Everything Now: Arcade Fire Brings Infinite Content Tour To Madison Square Garden – Photos, Setlist, Videos & Review

Words & Images by: Bryan Lasky

Arcade Fire :: 9.12.17 :: Madison Square Garden
New York City

View Bryan’s gallery below his review.

How do you enter Madison Square Garden weeks after releasing a No. 1 album? Well, Arcade Fire came in announced like boxers touting accolades such as “undefeated” and “champions of the world.”

They walked through the general admission crowd, squeezing through ropes surrounding the stage adorned to look like a boxing ring and placed in the center of the MSG floor. Once everyone was in their place, with a sharp note the band kicked into “Everything Now,” the title track from their latest album, and the show was off and didn’t stop for the next two hours.

Some may see this as the band turning their noses up at their critics, but with the energy they played with that night, they might just be right to consider themselves champions of the rock world. Watching the band storm through their set felt like a knockout. By the time the set ended, the audience was reeling from constantly being bombarded by the visuals the band employed for the tour. The stage had video screens above it, not just showing the band, but also videos produced for the tour. Disco balls came down over the audience and were hit by lights coming from all over the arena.

Like the Reflektor Tour, though the show was in an arena, it felt incredibly smaller than that. The band has made it their mission to keep their live shows feeling like a theater or club, even though they’ve outgrown venues that size.

The new songs fit right in with everything the band has come out with before this album. The back to back of “Electric Blue” and “Put Your Money on Me” showcased the new material perfectly. It was the older material though that got the crowd the craziest. One of the most beautiful moments of the night came during the opening chords of “Neon Bible” when many in the audience, without prompting, pulled out their cell phones and lit up the arena. Even Win Butler seemed to be caught off guard thanking the audience before starting the lyrics to the song.

Win also rallied against hate and bigotry near the beginning of the show, saying we need to work together to take the country back. Before “The Suburbs” Win also asked the audience to donate what they can to the Houston hurricane relief, as he and as brother Will are “from the city” and they dedicated the song to their home city.

For “Reflektor” the band included a new video of a pixelated David Bowie singing his part of the song, which drew many cheers from the audience. The set ended with a raucous “Creature Comfort” that led directly into “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out).” The break didn’t end long as the band came back out and Win sang “We Don’t Deserve Love” in the crowd before he joined the rest of the band, along with Preservation Hall Jazz Band, who had opened the evening, for “Everything Now (Continued)” and “Wake Up.”

The show didn’t end with that though as both bands paraded into the crowd for an unamplified second line of the “Wake Up” chorus and “Stand By Me.” It seemed as though Win didn’t want the evening to end, but all champions have to go down the tunnel eventually, and while still playing the song, both bands vanished into the recesses of MSG, moving on to conquer another city.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”626″ gal_title=”20170912 Arcade Fire Lasky”]

Video Playlist (Captured by IronChefWong)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIVq5zNeLC7jTUSyQMrhWYGpTPhrW_YRc&showinfo=1

Tracklist: Everything Now, Signs Of Life, Rebellion, Haiti, No Cars Go, Electric Blue, Put Your Money On Me, Neon Bible, Neighborhood #1, The Suburbs, Ready To Start, Sprawl II, Reflektor, Afterlife, Infinite Content, Creature Comfort, Neighborhood #3, We Don’t Deserve Love, Everything Now, Wake Up