Reflektion on Arcade Fire

Win Butler temporarily forgot the words to “We Used to Wait,” but fans helped the Arcade Fire frontman fill in the blanks Wednesday during the band’s Mountain View show.

“Too much email,” Butler joked, a nod to the song’s lyrics about the lost art of letter writing.

It was the first time Matt and I had seen Arcade Fire in concert, and we arrived at the Shoreline Amphitheatre super-early (4:30 p.m.!) to eat a quick dinner of turkey sandwiches in the parking lot and then ensure primo seating on the lawn.

We claimed a spot behind the entrance to sections 203 and 204 because the walkway allowed for a clear view of the stage and the barrier between the cheapo (grass) seats and the chairs offered something to lean against when the crowd took to its feet. This was also an excellent vantage point to gape at the attire worn by those who had noticed the “formal attire / costumes” invitation on the tickets and took it to heart. The pre-concert parade included a bride, a prom queen, a mariachi band, a pig dressed in a bloody apron, an ape, a giant banana and several Guy Fawkes enthusiasts. My favorite get-ups, however, were those bravely worn by two middle-aged women dressed as paper dolls: two-dimensional cardboard “dresses” complete with fold-over tabs in the front and ruffled undergarments in the back.

Devo of “Whip It” fame was scheduled to perform but didn’t show. Instead, we were treated to the strangest opening act Matt and I have ever seen: electronic musician Dan Deacon of Baltimore. Imagine the overweight Dungeon and Dragons enthusiast from your high school. It’s 20 years later and he’s grown a gnarly red beard and obscured his wide face with oversized hipster eyeglasses. He’s kind of slovenly, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and he begins his set with a rambling and nonsensical but hilarious monologue.

“If you haven’t started a tech start-up, please don’t,” Deacon sputtered from behind his keyboard. “It drives me insane.”

Matt and I are not big electronic music fans, but we enjoyed observing Deacon cajole the audience into performing oddball dance moves including an impressively long human tunnel that undulated across the amphitheater.

And then, as quietly as he took to the stage, Deacon ambled away, replaced by the 30 or so members of Arcade Fire. Wearing a reflective suit and a reflective bag over his head, Butler led the group into Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge”(which, to my ears, has a similar sound to Arcade Fire’s “Month of May”) and then segued into “Reflektor,” title track of Arcade Fire’s 2013 album.

Both Butler and frontwoman Régine Chassagne, who unexpectedly appeared in the middle of the amphitheater with a bizarre, Grim Reaper-like form behind her during “It’s Never Over (Hey Orpheus),” were entertaining to watch, but William Butler, Win’s brother, gyrated all over the stage with an infectious and crazed energy.

Scenes from Spike Jonze’s haunting music video flashed on the projector as Arcade Fire played their hit single, “The Suburbs,” the crowd-pleasure of the evening. My favorite part of that song is the lyrics about desiring to introduce a daughter to beauty.

“So can you understand / Why I want a daughter while I’m still young? /  I wanna hold her hand / And show her some beauty / Before this damage is done / But if it’s too much to ask, it’s too much to ask / Then send me a son.”

Husband and wife Butler and Chassagne welcomed a baby boy in 2013, and he sweetly inserted “perfect” before “son” during the live performance.

Some critics have recently lambasted Arcade Fire for what they claim is exploitation of Haitian culture during a sloppy marketing campaign for the Reflektor Tour. But the band scores points in my book for donating $1 from the sale of every ticket to Haitian relief charities. Chassagne’s family is from Haiti, and her parents fled the country in the 1960s during the Duvalier reign.