Arcade Fire Plan Memorial Parade for David Bowie
Arcade Fire and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band have announced a David Bowie memorial parade. “Pretty Things: A Second Line for Bowie” will take place in New Orleans on Saturday, January 16th.
A Facebook event page was launched for the event, and it details the parade’s route, which begins at 4 p.m local time and instructs attendees to wear their “best Bowie outfit or something more strange.” The page also includes an appropriate quote from Bowie: “The truth is of course that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.”
One of Bowie’s final live performances was with Arcade Fire back in September 2005. At the time, the band was just beginning to break, having released their debut album Funeral earlier that year. Bowie and Arcade Fire performed the late rock star’s “Five Years” and the then-burgeoning band’s “Wake Up” together at a Fashion Rocks concert at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. A week later, he joined the band at their Central Park performance.
Prior to the performances, Bowie raved about the band to Rolling Stone. “There’s a certain uninhibited passion in the Arcade Fire’s huge, dense recording sound,” he said in a profile of the Montreal band. “I bought a huge stack of the Funeral CD last September and gave them to all my friends. I made so many converts.” In 2013, he lent backing vocals to Arcade Fire’s “Reflektor,” off their album of the same name.
Following Bowie’s death on Sunday, the band released a touching statement about the legendary rock star. “David Bowie was one of the band’s earliest supporters and champions,” the group said. “He not only created the world that made it possible for our band to exist, he welcomed us into it with grace and warmth. A true artist even in his passing, the world is more bright and mysterious because of him, and we will continue to shout prayers into the atmosphere he created.”