Hey, look who’s back! For real this time! Three months ago, Arcade Fire played their first show since the pandemic started, and it was not the grand, cathartic return that one might’ve hoped for from this band. Instead, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, with the barest-possible crew of backing musicians and without the rest of the regular band members, played a private Las Vegas show for a crypto company called Gala Games. Videos from the set looked pretty depressing, and Butler even joked about how the gig felt like “a fucked-up dream.” So it’s great to report that Arcade Fire are about to make their real live return and that it’ll happen tonight in New Orleans, Butler and Chassagne’s adapted home.

This evening, Arcade Fire will play New Orleans’ Toulouse Theatre, and the show will be a benefit for the Plus 1 Ukraine Relief Fund; tickets are available under a “pay what you can” scale. Those tickets will only be available to people who show up at the Toulouse Theatre this morning, beginning at 10AM. If you’re in New Orleans, you better get your ass over there right now.

https://twitter.com/arcadefire/status/1503222757424832513

This will be Arcade Fire’s first proper show full-band in over two years. The last time the full band played together, it was also in New Orleans. That was a show at the Mahalia Jackson Theater in November of 2020. Since then, Arcade Fire have supposedly recorded “two or three” albums during lockdown. Maybe we’ll get to hear one of them soon.

Arcade Fire are definitely doing the long-rollout teaser thing at the moment. Earlier this month, the band sent postcards, featuring musical notation, to fans. Right now, the band has new billboards up.

https://twitter.com/arcadefire/status/1502674578686066688

The band also has a new website, which features a snippet of new music.

https://twitter.com/arcadefire/status/1502975607558262785

It’s been nearly five years since Everything Now, and maybe we won’t have to wait much longer for the follow-up.