Arcade Fire Record Crowd for New Song, Show Big Love for the Big Easy at Politically Charged Voodoo Fest Show

Montreal’s Arcade Fire have been spending a lot of time in New Orleans, the second home to the group’s core couple, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne; earlier this year, they famously led a second-line tribute to their late collaborator David Bowie through the French Quarter, and this past Saturday, they debuted new songs at a secret, no-phones-allowed show at NOLA’s 175-capacity Secondline Stages club. When Arcade Fire headlined and closed out New Orleans’s Voodoo festival on Sunday, they didn’t play any material from the follow-up to 2013’s Reflektor (tentatively slated for spring 2017), but the city’s spirit will definitely be present in the new music — because Butler recorded the Voodoo crowd for that express purpose.

“I don’t know if you guys are good singers. Do you guys wanna be on a record?” Butler asked the audience, before leading fans in a call-and-response chorus of na-na-na’s that will presumably be included on a yet-untitled, seemingly upbeat new track. “Trust me, you’ll thank me when you’re older!”

“I just want to say thank you to the city of New Orleans. Thank you for existing,” Butler later gushed. “We’ve been spending a lot of time here, and I’ve been so inspired. It makes be proud to be an American, and it makes be proud to be an American in New Orleans.” (Video below contains profanity.)

Throughout their nearly two-hour set, which broke City Park’s 9 p.m. curfew, Butler and company frequently expressed their big love for the Big Easy — sometimes by making political statements of solidarity. At one point, Butler ranted, “Whatever BP paid the state of Louisiana wasn’t a 10th of what it should have been. F— British Petroleum,” referring to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oilrig explosion that gravely endangered Louisiana plant and wildlife and caused a public health crisis. Later, he declared, “We have to f—kin’ protect what’s sacred and beautiful about this city. There’s not much of it left.” Butler also ended Arcade Fire’s set with a condemnation of Louisiana’s private prison system. (Video below contains profanity, obviously.)

Butler also got political when he prefaced the gay-rights anthem “We Exist” by saying, “There’s more of us than there are of you; there’s more queers than there are straight,” and when he introduced “Intervention,” a song written more than 15 years ago that carries even more weight now.

“We wrote [‘Intervention’] kind of on the eve of the first George [W.] Bush election,” Butler recalled. “I was in my early twenties, and I voted for Al Gore. I wasn’t particularly inspired by Al Gore, but I certainly didn’t vote for George W. Bush! But there was kind of a feeling of division and fear-mongering, and a level of just playing to people’s worst emotions and worst fears that I had never experienced in my adult life — until recently [with this current presidential election], when I experienced it in even worse ways than I could have ever imagined.”

But for the most part, Arcade Fire’s set was celebratory and joyous, featuring Chassagne’s free-spirited dancing, a parade of giant bobble-heads, and one big, booming anthem after another.

The show of course had some overt nods to the Halloween weekend, too — Arcade Fire walked onstage to the Shaggs’ “It’s Halloween,” covered a bit of the Ghostbusters theme, and sprayed the audience with orange-and-black confetti. They eschewed actual Halloween costumes or even their signature Reflektor outfits, but Chassagne looked quite reflective in a silver foil cocktail dress, which she paired with drum-majorette boots and neon-fringed red gloves, and Win’s brother and bandmate, Will Butler, probably could have gone as a Pepto-Bismol bottle for Halloween in his blindingly bright pink suit.

Some other Voodoo performers did get into the fancy-dress spirit, however — like Tool main man Maynard James Keenan’s side band, Puscifer, who went with a wild Lucha Va Voom Mexican wrestling theme, or experimental world-fusion band Beats Antique, who dressed up as literal singing nuns.

But Voodoo Sunday’s Best Costume Award had to be a tie between indie-electro duo Bob Moses, who dubbed themselves “Guns N’ Moses” and dressed up as Axl and Slash (although, granted, the golden-wigged guy looked more like Poison’s Bret Michaels), and neo-soulman Anderson .Paak and his band the Free Nationals, who amusingly and perhaps coincidentally also donned GNR drag for their performance that took place an hour later. (The Free Nationals’ entrance music was even “Welcome to the Jungle.”) Who wore it best? We’ll leave that up to you, but multi-instrumentalist Paak’s drumming was so impressive, the newly semi-reunited Guns N’ Roses might want to considering having him join them in the Steven Adler/Matt Sorum role.

Click here for more coverage from Yahoo Music’s Halloween weekend Voodoo Music + Arts Experience live stream.