‘Every time you close your eyes…’ sings Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler. "LIES, LIES…’ roars back the crowd, as fans swarm around a second stage in the middle of the arena on which the seven-piece band have somehow crammed themselves.
Opening with Rebellion - arguably the best song from arguably their best album (that’s the 2004 debut Funeral, for the uninitiated) - is a smart move; a near sure-fire way to get people hollering along and dancing as the song speeds to its ecstatic conclusion. As the band transfers to the main stage, a reading of poem ‘I Am Waiting’ fills the venue.
It’s from these lines by Lawrence Ferlinghetti - rather than WH Auden - that the next track, Age of Anxiety I , apparently takes its name and inspiration. Building from spare piano chords to surging string-swept rock, its lyrics obliquely reference Covid (‘fight the fever with TV…’) as well as social media artifice (‘when you look at me, you see what I want you to see’).
