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The weekend involved camping at The Gorge, seeing one of the most important indie rock bands of my indie-music-listening-career, at one of the most beautiful venues, all while dressed in elaborate costumes, and partying with friends, so you could guess that it was an epic concert weekend.
Opening Acts
So I had heard that Dan Deacon was opening, which I was excited about, being a big Dan Deacon fan. We caught his set from the drinking area. He didn’t do any elaborate technological crowd-interaction which he is known for doing on occasion, but his set sounded good from where we were.
But even crazier to me, was that The Antlers opened for Dan Deacon! …and since I had no idea that was going to happen I missed all but 2 of their songs. I literally sprinted in from the gates, when I heard them playing. I love The Antlers! I wish I knew they were opening. NO ONE could have appreciated that show more than I would have. I do find that line-up to be strange; depressing music: The Antlers, dancy-repetitive electronic music: Dan Deacon, and then Arcade Fire? I’m cool with it, just a weird genre mash-up.
Addressing the Formal Dress
For the tour, the band had requested that attendees wear “formal dress” or wear a costume. At the beginning of the tour, there was an official looking note on the ticket saying “formal dress or costume required”. This got people’s panties all in a bunch, thinking they were actually required to wear formal attire. Since then folks found themselves in 1 of 2 camps: those who think it’s silly to dress-up, and those who think it’s an awesome idea.
I find myself in the later of those 2 camps: enjoying dressing up in elaborate garb to go to shows. Who doesn’t like an excuse to dress up? It is FUN!
I’ll tell you what; there is no better way to get a crowd ready and into a show than have them start getting into the vibe, the second the get dressed for the show (or long before).
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| And by dressing-up I don’t mean a tuxedo, I mean an Arcade Fire rock version of formal dress. |
I’ll tell you what; there is no better way to get a crowd ready and into a show than have them start getting into the vibe, the second the get dressed for the show (or long before).
Our whole concert-crew got clothes at the thrift store, and we had a costume-painting-party the day before the show, where we literally painted our costumes with spray paint, regular paint, and booze. We had a great time creating our costumes. And I hate to brag, but I think they turned out pretty fucking awesome **brushes shoulders off** (extremely ornate shoulders that they are).
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| Our Crew at our Campsite with the lantern that would lead us home. |
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| Heading to the show |
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| The back of my jacket, handiwork courtesy of Tess. |
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| Superlative: Best Dressed |
True Story
So we didn’t spring for the extremely expensive General Admission (GA) tickets, but instead got the cheaper seats, just back from GA. When the show started, we moved forward and were up at the front barricade of our section, dancing and grooving to the tunes. About 1.5 songs in, a bouncer starts saying something to Tess and I just assumed he was telling her and I to move on, or go to our seats, etc. But the conversation went something like this…
Bouncer: Are you guys big fans?
Tess: Uh…i..uh...YEAH!
Bouncer: You want to come up here? (motioning towards the GA area)
Me: Seriously? Really?
Bouncer: Yeah, just come on around.
(so we sprinted out of our section, around the divider, and into the GA area!!!)
Me: Thank YOU!!!!
…and so, for no apparent reason that I can fathom (other than the possibility that our elaborate costumes caught his eye) that awesome bouncer-dude let us up to the front-front!!! … from where we watched the whole show!!!! True. Story. No shit. Mind-blowing crazyness.
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| Our vantage-point from the fancy GA area!!! thanks random nice bouncer !!! |
And what a great show it was.
Complete with incredible visuals (see the YouTube videos), and lots of people having a good time being dressed all crazy.
It was great to hear songs from their full catalog from some of my very favorites from Funeral, to the new stuff from Reflektor. (there are few songs from Reflektor that I really don't like, that I wished they skipped, but C'est la vie).
The Setlist courtesy of Setlist.fm
As a lead-in (and outro) to Rococo, Arcade Fire did a quick homage to Nirvana, by doing a few lyrics from Smells Like Teen Spirit (The Gorge is basically a long-drive extension of Seattle and most of the attendees very likely made the journey from Seattle).
Complete with incredible visuals (see the YouTube videos), and lots of people having a good time being dressed all crazy.
It was great to hear songs from their full catalog from some of my very favorites from Funeral, to the new stuff from Reflektor. (there are few songs from Reflektor that I really don't like, that I wished they skipped, but C'est la vie).
The Setlist courtesy of Setlist.fm
As a lead-in (and outro) to Rococo, Arcade Fire did a quick homage to Nirvana, by doing a few lyrics from Smells Like Teen Spirit (The Gorge is basically a long-drive extension of Seattle and most of the attendees very likely made the journey from Seattle).
Here is a YouTube Playlist of (just about) the full concert, shot by many YouTubers, and compiled here thanks to the internet and someone named Suffrin Succotash:
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