By Chesney Hearst, Senior Contributing Reporter
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Grammy Award-winning artists Arcade Fire will play Barra da Tijuca’s Citibank Hall this Friday, April 4th. The Canadian band have been creating their unique style of indie rock since the early 2000s and with four studio album releases, they have received critical acclaim and achieved commercial success throughout the world.
The band will make a stop in Rio while touring in support of their most recent release entitled, Reflektor. The show comes before Arcade Fire will go on to headline the second night of the Lollapalooza music festival in São Paulo on Sunday, April 6th.
“I was happy about them coming to Rio,” student and Arcade Fire fan, Marcos Pavão, told The Rio Times, “because it would be a lot more expensive for me to go to Lollapalooza in São Paulo just to see them.”
Many do travel to see Arcade Fire’s shows as they are well known for their many-membered ensemble that bring life to their well known works through vocals and multi-instrumental performances. During shows, band members are known to switch between a vast array of instruments ranging from guitars, drums and synthesizers, to violins, a French horn, an accordion, and even, at times, a hurdy-gurdy.
Fronting the band and providing the main vocals is the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. Will Butler, Win’s brother, plays synthesizer, bass guitar, guitar, percussion, and at times, sitar and panpipes. Members Richard Reed Parry, Tim Kingsbury, Sarah Neufeld and Jeremy Gara round out the band with others including: violinist and long-time Arcade Fire collaborator Owen Pallett, and percussionists Diol Edmond and Tiwill Duprate, who often join the band for their live performances.
Formed in Montreal, Canada, in 2001, the band’s debut album entitled, Funeral, released in 2004, was both a critical and commercial success. It earned award nominations and rocketed its way to numerous top ten lists thanks to a plethora of popular hits including: “Wake Up”, “Rebellion (Lies),” “Neighborhood No. 3 (Power Out)”, and “Haïti.” A bonus disc release also included a cover of the song “Brazil.”
The band followed up in 2007 with their release, Neon Bible, which included the songs: “Keep the Car Running”, “No Cars Go” and “Intervention”, among others. It went on to rank in several top alubms of 2007 lists. However, it was the band’s the third studio release, The Suburbs, that set a new high watermark for Arcade Fire.
“I have been a fan of Arcade Fire for a while,” the Carioca (Rio resident) Pavão explained. “I learned about them in 2009. I was enchanted by [the song] “Wake Up” and started to get to know more about the band. But it was when they released The Suburbs, that I really fell in love. Their work started to sound like hymn for me.”
Pavão was not the only one to fall in love with The Suburbs. Including the songs: “Ready to Start”, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” and the title track, “The Suburbs”, the album debuted at number one in the charts in the U.S., UK and Canada. Additionally it went on to win Album of the Year at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards in 2011 and Best International Album at the 2011 BRIT Awards.
In late October 2013, Arcade Fire released the double album, entitled Reflektor. Featuring a slightly different sound for the band, the songs were reportedly inspired by a trip to Haiti, the home of Régine Chassagne’s family. Influenced by the country’s ‘rara’ music genre, Reflektor incorporates new rhythms in its songs including the title track, “Flashbulb Eyes” and “Afterlife.”
In 2013 the band also wrote the score for the Spike Jonze movie, “Her,” which earned them an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score.
In anticipation of Friday’s night’s show Pavão added excitedly, “I hope they play ‘Brazil’, which for me is the best cover ever done in history of the music.”
What: Arcade Fire
When: Friday, April 4th, 10PM
Where: Citibank Hall, Av. Ayrton Senna, 3000 – Shopping Via Parque – Barra da Tijuca
Entrance: R$105 – R$440. Tickets available on the Tickets for Fun website here.