News

Arcade Fire Manager Talks Grammy Performance

10:49 a.m. · February 24, 2011 · by Andrew Winistorfer

So after a week of conspiracy theories floating around that Arcade Fire knew the whole time that they were going to win album of the year, which is why they performed that second song. But according to Arcade Fire's manager, that was definitely not the case: The band was asked to perform a second song to play underneath the credits beforehand, and that's all they knew. Just that they were getting the extra exposure during the ending of the show.

Arcade Fire had the final slot on the Grammys as the ratings are low at the end of the broadcast. It really is that simple. We were one of the least known acts on the bill for a network audience. Don't you think I wanted a better slot for the band?

 

The reason we got a second song was also simple. No big plot. We had no guarantee of air time, but it was simply to play out the end credits of the show, if we're even had that much. The show never runs like clockwork to an exact time so the end is always loose. As it happened, the broadcast was covered by sponsors messages and the end credits. For the Grammys international broadcast our main performance, along with that of Mumford and Sons and the Avett Brothers was completely cut from the show. Our end title performance was bastardised because they cut out ads/sponsor messages completely. It was a bit of a farce. You'd think we'd be given a little more after the fact.

However, this doesn't mean that the producers didn't know that Arcade Fire would win. Or that it wasn't convenient that the band was set up to play right after the album of the year award. The conspiracy continues...[BV]