Ottawa dressed up and let loose as Arcade Fire brought the Reflektor tour to town.
The fans came expecting a spectacle and the band delivered with a performance that mixed theatrics with phenomenal musicianship.
The show opened with a surrogate band made up of cartoonish papier-mâché caricatures taking a stage in the middle of the floor alongside a man clad entirely in mirrors. They set the scene for a few minutes, but the curtain soon fell to reveal Arcade Fire on the main stage.
The band tore into “Reflektor,” pulling the entire audience to its feet and beginning the dance party. The song blared across the stadium, and felt as if it was designed to be played in front of 14,000 people.
Arcade Fire brought in fan favourites early, breaking out grandiose, stadium quality renditions of “Rebellion (Lies)” and “We Used To Wait” to the sound of thousands of voices singing every word.
The air was electric, with lead singer Win Butler dancing around centre stage and smashing a drum with all of the fury of a Montreal blizzard alongside his brother Wil’s commanding stage presence in “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out).”
The energy lulled when a security issue broke out in front of the stage. Win stopped the beginning of a song to chide the people involved. “Can we just pretend to be friends for awhile?” asked Win before sarcastically dedicating the song to security guards.
A more genuine dedication came soon after, as the singer said “We Exist” was about a kid coming out as gay to his father, and called attention to societal issues surrounding sexual identities.
The band continued the philanthropic aspects after playing “Haiti,” announcing that a dollar from every ticket would go towards helping development in Haiti.
The theatrics took over when Arcade Fire broke into “It’s Never Over,” their own interpretation of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.
Win stood on the main stage, playing the part of Orpheus, while Régine Chassagne stood across the arena in a stage in the middle of the floor. She sang her parts in front of skeleton-costumed dancers to represent Eurydice’s journey out of the underworld.
The band closed out their set with a rousing performance of “Afterlife.” All too appropriately given the earlier conflicts, the band got the entire arena shouting the chorus of “can we just work it out” together.
They left the stage, but their papier-mâché surrogates returned, calling themselves The Reflektors. They dedicated a song to Stephen Harper, and the speakers blasted Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know.”
Win interrupted the song, and chided their surrogate for taking jabs at Harper. He said the band should have some respect for the Prime Minister, and then proceeded to bring on a man with a box of screens on his head showing Harper’s face. The band then ripped into a balls-to-the-wall rocking version of “Normal Person” dedicated ironically to Harper.
The band brought out another fan favourite with a stirring performance of “Sprawl II” before bringing the concert home with the anthemic “Wake Up.” Confetti rained down from the rafters as the crowd united in singing the melodic “whoa-ooh” harmonies throughout the song.
Between the dress code, theatrics, and sheer scale and power of the music, Arcade Fire’s Ottawa leg of the Reflektor tour was a once in a lifetime experience.
