Photo via @ArcadeFire

The request was simple: "Formal attire or costume mandatory." For their show at the warehouse-like Bushwick, Brooklyn, art space 299 Meserole last night, Arcade Fire wanted people to dress up as a more refined version of themselves, or as someone else entirely. This meant that, along with the suits and ties and dresses, there was the hot dog girl, the drunken banana, the cat burglars, the stumbly knight, and the fake handlebar moustaches—at least I think they were fake (this is Bushwick, after all).

But the most popular pre-Halloween costume had guys donning formalwear below the neck with a Batman mask up top. The superhero guise was especially apropos given Arcade Fire's current reinvention as the Reflektors for their new James Murphy-assisted albm Reflektor. As suggested by the record's title track, and the band's recent appearance on "Saturday Night Live", this is a looser, lighter, funnier Arcade Fire, more Talking Heads groove than Springsteen pomp. The Reflektors are also not above some magician-style misdirection: The night kicked off with Murphy mumblingly introducing the band as three people in big paper mache heads (a la the "Reflektor" video) began to play muddled rock music onstage… before a curtain dropped away on another side of the venue to reveal the real band. "Sorry we played a trick on you," said a smiling Win Butler later on. "We just thought it was funny."

The lion's share of the night's 75-minute set was devoted to songs from Reflektor, songs that are darker, more self-aware, dancier, and—yes—trickier than anything Arcade Fire have done before. "We've all got something to hide," yelped Butler on an arena-ready version of "Reflektor", his foot on the monitor and his arm arched up over his head, Bono-style. And then, on the very next song, "Flashbulb Eyes", he sang, "You know I've got nothing to hide." It was a slippery, knowing contradiction from a band more known for stone-faced frankness. There are precedents for this kind of playful rock'n'roll about-face, of course—Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, U2's Achtung Baby, and R.E.M.'s Monster instantly spring to mind—but it's still a viable way forward for bands that have reached the top of rock's heap but aren't ready to call it a day or bask in past greatness just yet. 

The goal is to thread the needle between fresh and familiar in order to keep everyone—band and fans alike—interested, and based on the new tracks shown off at the gig, Arcade Fire have done just that. Along with touching on 80s pop and new wave, their new sound also harkens back to the dance-rock revival of the mid-00s—understandable given Murphy's involvement—bringing to mind names like the Rapture, the Faint, and even Bright Eyes' 2005 foray into electronics, Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. The new tracks' intricate shadows and rhythms were brought into further contrast by the few old songs played, including The Suburbs' "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" and especially Funeral's "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)", which felt a bit bright and naive. 

It wasn't perfect: the T. Rex-indebted "Joan of Arc" often plodded more than it stomped, the gorgeous vocal harmonies of "It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)" were stymied by errant bulges of bass, and when Butler came out from backstage 15 minutes after the set ended to announce that there would be no encore, he was met with a few hearty boos. (To be fair, he also mentioned that the band was going to DJ and dance with the crowd "all night.") But the frontman met those jeers with another smile, perhaps pleased by the moment of friction between performer and audience. To paraphrase another famed musical risk taker: Arcade Fire are doing what they want, and it just might be exactly what we need.