dancing, singing along, screaming along and yelling out requests for favorite songs.

“Headlights!” was screamed several times in between songs, referring to the song “Headlights Look Like Diamonds” along with requests for “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” but the band stuck to their set list (which I saw a copy of after the concert that a fan had acquired from a roadie).

The crowd of about 13,000 shuffled and danced out after the show finished just shy of 11 p.m.

The performance received a couple lukewarm reviews like the one at mtv.com, and the band may have taken notice, because postings on the ‘Us Kids Know’ fan message boards featured the set list for their Friday performance in Mountain View, CA. The Friday set list scaled back on songs from “Neon Bible” and featured a few surprises that the Hollywood Bowl performance was missing.

The band continues their North American tour this week and ends it in New York on Oct. 6 before moving on to the rest of the world.

Here’s a clip of “Haiti” performed on the BBC on June 19: