Arcade Fire Attack Rich Londoners At Hyde Park Gig

Arcade Fire took aim at wealthy Londoners as they played their biggest-ever UK headline date in Hyde Park tonight (June 30).

The Montreal-based band played a hit-laden set to a sold-out crowd of 60,000 people, which included an unusually early outing for their normal set closer ‘Wake Up’ and the debut of some new material.

But there were points when both Arcade Fire and the crowd appeared frustrated by sound restrictions imposed on gigs which take place in the park.

Launching into ‘Month Of May’, singer Win Butler said: “All the rich people who live around this park, every year they try to buy up the rights so you can’t make a little noise.”

He then encouraged the crowd to scream, before later changing the lyrics of ‘Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)’ to include the line: “The neighbourhood is asking you to turn it down a bit.”

Performing on a backdrop inspired by an old-fashioned outdoor cinema, Arcade Fire began their set with the aptly entitled ‘Ready To Start’.

They then surprised fans by performing their usual stock closer ‘Wake Up’ second in the set, with Butler telling the crowd: “We just wanted to do that song while we could still see you people.”
 
There was also a debut performance of ‘Speaking In Tongues’, which appears on the extended edition of their recent album ‘The Suburbs’, and saw them joined by support act Owen Pallet on violin.

Butler said they had only previously played the track in sound checks.

Arcade Fire’s set also included the songs ‘Crown Of Love’, ‘Rebellion (Lies)’,  ‘Keep The Car Running’ and concluded with 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)'.

Arcade Fire's set list was:

‘Ready To Start’
‘Wake Up’
‘No Cars Go’
‘Haiti’
‘Intervention’
‘Rococo’
‘Speaking In Tongues’
‘Crown Of Love’
‘The Suburbs’
‘Month Of May’
‘Rebellion (Lies)’
‘We Used To Wait’
‘Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)’
‘Keep The Car Running’
‘Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)’
‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’

As well as Pallet, support at the gig came from Mumford & Sons, The Vaccines and Beirut. You can see photos below on Gigwise.