Arcade Fire line-ups

Last week was the coldest time of the year, but fans were ready to freeze to see Arcade Fire live. "At first I told myself it was just a show - I wasn't going to get up early in the morning for a show! But then I was filled with remorse, I was like 'you're going to have to live and have something to tell in your life,'" said Sébastien Charest, journalist for Bang Bang magazine.

He arrived at 7:30 in the morning last Tuesday, a few minutes too late. Fifty people were already lining up in front of l'Oblique, an indie record store located near Mont-Royal metro station, and that's the exact number of tickets that were going to be available at 10 a.m.

Because Arcade Fire's five shows were sold out within a few hours last December, the producers decided to keep 50 tickets to be sold each concert morning. They probably didn't expect fans to be ready to fight temperatures of 30 below for up to 11 hours. On Friday, the line-up was full by 3 a.m.

"They're a pretty good band. To be honest, they're not even one of my favourite bands, but I really thought it would be fun to stay out all night for the experience - it's a funny story to tell people. And it will probably be a good show too," said George Everett, a student at Concordia who lined up on Thursday.

He arrived with his friends around 1, and like most of the other people there, he spent the night going back and forth to the nearest caf�. From listening to them, one would think it wasn't so terrible to stay still outside for such a long time. But that night, three people quit because of the cold. "When you spend the night outside in the winter, the conditions are very difficult," explained Luc B�rard, owner of l'Oblique. "Physically, it can be very dangerous."

He had never seen such a craze for a band in the 20 years the store has been open. But it was well worth the wait: their shows were awesome. Although the sound quality was not the best - the Ukrainian Federation was a church before it became a concert hall and so wasn't designed to welcome amplified music - the band reached their goal, which was to test their new songs (the album "Neon Bible" will be released on March 6.)

On Thursday, the band opened with "Black Mirror," playing with a giant neon Bible in their backs. They continued with a few other new songs before switching to well-known material such as "No Cars Go" and the infuriated Neighborhood #3 (Power Out). They also presented a surprising cover of Gainsbourg's Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son and finished the show in the middle of the crowd, as they like to do, with Haiti and Tunnels.

Arcade Fire is now heading to New York for another series of shows. They'll be back in Montreal in May for the actual tour, but this time in a bigger venue.

The Concordian, February 14

Note: I would never write "awesome" in an article. This was edited.