Last week, the Arcade Fire cryptically suggested that fans “be online” this past Saturday, October 6th. After much speculation, the Web site Beonlineb.com revealed … a pretty decent, Cocteau-flavored interactive music video for the Neon Bible’s title track. It was a bit of a letdown, since the revelation yielded no EP or LCD Soundsystem collaboration, but our expectations were raised insanely high if only because Radiohead’s similarly paradoxical journey ended in In Rainbows earlier that week. While AF fans worldwide were partaking in the endless combinations of fun that is the “Neon Bible” video, more than 20,000 people were standing on Randall’s Island, New York, an East River away from any Internet at the band’s last show on its joint tour with LCD. To reward those who spent hours in the hot sun on an unseasonably warm October day (and the fans who didn’t attempt to beat the traffic after the “Wake Up” encore), Arcade Fire reconvened at stage left following their performance to bang out an impromptu version of the Violent Femmes’ “Kiss Off” (see above video). It was a proper send-off to the New York faithful: Earlier in the show, frontman Win Butler proclaimed that the band wouldn’t be performing again in New York “for a couple years,” prompting the crowd to respond in a chorus of boos (Butler responded as though he took genuine offense).

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[Video courtesy Melissa St. Fleur]