The biggest band in the world to date reviewed by Badly Hadley when they hit Alexandra Palace, London: 19th November, 2007.

Their last of three nights at Ally Pally, and the last night of their European tour, and it was as Arcade Fire as it gets. The stage is a red and black dreamscape, sort of like a surrealist painting of the workings of an old TV set.

There were stunning visuals with shots of the band on huge round screens, vision mixed like some super modern retake on seventies BBC video-tube techniques (at one point Win and Régine, husband and wife, blended into each others faces - she was angrily striking at the keyboard somewhere above his left nostril).

The animated Neon Bible symbol, creepy and cool at the same time, flicked around the place, large and small, a perfect little motif. You could see enough on those screens to entertain, such as two of the band breaking out into a fight in about the third song (play-fighting, obviously…?) But boy was there more to see.

Such as the whole Arcade, jumping around on stage, flicking euphoria into the collective Benedictine humming of the audience, running around all having a crack on each others instruments.

At one point, one member of the band played what looked like a helmet balanced on one of the many upright neon tubes at the front of the stage, which duly changed from red to blue with every strike, to the cheering joy of the Ally Pally crowd. And the ear-piercingly loud American TV evangelical rants (with visuals!) in the introduction and an impasse between songs – nice touch AF. We think that kind of thing is a bit weird, too.

What else? Oh yeah of course, the music. Well, if you like Arcade Fire’s two albums, Funeral and Neon Bible, I need not preach to the converted. You guys would have loved it, no question. Particular highlight for me was the reprise of ‘Power Out’ just when we thought it couldn’t get any more satisfying. And those guys decided to rock out big style. And in ‘(Antichrist Television Blues)’ – I’m always torn in that one between never wanting it to end, but wanting to hear the anger in the last verse – they played around with the verse straight after the second chorus, the beat went funny and man did it sound good!

If you haven’t heard the albums get listening and get wetting yourself with excitement for the next tour. Or if you don’t like them, I don’t really care because it was bloody excellent.

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