Arcade Fire played Ottawa last night. Video inside

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...but you can't go.

Arcade Fire to play for area high school

Chris Lackner

The Ottawa Citizen

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

One of the hottest Canadian bands, the Arcade Fire, are treating Canterbury High School students to an impromptu concert.

While the Arcade Fire's upcoming five-night stints in Montreal and New York sold-out within minutes, the indie rock super-group is offering an informal concert at Canterbury's school cafeteria on the evening of Friday, Jan. 19.

They are donating their time to support the Canterbury Arts Centre Development Association, a charitable organization that raises arts funding for the Ottawa school.

Bandmember Richard Reed Parry, both a guitarist and percussionist with the group, was a 1995 graduate of Canterbury's literary arts program.

The Montreal band's critically-acclaimed 2004 album, Funeral, brought them international stardom practically overnight.

Their new album, Neon Bible, is set to be released on Mar. 6 and is one of the year's most anticipated releases.

The city's pending 15-city European tour has also sold-out nearly all of its dates.

Tickets for the Canterbury show are open to students, grads and CACDA members, and can be bought for $25 at school lunch hour today and tomorrow.

There are limited tickets remaining and none will be sold at the door.

[SaggyBalls]

a band member's younger brother goes to canterbury...

...forget which member but an old small town friend is friends with said sibling.

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They played last night to a half-empty half of the school cafeteria. I tried my darndest to get in but could not. But Pitchfork could, and there is video at their site and a review coming soon.

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Ottawa Citizen second-hand review: (Only media to get accredited was Pitchfork)

Canadian supergroup Arcade Fire wows high school students

Melissa Arseniuk, Ottawa Citizen

Published: Saturday, January 20, 2007

Indie-rock super group the Arcade Fire pulled a 180-degree reversal on tradition Friday night and played for a cafeteria full of high school students.

Teenagers are often told they have to be 19 years old to see their favourite band live, so the event was somewhat atypical — but the Arcade Fire is not your typical band.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past two years, the Montreal-based band — including Ottawa members Jeremy Gara and Richard Reed Parry — is about as hot as a still young band can be, and the follow-up to their hugely popular and critically acclaimed 2004 release, Funeral, is due out March 6.

The sophomore record, Neon Bible, is being anticipated by fans and critics to be one of the biggest rock albums of the year.

Tickets to all of the band’s 16 warm-up shows — warm-up appearances, not full-scale concerts — sold out. Passes to the dates in Montreal and New York sold out in minutes, and Friday night a pair for the Feb. 10 show at Montreal’s Ukrainian National Federation sold for $283.99 U.S. on e-bay.

Students, staff, and some alumni at Ottawa’s Canterbury High School got to see Canada’s biggest band-on-the-brink for just 25 bucks.

But getting in was no simple task. In order to get your hot hands on one of the 400 tickets, you had to be a Canterbury student or alumnus. Tickets were sold during the school’s lunch hour, and each student was allowed to bring a “guest†from another high school. Media were strictly prohibited.

“They would only let you in if you were in high school, and they checked your student ID at the door,†said 17-year-old Matt Bostelaar, who attends Bell High School.

Because he is an “outsider,†he said the Canterbury vice principal called his school to make sure he wasn’t a trouble-maker. “No cameras, or even cell phones were to be opened during the show, either,†he added. Mixed within the youthful crowd were “a few Canterbury alumni ... but the majority, by far, were high school students,†Matt said.

“It was meant to be very secretive,†explained Matt Nelson, 17, whose sister, Meredith, attends the arts-oriented school.

Those who were lucky enough to get inside were treated to just more than an hour’s worth of mostly new music, including their latest single, Intervention, and a handful of tracks from previous releases. Despite it being the band’s first warm-up show, their performance was said to be polished.

“I’m almost speechless,†Matt Nelson gasped after the show. “They played extremely well,†he added.

“They all knew their cues and the songs,†Matt Bostelaar added. “I can’t believe how they play those instruments ... It wasn’t the best acoustics, it being a cafeteria, but they still sounded phenomenal.â€

“The instrumentation was simply amazing,†said 17-year-old Megan Miller.

“Their instrumentation is definitely the allure of the band, because that’s what makes them so interesting and so unique … They had two French horns going, three violinists, there was a bass clarinet, a clarinet, of course a bass guitar, they had a upright double bass going on, there was at least three keyboards … the drum set was amazing, they had the accordions, there was a mandolin... “

“The instrumentation was insane,†concurred Matt Bostelaar, who likened the arrangement of sounds to that of Broken Social Scene.

He said the new tracks are “darker†than those found on Funeral. “The basslines are a lot heavier and more pronounced,†he said.

“I think they added a lot more vocals,†said Megan Miller, who said that as many as seven of the 12 band members were singing in unison at times.

The band took to the cafeteria stage around 8:15 p.m. and played nearly non-stop for more than an hour. “They were able to fuse a lot of their songs together … I could count the number of times there was silence between songs on my hand,†said Matt Bostelaar.

While Megan Miller does not attend Canterbury High School, she said the school deserved the special treatment, and the students would appreciate the performance.

“They’re all studying classical music, she explained. “This was a very appropriate venue.â€

Richard Reed Parry, a guitarist and percussionist with the group, provides the Canterbury connection.

He graduated from the school’s literary arts program in 1995. All money raised from the show will support the Canterbury Arts Centre Development Association, a charitable organization that supports arts programming at the school.

The Arcade Fire goes to London, England Jan. 29, where they will play five of their warm-up shows. The rest of the practice gigs will be split between Montreal and New York City before they kick off the full-scale European tour in Dublin, Ireland on March 5. The last time the group played Ottawa was in 2005, when they opened the Corel Centre for U2. A forthcoming North American tour has been announced, though dates and locations have yet to be released.

[bouche]

wow. what a fuckin' treat! I hope more musicians take this cue to help raise awareness AND money for music in students.

[NewRider]

Sorry to hear you didn't make it in AD.

[adambrot]

I got in on the guest list and it was a great show! The high school vibe was surreal and it was fun to see them in such an intimate setting. I can only imagine that the Montreal show rocked the following night but nothing could match the exuberant and innocent atmosphere of seeing a private show from such an excellent band to that ecstatic and appreciative teenage crowd!

cheers

adambrot

[Guest Low Roller]

Niiiiiiiiiiiice. From the looks of that video, Win's haircut looks like ass.