A bargain surely - if you happen to be in the Hastings area.

Towards the end of 2004 I read an online review of a record that sounded right up my street. A few weeks later I was doing one of my fairly irregular “binge” shops in Rough Trade when the wonderful Nigel (who has been recommending me stuff for nearly 20 years) suggested I should listen to something he thought I would love. Curiously, it was the same disc I’d recently read about – Funeral by the Canadian band Arcade Fire. I decided just to buy it. Like I often do with new CDs, I loaded it onto my iPod with a view to getting round to listening to it at some point or other.
I can recall exactly where I was when I listened to it for the first time: I was walking Marfa in the park. I got four songs in and was overcome. This was a truly stunning record. I remember sending Andy a text saying “Arcade Fire is my new favourite band”. This is something of a joke with us, as it seems I have a new favourite band (NFB) every couple of months or so. But I thought there was something different about this record. I’m ashamed to use such a word for a CD I’d not even heard all the way through, but I found it extraordinarily … moving.
For the next couple of months I played this record constantly. Instead of tiring of it, or getting a bit jaded, it seemed better almost every time I heard it. At the risk of coming over all hyperbolic, I don’t think I’d ever been so excited by a new band since I discovered Joy Division nearly 25 years earlier. Every day I scoured the ticket websites, waiting for Arcade Fire to announce a show in London so I could see my NFB live. And they didn’t disappoint when they finally did make it to London. Crammed into the tiny King’s College venue in London, the opening ten minutes or so were among the most electrifying start to I gig I could remember. They were so passionate, so intense, so odd looking, so (frankly) extraordinary. And then I got into an argument with a moron who accused me (quite wrongly) of getting in the way of his girlfriend, and the magic was slightly ruined. But of course they were still magical. I was completely bowled over.
We went to see them again, and then went to a festival in Ireland to see them again (and even came very close to going to Las Vegas to catch what they said would be one of their last performances for a long time before they recorded their second album). Every time it was an intense experience. And Arcade Fire ceased to be my new favourite band, and became instead simply one of the Greats.
Hitchman, of course, thinks I am mad when I get obsessed about a musical act this way. (Click on his link to the right for his own explanation of this). Though even he could see there was something special about them.
I continued to play Funeral over and over again. When I was feeling low, I’d listen to either Rebellion (Lies) or Wake Up, my favourite tracks from the record. And sometimes I’d feel a bit teary when I heard them. How could music be this unbelievably great? Could this band really keep this up?
And then at the start of January they announced a series of low-key dates in London, playing at the beautiful church of St. John’s in Smith Square. We had to be there. And so it was that we found ourselves standing in the cold last Monday night almost an hour before the doors were even opened, buzzing with anticipation and eager to get a spot as close to the stage as possible. Every now and again my anticipation of a gig is so overwhelming that I become like a hyperactive child on Christmas Eve (see entries past on Kraftwerk in Montreux or Radiohead in Blackpool). It involves me being restless, agitated, needing to go to the toilet a lot, uncommunicative and generally a bit of a nightmare. However, the waiting paid off – we nestled into seats six rows or so from the front, and waited.
The show consisted largely of songs from the forthcoming album Neon Bible, few of which I’d heard. The sound mix in the hall was, I’ll admit, a bit murky to start with. The new songs, though, came across as being tremendous. I was particularly struck with an anthemic one called My Body Is A Cage. The band, as ever, were tight and euphoric. Given they’d only played a couple of very informal warm-up shows before this one and no gigs for over a year previously, they were visibly excited to be on stage again.


A few older numbers from Funeral were aired – Rebellion (Lies) was storming, and they ended with their other ‘hit’, Power Out, during which singer Win Butler forgot the words and the song came to a bit of a shambolic close. Butler introduced this last song by saying thanks to the audience for sitting through a set of almost all new material – often the death knell of any band’s ‘comeback’ gig, but frankly it didn’t matter. The new material was - even on first hearing - equal to, if not in body even better than, what we were all so familiar with.
Now, I will say here and now it was already a bit of a legendary evening for me because it confirmed what I’d thought for the last couple of years – Arcade Fire are a band of truly genuine greatness. But then they did something that as the Guardian’s review the next morning stated “will live in the minds of everyone present forever”. As they left the stage one of the band, Richard, picked up his double bass. From what I could see Regine also seemed to be carrying something, and Win grabbed a mandolin and one of the megaphones they’d occasionally used during the set. And it instantly clicked with me. I turned to Andy and said, “Oh my God, they’re going to play outside.” And then I said it to the girls sitting next to me who looked at me as if I was mad. I tried to rush them along and sure enough the band marched through the hall, which finally got everyone moving. By good fortune we happened to be sitting close to the doors on the left hand side of the church which had been thrown open, and made a mad dash outside. Hitch and I sort of climbed up onto one of the church pillars and stood there, positively overcome, as the band played an acoustic version of Wake Up right next to us. I mean right next to us – see me in the bright orange jacket below.



What can I say – the music soared up into the stars as everyone just looked on: gobsmacked, joining in the chorus, taking photos, smiling, and (as my good friend Boadwee would put it) feeling the love. And the Guardian was so right – nobody who was there will ever forget it.
There’s something magical about the Arcade Fire that seemed to be summed up in those few minutes, something that isn’t just a conventional rock band. I remember remarking of their show at King’s College that it was the most religious experience I’d ever had in a student union, and I’d say this was the most religious experience I’ve yet to have within a church. It’s often said that bands have ‘devoted’ followings; I’d say the devotion Arcade Fire generate is something above and beyond that. And so it is that when they come back to tour the UK in March we will be seeing them in Glasgow, London and Paris within the space of eight days. My new favourite band is now, pure and simply, my favourite.

I know we live in the instant digital camera age, but there was something really exciting about the Polaroid camera. It kind of felt like a real creative tool, a sort of photography that was inherently different - the square format, the size, the colour saturation and (let's be honest here) its unpredictability.
I was digging through a case today and found these examples taken over a period of a few years. It's odd - I can recall taking every one of them and I sort of like them.
My poor camera, however, is in a bit of a damp and dusty state in the cellar. I suspect I won't be taking another Polaroid again.