Wake Up: You Are On Stage with the Arcade Fire (part one)

Last month I found myself in the front row of a sold-out theater, basking in a spectacle known to indie rock listeners as the Arcade Fire. It was the end of the evening, and the Arcade Fire had just retaken the stage to deliver their requisite encore. I was admiring the band's violin section -- two attractive young women with wide belts (one of them, I think, may have been playing the viola) -- as I leaned my elbows on the stage and wondered if this was one of those pinnacle moments for a young violinist (or violist): two sold-out nights before thousands of adoring fans at the United Palace Theatre, one of the largest and most elegant venues in Manhattan; national television appearances; celebrity galas; prestigious award nominations. I looked at the crowd: eager and intoxicated twenty-four-year-olds, shaking their heads, singing nahh na-na, nahh na-na as the lights blinked and images of the band flashed from video screens. I thought of the dexterity required to bow a violin or viola string in tune and assured myself that an attractive and talented young violin/violist could aspire to loftier heights than these -- when all of a sudden I experienced a disorienting reversal.

Win Butler, lead singer of the Arcade Fire, was pulling audience members onto the stage and beckoning the rest of us to follow. I directed an uncertain glance at my friend, Matt, who'd been beaming ever since I told him that our tickets (secured by chance on Ticketmaster) were in the front row, as if to ask him, do you really want to climb up there? He did. So as we made our way onto the stage I wondered why now I regarded with ambivalence an invitation that, a few years ago, I might have considered an exhilarating delight -- aware not only of having been content where I was, leaning comfortably against the stage as it vibrated with the force of electronically amplified instruments, but also of a powerful and elusive threshold that this invitation had asked me to cross. For in order to claim a new position, among the ten musicians on stage, I would have to of course forgo my place as an audience member -- my position of detached observation and scrutiny -- for another in which, conversely, I would be observed and scrutinized.

I began to worry about my backside, and how it would look as I climbed onto the stage. I moved as fast as I could, upstage, hiding myself among the band and the crowd, embarrassed by the sound of my voice (for I had given in to the impulse to sing, which I was now doing as loudly as possible). I stopped in front of the violinist -- actually, no, I think she was the violist -- and considered her position again from up close. Her viola had been affixed with a wire connecting it to a set of pedals on the floor, presumably for amplification, which had come loose during the stampede. I could still hear her well, better actually than during much of the performance, which had been marred by excessive volume and an indistinct mix, but realized that almost no one else in the theater could. Then a stagehand arrived and attempted to reconnect the wire, which failed, as his hands were repeatedly stepped on by thronging audience members. He seemed annoyed and when the violist realized that her viola was no longer connected, she stopped playing and disappeared. Someone nearby had meanwhile seized a tambourine and begun banging it gleefully. Now it was primarily the audience members who had stormed the stage, singing "Wake Up" for the audience members who had remained in their seats, most of who were singing as well. I could no longer hear anything but bass, the drums, and our three thousand voices screaming, you better look out below!

Which was precisely my concern . . . that as I struggled to sing and recall the words to "Wake Up," effecting a posture of dignified yet wholehearted merriment, countless discerning eyes would be following me -- from the seats below, and above -- from all directions. There was nowhere to hide; wherever I went I would be followed by the searing glare of the stage lamps. I felt hot and confused. Once I had gotten situated, however, and started settling into my singing, I actually began to enjoy myself. I had sung from a stage before, and as the memory of my days as a performer returned -- the matchless and invigorating sensation of standing in front of a crowd with no clear sense of what exactly was going to happen, anything could happen, I can make anything happen -- I felt a tinge of regret at having summarily abandoned my career in music. Perhaps, I thought, this is my moment to shine. I wondered what kind of outrageous act would bring me the most attention, readying my body for a sudden discharge of impulsive energy, before I realized that whatever I did, no matter how outrageous, I would immediately recede and disappear into the crowded stage.

When we had completed our rendition of "Wake Up," a stagehand appeared and, with a commanding and spiteful glare, snatched the tambourine away from my neighbor. Our moment was over. It was time to go home. Still exuberant from the concert, though, I felt suddenly let down -- almost thwarted by such an abrupt (and somehow deceptive) ending, and wondered how many others were leaving the stage with a void inside. Later I would realize that dissatisfaction had been the only logical conclusion to a performance in which our desire to be seen and heard was at once gratified and frustrated (a typical paradox in the age of digital imagery, when visibility is encouraged by the same mechanism that overwhelms and denies us the chance to actually be perceived). Who or what, after all, could emerge distinctly from a landscape of echo and static? Even the Arcade Fire ultimately drown in their own "Ocean of Noise" -- the title of a song on their new record, as well as a problem the band encountered when they tried to perform that song, specifically the soft and gradual fade-out at the end of it that was all but silenced by cheering from the audience. If it had worked, the fade-out would have been a rare moment of graceful subtlety during an evening of obvious and sweeping gestures. When it didn't, the audience saw through -- briefly, even if they didn't realize it -- an effect that had been tagged onto the end of the song as superficially as the invitation to climb on stage had been tagged onto the encore.


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photos: top, Arcade Fire violist, Marika Anthony-Shaw, by Houari B. on Flickr; below, the United Palace Theatre and a tambourine, by Matt McLaughlin.