Arcade Fire

Yesterday was Kurt's birthday and we went to see Arcade Fire in Kansas City, MO. I had been wanting to see Arcade Fire for years. I'm not joking! Years! They made Neon Bible, then they just kinda stopped touring. So I was excited. I took off work for the afternoon and we made the 3 1/2 hour drive down to KC, found the Starlight Theatre with no problems, and stood in line for a little over 45 minutes until the doors opened. We were early enough that there weren't too many people in front of us. We were bound to get a good seat, which we did. It was quite a large outdoor venue, which we were concerned about because of weather, but it was a beautiful, sunny day with temps in the low 60s. We people-watched until the opener, The National, went on. I kinda like them, but I was pretty bored with their show. The guy's voice is mellow and quiet and hard to understand, and that certainly includes live music. He just seemed unenthusiastic. Also, he had this strange story about how earlier that day he had shot his foot was some gun. He limped all over the stage. It was odd. During that performance, I ate a discolored brat with ketchup and Kurt at a hotdog with ketchup and mustard.

At about 8:45pm, Arcade Fire came on. They started with Month of May. Once they got going, I let go and enjoyed myself. I like to be able to jump around and dance my ass off and sing at the top of my lungs at shows like this, so I did just that for the whole show. It makes me feel like I'm experiencing the music far more than just listening on headphones or in the car. It was extremely enjoyable, and I wish I could have such a wonderful, fun, joyful experience with music more often. I will see Arcade Fire in concert as often as I possibly can for the rest of my life. Part of me wants to try to make it to Chicago to see them there.

The last song they played during the encore was Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is tied for second place for my favorite song on The Suburbs. By this time, we were in the aisle and dancing around with a bunch of other people and it smelled strongly of weed (seeing it was 4/20). Since it's one of my favorite tracks, I enjoyed  myself as much as humanly possible. Then, as soon as they left the stage (at about 10:15pm), Kurt and I bolted for the door. We had a 3 1/2 hour drive back to Omaha, and we wanted to try to beat the parking lot traffic as much as possible. We literally ran through the grass field to my car. It totally paid off, because we were out of there instantly. No waiting. No traffic. We were pretty thrilled. We got back to my place a little after 2am.

I'm glad I have a job that is flexible. I went in at 10:15am this morning, so I got a fair amount of sleep. I would have had a rough day if I had to go in at a normal time, that's for sure. When I got into work, someone wished me a happy birthday. Someone had looked online and saw that it was Renae's birthday this weekend, except it was a different Renae at LFS. They had planned a small get together around lunch and bought a card for me and everything! The whole thing was called off when I informed them that it wasn't my birthday until next month.

Tomorrow is Good Friday, which is a paid holiday for LFS. I like that. The only plans I have is bringing my car to the shop to have them check/fix my rear brakes. Whoopie.

Here's a link for a review for the show.

Here's a YouTube link for Mountains Beyond Mountains. (From their August performance at Madison Square Garden)