The Year’s Best Music Moments: A Mix of Performances, Videos and Song Snippets That We Just Really Loved
Best Juxtaposition on a Show Bill: The Unicorns and Arcade Fire at Barclays Center
“Let’s all make a pledge to not die right now,” Nick Thorburn of The Unicorns dryly proposed before launching into “I Don’t Wanna Die,” the opening track from the band’s one and only full-length album, 11 years after its release. “Doo doo doo doo I die/It’s true,” he taunted the early arrivers at Barclays Center who came to see them reunite during a three-night tour stop in August, as if his human demise was something to rub in.
Alden Penner, his bandmate and nemesis, at least in the context of a (mostly?) make-believe album narrative, provided sound effects that could’ve been lifted from an eighth-grade science fair project and make up the bulk of Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? — a record where bubblegum hooks are footnotes to smarmy, death-obsessed quips. We’re still not sure who the joke is on, if if there is one at all. “Doo doo doo doo I die/And so do you,” Thorburn continued. Shortly thereafter, their Montreal compatriots Arcade Fire took the stage for two hours of sincere, life-charged, confetti-filled wild abandon. On paper, it made little sense. In actuality, it didn’t matter. — LB