So, I’m heading to Niigata tomorrow, to see my favorite band at Fuji Rock. I’ve done a few preparation work already, and yet still wondering which songs they would perform on the stage in Mt. Naeba.

As I’ve learnt (only) a bit JS recently, this afternoon I took some time after wrapping up all the office work, and wrote a mini script so as to crawl the setlist data from Setlist.fm.

Given that I still have my luggage to load, here’s some quick takeaway on the Reflektor Tour setlist of my favorite band, Arcade Fire.

(and feel free to download the raw dataset here, if you have time and interest to play with it.)

Please be aware, all my analysis/assumption below, are made on the premise that Setlist.fm got all the setlist correctly.

 

The Reflektor Tour is started from Jan 17, at Big Day Out Auckland. So far, 53 shows have been performed, in 20 different countries.

The top 15 most performed tracks are:

Reflektor	53
Ready to Start	53
The Suburbs (Continued)	53
Here Comes the Night Time	53
Rebellion (Lies)	53
Afterlife	53
The Suburbs	53
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)	53
Wake Up	53
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)	52
Normal Person	52
No Cars Go	48
It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)	47
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)	47
Joan of Arc	44

My festival mate Sophie’s favorite number Laika has been performed only 7 times…but still, a much bigger chance than my dreaming number Headlights Look Like Diamonds (only once, in Paris). Another one with fairly small chance yet I would love to hear in Japan is Supersymmetry (4 times so far), finger crossed. Oh, and Get Right, please!

35 out of 53 concerts, they treated the audience with extra 3 or 4 songs. The Encore part is actually quite stable, except covering other bands’ songs, which they did very often, those most performed titles are:

Wake Up	33
Here Comes the Night Time	29
Normal Person	24
Reflektor	4
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)	4
Ready to Start	2
Rebellion (Lies)	2
Keep the Car Running	2

Although with those always very refreshing covers, I would not dare to say this part is predictable, either.

Another fascinating point would be the order of the title that appears on the setlist, some songs’ position are more frequently changed than others (when you look at the St. Var. column, the smaller the number is, the greater chance it would appear within a narrow consistent range on the setlist):

Title	St Var of #	most likely #
Reflektor	6.8	1~2
Flashbulb Eyes	2.4	2~3
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)	4.7	2~4
Rebellion (Lies)	4.1	2~5
Joan of Arc	2.4	3~6
The Suburbs	1.1	5~8
The Suburbs (Continued)	1.1	6~9
Ready to Start	2.3	7~10
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)	1.5	7~11
We Exist	1.9	9~12
No Cars Go	1.4	10~13
Haïti	1.7	11~14
Afterlife	2.2	12~16
It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)	3.0	13~17
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)	2.4	14~18
Normal Person	7.0	1 or 14~19
Here Comes the Night Time	6.1	16~20
Wake Up	4.8	17~21

(yeah, ready to take out the Haiti nation flag from my bag before the 10th song ending)

Therefore, (just) statistically speaking, a most likely Reflektor Tour’s gig setlist would be (except there must be 1 or 2 covers of course):

1	Reflektor
2	Flashbulb Eyes
3	Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
4	Rebellion (Lies)
5	Joan of Arc
6	The Suburbs
7	The Suburbs (Continued)
8	Ready to Start
9	Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
10	No Cars Go
11	We Exist
12	Afterlife
13	It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)
14	Haïti
15	Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
16	Normal Person
17	Here Comes the Night Time
18	Wake Up

 

And it appears, North American fans have enjoyed a bit more songs per gig…

Month	Area	Concerts Total	Avg. Length
Jan-Feb	ANZ	8	17.1
Mar	North America	9	20.6
Mar-Apr	Latin America	5	17.2
Apr-May	North America	11	19.1
May-Jul	Europe	21	18.4

 

Plus, contrary to my blinding optimistic, (sadly) music festivals don’t really get more songs than other venues:

January
Big Day Out Adelaide	17
Big Day Out Auckland	17
Big Day Out Gold Coast	17
Big Day Out Melbourne	17
Big Day Out Sydney	16
February
Big Day Out Perth	16
March
Lollapalooza Chile	17
Vive Latin	17
April
Coachella Festival Weekend 1	18
Coachella Festival Weekend 2	18
Lollapalooza Argentina	17
Lollapalooza Brasil	17
May
Jazz & Heritage Festival	16
Primavera Sound	21
Rock In Rio Lisboa	21
June
Glastonbury Festival	19
Hurricane Festival	17
Northside Festival	18
Norwegian Wood	19
Pinkpop Festival	12
Rock In Roma	19
Southside Festival	17
July
British Summer Time	19

 

Unfortunately it’s almost midnight in Shanghai now, and in order not to miss the early flight next morning, I need to go to bed ASAP instead of digging more on the data. I’d say all the above assumptions are made just for fun. I would not take them too seriously: I think Japan is always a very unique place for Arcade Fire, after all, it seems to be the only Asian country they’ve been tapped into (I might be wrong, though). Plus, it’s Arcade Fire! you’d always expect something surprisingly awesome from them. So, I can’t wait to see what they would bring us in Fuji Rock after 3 weeks’ break!