THE SET-UP
Except for Jesus's—which we're still waiting on—there hasn't been a second coming this hotly anticipated in quite a while. Tuesday night marked the first of five sold-out Arcade Fire shows at Judson Memorial Church.

A RUMOR
A very skinny Kirsten Dunst flitted about the venue before the band went on. Given celebrity culture's three degrees of separation, that means the Arcade Fire will score the next Sofia Coppola film. Tell your friends.

THE MEAT
Like most over-hyped events, the gig itself didn't live up to its mythology—how could it? Win Butler looked boyishly serious, beaming his best thousand yard stare over the crowd while he strummed and sang (as with Isaac Brock, Butler's stage demeanor belongs to the Affable Serial Killer school). Frontwoman/Win's wife Régine Chassagne was a bit of a discomforting surprise—she seemed to be having a good time up there, though, bouncing as buoyantly as a drunk sorority gal. Despite her flighty demeanor, she kicked ass on the two-songs-in-one "Black Wave / Bad Vibrations" (her segment recalled Pat Benatar on bad acid). The ten live Arcade Fire members rotated instruments that included French horns, an accordion, a clarinet, a stand-up bass, a weird, small guitar-slash-mandolin thingy, and a weirder square-shaped cello operated with a crank. There was a disappointing lack of church organ.

A DREAM DEFERRED
The tense moments before the band's encore were full of questions and anxiety. After a brief sojourn in the church's green room (for cocaine and bottled water, no doubt), Win and company trotted back on stage.

They did not play a certain Talking Heads cover with a certain living legend, as was rumored. That means that they might do so tonight, or the next night, or the next. It makes being in the audience feel like living in a Beckett play.

NOTE
Hey, New York? When a Canadian singer belts out the line, "I don't want to live in America no more," and you respond by whistling and applauding? That means the terrorists have won.—Scott Indrisek

LINKS
• Matt Derby on the Way They Were Last Year
• More music in a church—only shitty