Arcade Fire in Haiti: ‘So much joy …’
For Régine Chassagne of Arcade Fire, Haiti’s struggle to cope with last year’s earthquake has been poignant – her parents fled the island under Baby Doc’s regime. So when the band returned to play a unique show in a remote mountain town, she was swept away by the emotion. Here, she tells the she tells the story
The Observer, Sunday 19 June 2011
Making magic: Regine Chassagne (centre) with Arcade Fire’s Jeremy Gara (left) and Richard Reed Parry. Photograph: Leah Gordon for the Observer
It is late afternoon. A perfectly calligraphed banner is suspended over the dry dirt road: “Bienvenue à Cange, Régine et Win, Arcade et Fire.” We are all both touched and giggling a little bit. Formerly a dusty, barren hill, Cange now looks like a surreal, lush, medieval village grown out of the Haitian mountains.
The trees that were planted 25 years ago when the NGO we work with, Partners In Health (PIH), began work here have now grown into a landscape hinting at Haiti’s luxurious forests of the past. But Cange – PIH’s headquarters in Haiti – is definitely one step into the future as it springs out of dry mountains, organised, filled with Haitian nurses and doctors, electricity and paved roads. You can see that the town has been built in phases over the years, up and down the hill, in and around large medieval-looking metal gates. This makes Cange’s unusual charm.
This is my third time here, but our first as a band. As we unload the equipment I can’t stop noticing how they really pulled out all the stops to welcome us. On the dusty soccer field the town has built a wooden stage, with another crafted and charming “Bienvenue à Cange, Régine et Win, Arcade et Fire” banner hanging above it. Knowing how few resources there are in the Central Plateau, it is becoming clear that this evening is a really big deal. We are happy to see the sound system we rented from Port-au-Prince has arrived in time. It is probably the biggest sound system the town has ever seen. Or seen at all. This is exciting.
… Read the full article here.
