Win Butler performs with Arcade Fire at Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on Nov. 19, 2022. Roman Gokhman/STAFF. SAN FRANCISCO — Indie rockers Arcade Fire brought their tour in support of new album WE to Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Saturday for the first night of a…

Win Butler performs with Arcade Fire during Live 105’s Not So Silent Night concert at Oracle Arena in Oakland on Dec. 7, 2013. Roman Gokhman/STAFF. I realize life gets confusing, especially when it comes to right and wrong these past few years while Mango Mussolini was flipping the Oval…

Arcade Fire, “We.” WE, the first proper Arcade Fire LP in almost five years, seems a little slim at first glance. Compared to the 64-minute The Suburbs or the 75-minute Reflektor—not to mention the latter’s 102-minute deluxe edition—the new album’s 40 minutes look especially meager. In fact, not counting…

Clockwise from top left: Ambar Lucid, Luna Li, Samm Henshaw, Sarah Neufeld, Trade Wind, Andrea von Kampen and Vacation Manor. Whether you’re listening to the vibrant dream-pop of Luna Li, ambient strings of Sarah Neufeld or psychedelic trip-hop vibes from Ambar Lucid, this week’s selections are a treat for…

Arcade Fire’s Will Butler is not one for idle time, apparently. In the five years since his first solo release, Policy, Butler has released a live record, recorded and released a No. 1 album with Arcade Fire, earned a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard and raised his three…

Kendrick Lamar In addition to ranking music, I am a professional data journalist. I analyze numbers and do math every day for money. So you’d think I could count. But apparently we skipped Feb. 24 for some reason and ran 1974’s column on March 2, which means everything got…

Franz Ferdinand took you out, and made breakfast in the morning. It’s another edition of RIFF Rewind crowdsourced from the RIFF staff! Which means rock music was still overproduced and generic, and I couldn’t stand to slog through it. Look, I realize this may cause a minor mutiny among…

Whipped into form by religion and the restrictive indoctrination it often entails, Kentucky singer-songwriter Sarah Beth Tomberlin finds herself searching for answers her religious upbringing could not provide. At Weddings Tomberlin Aug. 10 Toiling with the denouncement of her faith while reflecting on the negative repercussions of her Baptist…

  Photo: Jay Demetillo This is the second in a three-part series. Read the introduction to learn how I’m scoring my list and find out about my “special consideration” in PART 1. Favorite Shows 2016 | Favorite Shows 2015 | Favorite Shows 2014 Favorite Shows 2013 | Favorite Shows 2012 11 – CATHEDRALS at the Mezzanine – June…

Photos: Steve Carlson OAKLAND — Five albums in, it’s tough to think of Arcade Fire as the indie underdog the Canadian group was for its first few years. When the band rolled through town Saturday, it played not a small club but Oracle Arena, the pinnacle of massive stages…