Arcade Fire turns introspective at its tour stop at the Met

“Take your mind off me,” urges Win Butler in “Pink Elephant,” the title track from Arcade Fire’s impending seventh album.

But the band’s frontman was inevitably the elephant in the room at the Met on Monday, as the Canadian indie rockers returned to Philly for the first time since Pitchfork published sexual misconduct allegations against Butler by several accusers. (They’ll be back on stage tonight at World Café Live for the radio industry showcase Non-Comm.)

The controversy went unaddressed during Monday’s two-hour performance, which seemed to opt for catharsis rather than contrition. In place of the band’s usual disco ball, a crystal heart hung in the rafters, occasionally lit by spotlights and suggesting both transparency and fragility.

Butler explained that the new album is a plea to “clean up your heart,” then encouraged the Met audience to “make the loudest sound you can make,” raising an impressive roar despite the smattering of empty seats visible in patches beyond the packed standing-room pit.

Whether those absences should be chalked up to disillusionment over the allegations or simply the prospect of an as-yet-unknown album, was unclear. The evening’s first half was given over to Pink Elephant, performed in its entirety despite not being due for release until Friday. Those who did arrive greeted the band with enthusiasm, including at least one pair who seized on the album’s color scheme, clad head to toe in pink, including a customized cape and a tutu.

The band was literally embraced as first Butler and then his fellow vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, and wife, Régine Chassagne, waded into the crowd. “Get me inside the circle of trust,” Butler sang from the midst of the throng, a gauzy curtain spread overhead on their outstretched hands, during “Circle of Trust,” one of the new songs. The fans obliged.

Granted, a degree of theatricality was necessary to hold the room’s attention for nearly an hour of unfamiliar songs, many of which tended toward the introspective and were interspersed with droning, ambient interludes.

“Welcome to Pink Elephant,” Butler’s voice intoned from behind the closed, transparent curtains to begin the show. “You’re our guests. Welcome to our crystal heart.”

Chassagne then emerged in a wide-brimmed hat that cloaked her in floor-length tassels. After lighting a candle at the front of the stage, she walked to each member of the band, each of who rose from the floor to delve into the hazy intro, “Open Your Heart or Die Trying.”

The Arcade Fire she awoke, now headquartered in New Orleans rather then their native Montreal, is somewhat different than the ones fan may be used to seeing.

Bassist Tim Kingsbury, drummer Jeremy Gara, and violinist Sarah Neufeld were all on hand, but the frontman’s brother, Will Butler, left the band in 2021 to pursue his own projects, and multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Parry skipped the current tour to take paternity leave.

In their place were Wolf Parade singer/guitarist Dan Boeckner and Haitian keyboardist and percussionist Paul Beaubrun.

Following a brief intermission, the pink glow that had swathed the stage was removed, and the band returned for a second hour dedicated to more familiar territory, the energy level – both in the audience and in the material – amping up accordingly, veering between dance beat anthems and drama-swelling rockers. Butler began seated at the keyboard for “The Suburbs,” the title cut from the band’s 2010 Album of the Year Grammy-winning album. Chassagne then took her turn to descend from the stage during the synthpop anthem “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).”

While the Pink Elephant repertoire often sidelined Chassagne in favor of Butler’s heart-on-sleeve posturing, she was much more prominent throughout the second half. She returned to the stage in glimmering bunny ears to harmonize with her husband on “Age of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)” from 2022’s WE, played the harpsichord-like keyboards for “Rococo,” and led from the accordion on the vehicular diptych of “Keep the Car Running” and “No Cars Go,” both from 2007’s Neon Bible.

Chassagne’s heritage also prompted an impassioned rendition of “Haiti” from the band’s breakthrough 2004 debut, Funeral. Butler introduced the song by reflecting on the tour’s opening in Mexico City, where he said they encountered a group of Haitian refugees -- doctors, and lawyers among them -- who had traveled by boat to Brazil then on foot to Texas, where “they were met by whips on horseback.”

Touting the Haitian influence on New Orleans culture and the birth of jazz, Butler bluntly decried the Trump administration policy labeling Haitian gangs as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” as racist.

Beaubrun waved the Haitian flag and sang in Creole for an emotional climax.

Whatever mixed emotions Butler’s actions may have created in his fanbase, Monday’s show ended with a clear show of community. Butler was off mic for much of the show-ending “Wake Up,” allowing the audience to sing and chant in his place.

Whether it was enough to clean up anyone’s heart remains to be seen, but on purely musical terms, it provided an emotional and dramatic finale.