Arcade Fire

21^st Century Appearances: 2010 Main Stage Headliner, 2007 Main Stage, 2005 NME Stage

The Defining Reading Moment: Win Butler bashfully saying “We don’t know what we’re doing here, we’ve never had a hit single, thanks” before launching into “Keep The Car Running” in 2010.

Arcade Fires debut album Funeral got its name due to the deaths of several relatives of the band members and that sense of emotion comes across so strongly in many of their tracks. Arcade Fire’s songs are extremely well written with passionate and meaningful lyrics, and none of the magic is lost in the transfer from studio album to live show.

By 2005 Funeral had gone Gold in Britain and it earned the group a slot on the NME Stage, a slot which was described as being like a religious experience by another band who saw the set at Reading. Over the course of the next few years the band really catapulted their name into the world music scene with appearances on numerous talk shows, television shows, supporting U2 on tour, and by honing their skills with tours and festival appearances across the globe. At the end of 2005 Funeral achieved the accolade of being named number 1 album in MTV2′s 50 greatest albums of the year.

2007 saw the band surpass themselves with arguable an even better album Neon Bible, a record with a wealth of anthemic tracks such as ‘Intervention’, ‘No Cars Go’ and ‘Keep The Car Running’. The album was recorded in a studio that the group had converted from a church and with the range of instruments the band use you can really picture tracks like ‘Intervention’ booming out in an cavernous old church. Much of the next couple of years was spent touring that album.

The next album The Suburbs was released at the beginning of August 2010 which was about three weeks prior to them being announced as headliners for the Reading and Leeds Festivals. The announcement of headliners for any festival will always lead to a debate about whether they should be headlining but rarely will be a met with the same level of split opinion as the announcement of Arcade Fire met. I was delighted they’d been given the opportunity and thought they had the quality to showcase their skill in such a big spot. The band had such genuine modesty and appreciation at being given such a lofty position. Any doubts over whether they were big enough to headline were completely blown away with an incredible performance. Every note of every song delivered with the passion and emotion they deserved. I honestly don’t know if there will ever be another band as capable of giving one of those “make your hairs stand up on the back of your neck” performances. It was electric and one of the best that Reading festival will ever see. Craig Brooks

Craig is exactly right, Arcade Fire have this hauntingly religious quality to their live shows, that sits somewhere between maniacally bleak and the divinely forgiving, and makes your hairs stand on end. However, while 2010 was the band’s undoubted festival highlight, it wasn’t the first time they took Reading’s breath away.

In 2007, after the embarrassment that was Razorlight, Saturday needed to pick everyone up, and sadly the Red Hot Chili Peppers were not in the mood to raise anyone’s spirits, thankfully Arcade Fire took to the stage just before the Californian legends, and absolutely blew them off stage. The crowd was big (arguably bigger than in 2010) and skeptical, they weren’t all here for Arcade Fire, but the Canadian eight piece soon won everyone in attendance over with an arresting performance that demanded each and every festival goers undivided attention. By the time “Power’s Out” and “Wake Up” closed proceedings, Win’s tortured cathartic preacher act had sent a chill down Reading’s collective spine, leaving RHCP an impossible act to follow.

2005 was incredible, I, like so many others, went to see “that band who did “Rebellion (Lies)”” and left needing to hear everything these awkward and intensely arty Montreal outsiders had ever released. Most of us (if not all of us) will never get to see Arcade Fire in a tent again, and I cannot hope to describe the beautiful cacophony of noise that was resounding around the NME tent that day. It consumed everything in it’s path, uplifting and depressing in equal measure, and while in hindsight I prefer the wild scale communal feel of a festival field, I will never forget that sound, and that first true exposure to Arcade Fire. David Hayter.