Arcade Fire ‘done touring’ after Montreal show

TORONTO — Montreal band Arcade Fire will take a break from touring after performing in their hometown this month.

The group is set to perform the final show of its Reflektor tour on Aug. 30 at Parc Jean-Drapeau.

“Then we’re done touring for the foreseeable future,” singer Win Butler told the Los Angeles Times.

Before wrapping things up in Montreal, Arcade Fire will play Squamish, B.C. on Aug. 9, Edmonton on Aug. 11, Calgary on Aug. 12, Winnipeg on Aug. 14 and Toronto on Aug. 29.

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Butler said he needs to take time out to spend with his family (he and bandmate Régine Chassagne have a one-year-old son) and to work on new material.

“Even at nighttime, I’m just so itchy to be creative again, and it’s very hard to do on the road,” he said. “I can definitely feel that.

“Even being home for a couple weeks, I just feel insane, like I want to think about other music and start to dream again.”

Butler, 34, told the LA Times the band wasn’t bothered by “the fake controversy” about its request for fans to wear costumes to Reflektor shows.

“We’re nowhere near the first band that’s ever done this,” he said. “I remember the Beastie Boys doing a tour that was a black tie tour, and they said, ‘If you want to wear cargo shorts, do it somewhere else.'”

Butler said the kerfuffle over the costume call-out wasn’t all bad.

“It was like the fake controversy was good promotion for the thing itself, in terms of actually getting people to engage with the show and treat it like a special event,” he said.

Arcade Fire performs this weekend at the Forum in Los Angeles — the same venue where Butler’s grandfather swing musician Alvino Rey, performed in the late ’60s.