After having so much to do recently my review of seeing Arcade Fire live late last month got pushed back and back. All the way until past me seeing The Decemberists a week ago today. So now instead of writing about both the events separately, I'm going to face them off against each other in a North American, Canada vs USA, fight to the death.
The first of the two gigs took place in St John's Church, Westminster. The church's large stage is normally put to use for orchestras but took a break from it's classical background to welcome Canada's finest, Arcade Fire. In fact they seemed slightly out of ease with the run of three concerts, not even publishing them in their official listings for the month.
The band ran through 10 of the 11 songs from their new album, the aptly titled (for the surroundings) Neon Bible. To my vast disappointment only a couple of songs from the band's debut, Funeral were bellowed around the church. A couple more songs really wouldn't have gone amiss, as without a support act, and a set length of only 1 hour 15 minutes did make the gig seem a little short (especially considering all the traveling I had done that day to get there).
The performance of course though was outstanding, with up to 10 members on-stage at once, all singing at the top of their voices whilst playing a powerful mix of unusual and not-so-unusual instruments. Everything sounded perfect, acting as a real compliment to the acoustics of the church. The talk-about moment of course had to be the unexpected acoustic, mid-crowd, performance of The Clash's Gun's of Brixton which opened the gig. Megaphones, a double-bass, and a mandolin, made this a very different kind of cover. The picture above (taken by me of course :P) is of Win standing on a chair in the middle of the crowd mid-song.
Eight days later The Decemberists took the stage at the far more normal venue of Shepherd's Bush Empire. To begin they played absolutely breathtaking performances of The Crane Wife and Island, Come and See, The Landlord's Daughter, You'll not Feel the Drowning. Performances which I would have been very happy with as highlights of the evening, only they were not; there was not a single song The Decemberists performed that didn't have me spellbound. They performed songs from all of their albums giving the crowd, in my opinion, almost exactly what they wanted (of course if the crowd had been just me, the crowd wouldn't have been so happy with the lack of The Gymnast, High Above the Ground).
The showmanship of The Decemberists almost stood out even more than the songs themselves. They got the crowd participating in a surprisingly large range of activities. Front man Colin Meloy started these proceedings with a bout of "mid-show calisthenics" and this was followed by the old splitting the crowd into several large choirs to sing in 16 Military Wives. Whilst we've all been in a crowd doing this kind of thing before, it really worked here, and I enjoyed it far more than I'd ever expect to. A devastatingly good rendition of Sons and Daughters climaxed with the whole crowd smiling wholeheartedly whilst bellowing out "Hear all the bombs, they fade away" with their exhausted voices. Several crowd members even got to go on stage and bounce around with Colin Meloy, who was obviously enjoying himself, which is always nice to see.
The fun continued right through into the two encores with guest appearances from Robyn Hitchcock and Mike Scott (who are a little unknown to someone my age, but evidently from the reaction of the crowd, not to everyone else). They finished the evening with a highly unexpected reenactment of part of the American civil war during A Cautionary Song, where the crowd were split down the middle so we could scowl at each other from the opposite sides of the battle.
Whilst both gigs won't be forgotten by any of there attendees easily. Arcade Fire were forced into retreat by the sheer amount of smiling The Decemberists caused. It wasn't the songs that put Decemberists far and above on top for me, but instead the showmanship; those little extras that showed the crowd that the band really cared about making sure their fans have a good time. All other bands should take note and follow The Decemberists' example.
