Arcade Fire is a Canadian indie rock band from Montréal, Quebec, Canada consisting of married couple Win Butler (born April 14, 1980) and Régine Chassagne (born August 18, 1977), along with Richard Reed Parry (born October 4, 1977), Butler's younger brother William Butler (born October 6, 1982), Jeremy Gara (born June 6, 1978), Sarah Neufeld (born August 27, 1979) and Tim Kingsbury.
Founded in 2001 by friends and classmates Butler and Josh Deu, the band came to prominence in 2004 with the release of their critically acclaimed debut album Funeral. Their second studio album, Neon Bible, won them the 2008 Meteor Music Award for Best International Album and the 2008 Juno Award for Alternative Album of the Year. Their third studio album, The Suburbs, was released in 2010 to critical acclaim and commercial success. It received many accolades, including the 2011 Grammy for Album of the Year, the 2011 Juno Award for Album of the Year and the 2011 Brit Award for Best International Album. In 2013, Arcade Fire released their fourth album, Reflektor, and scored the feature film Her, for which band members Will Butler and Owen Pallett were nominated in the Best Original Score category at the 86th Academy Awards. In 2017, the band released their fifth studio album Everything Now, which was succeeded by their sixth studio album We in 2022.
All the band's studio albums have received nominations for Best Alternative Music Album at the Grammys. Funeral is widely considered by music critics to be one of the greatest albums of the 2000s. The band's work has also been named three times as a shortlist nominee for the Polaris Music Prize: in 2007 for Neon Bible, in 2011 for The Suburbs and in 2014 for Reflektor.
The band has been described as indie rock, art rock, dance-rock, and baroque pop. They play guitar, drums, bass guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, synthesizer, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin and hurdy-gurdy, and take most of these instruments on tour; the multi-instrumentalist band members switch duties throughout shows.
They appeared on Saturday Night Live as the musical guests six times on the following dates:
- February 24, 2007, the fourteenth episode of Season 32, hosted by actor and NBC's The Office star Rainn Wilson. They performed "Intervention" and "Keep the Car Running" and they also performed "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Wake Up" for the studio audience when the show went off-air from their second album Neon Bible. They appeared in the SNL Digital Short.
- November 13, 2010, the sixth episode of Season 36, hosted by actress Scarlett Johansson. They performed "We Used to Wait" and "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" from their third studio album The Suburbs. They also appear in the SNL Digital Short.
- They also appeared as the special guests on May 19, 2012, which is the Season 37 finale; which coincidentally, was the final episode for longtime cast members Andy Samberg, Kristen Wiig and Abby Elliott, where they performed "The Last Time", with guest host and musical guest Mick Jagger and The Strokes' bassist Nikolai Fraiture.
- September 28, 2013, which is the Season 43 premiere, hosted by longtime former cast member, head writer and Weekend Update co-anchor Tina Fey, which coincidentally, was the first episode for then-new cast members: Beck Bennett, John Milhiser, Kyle Mooney, Mike O'Brien, Noël Wells and Brooks Wheelan. They retutned to Saturday Night Live for their 3rd musical guest appearance and performed "Reflektor" and "Afterlife" to promote their fourth studio album Reflektor. The three of them appeared in the "New Cast Member or Arcade Fire" sketch.
- March 17, 2018, the sixteenth episode and St. Patrick's Day episode of Season 43, hosted by another longtime former cast member Bill Hader. They returned to Saturday Night Live again for their 4th musical guest appearance and they performed "Creature Comfort" and "Put Your Money On Me" from their fifth studio album Everything Now. They also appeared in the "CBC News Hour" skit.
- May 7, 2022, the nineteenth episode and the Mother's Day show of Season 47, hosted by English actor Benedict Cumberbatch. They returned to Saturday Night Live once again for their 5th musical guest stint, thus making the Canadian indie rock band a five-time musical guest. They performed "Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)", "The Lightning I, II", and "End of the Empire II" (the latter during the closing credits) after they promote their sixth studio album We.
- May 10, 2025, the nineteenth (and penultimate) episode and Mother's Day show of Season 50, hosted by actor Walton Goggins, star of the HBO's black comedy drama anthology series The White Lotus. They returned to Saturday Night Live once again for their 6th musical guest appearance. They performed "Pink Elephant" and "Year of the Snake" after they promote their new seventh album Pink Elephant.
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