Arcade Fire played their biggest ever headline UK show to date last night (June 30th), performing a hit-laden set to around 60,000 fans at London’s Hyde Park.
The show comes just under twelve months since they released third studio album ‘The Suburbs‘ and headlined the 2010 Reading/Leeds festivals, a move which caused some at the time to question their bill-topping status.
Since then however, ‘The Suburbs’ has landed numerous prizes and accolades, including Grammy and Brit Awards, thanks to a quality which harks back to their 2005 debut ‘Funeral‘ while delivering genuine commercial success at the same time.
Backed earlier by Mumford & Sons, Arcade Fire opened with the call-to-arms ‘Ready To Start‘, and later dropped crowd favourite ‘Wake Up‘ much earlier in the set than usual.
After closing with ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)‘, one of ‘The Suburbs’ stand-outs, frontman Win Butler hinted at a break from UK duties for the Canadian group, telling the crowd: “Goodbye London, we’ll see you in a couple years.”
Setlist:
‘Ready To Start’
‘Wake Up’
‘No Cars Go’
‘Haïti’
‘Intervention’
‘Rococo’
‘Speaking In Tongues’
‘Crown Of Love’
‘The Suburbs’
‘Month of May’
‘Rebellion (Lies)’
‘Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)’
‘We Used to Wait’
‘Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)’
‘Keep The Car Running’
‘Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)’
‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’