The Arcade Fire go to Church

{via}

As rumoured, last night the Arcade Fire played a second show - this time in the basement of a Catholic Church in Montreal - as a benefit for a Montreal charity. You can read a fine account of it here. Despite the lack of publicity, the show was crowded - and recorded.
The quality of the sound is what you'd expect from a show played in a basement through a PA, but good enough for the energy and effort of the band to shine through. New UK single 'Keep The Car Running' is a bit like the last minutes of 'Une Année Sans Lumière' and sounds very nice indeed. Oddly enough, the melody is quite similiar to 'Carpetbaggers', by the Harlem Shakes, but it's certainly got more energy on the strength of this showing. I haven't listened to any of the other new songs, and I don't intend to, but I can tell you that 'Black Wave/Bad Vibrations' is going to be astounding live - the first half of the song takes on a whole new life in this setting. And 'Ocean of Noise' remains as mournful live as it does on record.

Ocean of Noise (live)
Black Wave/Bad Vibrations (live)



Again, all credit goes to the fans at the Us Kids Know forums. You can pre-order Neon Bible with Merge here, to get a free poster (and possibly some other goodies) and see more photos here and here.

{Update}

Here are some videos from the show - they're short and you shouldn't judge the music by the sound quality, but they're worth seeing just for that neon bible onstage:

Black Mirror
No Cars Go
Between-song banter
Keep the Car Running
Intervention + 2
My Body Is A Cage
Black Wave/Bad Vibrations
Black Mirror (full video)
The Well & The Lighthouse

Thanks to screwdriver223 for the videos!