Four years ago I paid £50 to see Kings of Leon at Hyde Park. It was crap.
I admit that sitting in the sun and drinking wine throughout the support acts probably wasn’t the best way to secure a good viewpoint, but I was in front of the sound desk. And when the headliners came on, I am sad to say that I could barely hear them.
Edging increasingly nearer to the stage throughout the set, I still struggled to enjoy the band and the main thing I could hear was the inebriated crowd. Disappointed and £50 poorer, I put the money down to experience and vowed to never attend a concert at Hyde Park again.
So when a friend managed to snap up some £2.50 tickets to Arcade Fire last night (the result of a massive ticketing error/PR stunt – you decide which), and asked if I wanted to come, I was a little dubious. But having missed out on the chance to see the band while in Berlin recently, I decided it had to be worth a go for a couple of quid.
In 2012, AEG Live took over from Live Nation in producing the series of summer events. Now known as Barclaycard British Summer Time, the current manifestation turned out to be an entirely different beast to my last experience.
Boasting four stages, a huge array of independent food vendors (Pizza Pilgrims, Bleeker St Burger and Bad Brownie to name but a few), a champagne bar, cocktail bars, fairground rides, and carnival-like parades of dancers and performance artists snaking their way through the site, BST in a mini-festival in its own right.
The 27-degree heat and glorious sun may have had something to do with it, but there was a definite party atmosphere, something which had also been missing in 2010.
Quickly purchasing ourselves a couple of cocktails from the Cuban themed bar, we settled in to watch Wild Beasts on the main stage. I was immediately taken aback by the feeling of bass in my chest. ‘It’s loud!’ we cried in only half mock-relief, and any concerns about the volume for the headlining act thankfully began to ebb away.
A Bleeker St Burger (which was banging, by the way) and a few more cocktails later, we were back in front of the stage waiting for Arcade Fire. Arriving on stage to chase away The Reflektors – a fake version of the band dressed in papier-mâché heads – the group wasted no time in whipping the crowd into a frenzy.
Regine Chassange led a trio of bongo banging, pom-pom waving members during opener ‘Normal Person’, before donning a gold cape and proceeding to swoop gleefully around the stage. The rest of the group matched her enthusiasm, never losing energy throughout the meaty two hour set.
And neither did the crowd: from the chants of ‘Lies! Lies!’ raising the proverbial roof during ‘Rebellion’, to the melody of ‘Wake Up’ being sung long after the lights went down, the commitment of the fans was crystal clear.
Dipping into each of their past four albums for this show, Arcade Fire proved both the longevity of their older material and the success of this year’s Reflektor. ‘Tunnels’ sounded as relevant under last night’s summer sky as it did on Funeral’s release 10 years ago, and Neon Bible’s ‘No Cars Go’ showed forward-thinking hints of both The Suburbs and their latest release.
The stage production drew heavily on Reflektor’s theme of reflections and mirrors: at one point a trio of sequined dancers took to a podium in the middle of the crowd, footage of which was then displayed real-time on the screen behind the band.
Theatricality has always been an element of Arcade Fire’s music and performances – they frequently swap instruments, and by now we all know that Regine is fond of the odd prop – but the visual element of this show was possibly their most dramatic effort to date.
And the sound? Before the final song, front man Win Butler joked with the audience, ‘Shh! Don’t wake up the rich people!’ – the battle between the concert producers and local residents about noise levels is ongoing – and although they could have turned it up a decibel or two no problem, the volume was a definite improvement on last time.
So would I go to a gig in Hyde Park again? Possibly. And see Arcade Fire again? Without a doubt.
Living London 