Before last night, Arcade Fire hadn’t played a proper live show in front of human beings since February of 2020, when they headlined New Orleans’ Mahalia Jackson Theater. During the COVID era, the band has kept busy, debuting their song “Generation A” on Stephen Colbert’s election-night special and releasing a 45-minute track for a meditation app. Last year, Win Butler said that Arcade Fire have recorded “two or three” albums during the pandemic. And this past weekend, Arcade Fire returned to the stage, though it might not have been the most triumphant comeback.

On Saturday night, Arcade Fire played at Zarkana Theater in Las Vegas. It was not a normal live show. Instead, they were there for Galaverse, a big event put on by a company called Gala Games. (Per Brooklyn Vegan, the people at Gala Games describe themselves as “the leaders in play-to-earn, blockchain, and NFT gaming.” I honestly don’t understand what those words mean.) A press release describes Galaverse as “an immersive event for the community to celebrate the Gala Games metaverse” and that it drew “more than 500 attendees from around the world.” Arcade Fire were part of a star-studded weekend for the Galaverse crowd; it also included performances from Maroon 5, Billy Idol, Kings Of Leon, Snoop Dogg, Alice Cooper, and Steve Aoki.

The full Arcade Fire lineup wasn’t there for the show. Instead, videos from the set mostly just show Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, though there’s at least one other musician in there. There aren’t too many instruments onstage, either; Butler performs in front of a console that includes a laptop and a cowbell. Those videos show a frankly depressing scene, with Butler and Chassagne performing in front of a barely-interested audience. While introducing “My Body Is A Cage,” Butler tells the crowed, “You know that dream that you have where you’re, like, in Las Vegas and your band’s not there and you’re about to sing, and then you turn around and there’s a bunch of people eating dinner? Yeah, it’s a fucked up dream.” Check out some video evidence of that performance below.

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