The Arcade Fire lived up to its reputation as one of North America’s best live bands Wednesday night in Seattle. Here’s what they played, in case you missed it.

Arcade Fire set list
Seattle, Key Arena, Sept. 29, 2010

Ready to Start
Month of May
Keep the Car Running
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
No Cars Go
Haiti
Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Modern Man
Rococo
The Suburbs
Ocean of Noise (with Calexico on horns)
Neighborhoods #1 (Tunnels)
We Used to Wait
Neighborhoods

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The good news for local Stone Temple Pilots fans is that the band’s Nov. 3 stop in Kent is still on the tour schedule. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday, as a matter of fact (info here.) The bad news is this report on front man Scott Weiland’s latest meltdown from Rolling Stone. Folks at the ShoWare Center must be thrilled at the timing.

Stone Temple Pilots are headed to Kent. The Showare Center just announced a Nov. 3 date with the resurgent alt-rock band, best known “Sex Type Thing,” “Creep” and other hits (not to mention front man Scott Weiland’s crazy antics – this incident, for example.)

The show will kick off at 7:30 p.m. that day. Tickets are $25 to $49.50 and will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Sept. 24. Find more info here.

Page Hamilton’s influential alt-metal quartet Helmet just dropped its seventh album “Seeing Eye Dog” with plans to storm Seattle’s Showbox at the Market on Wednesday, Sept. 15 (show details here.) Meanwhile, you can click the links below to hear what Hamilton had to say last week about …

… his roots in the Pacific Northwest.

… reflections on the first 20 years of Helmet and when it’ll be time to hang it up.

… writing for the new album and his creative process in general.

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Tickets to see Arcade Fire on Sept. 29 at KeyArena will go on sale at 10 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 20. Prices are set at $40, STG Presents announced today. Arizona’s Calexico will open, and you can find more details here.

Arcade Fire will headline Seattle’s KeyArena on Sept. 29, the band announced. The Montreal, Canada-based troupe recently released its third album, “The Suburbs,” which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Here is the rest of the tour itinerary.

ARCADE FIRE ON TOUR FALL 2010:

WED – 9/22/2010 – St. Paul, MN – Roy Wilkins Arena
THU – 9/23/2010 – Winnipeg, MB – MTS Centre
SAT – 9/25/2010 – Saskatoon, SK – Credit Union Centre
SUN – 9/26/2010 – Calgary, AB – Stampede Corral
TUE – 9/28/2010 – Vancouver, BC

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Here’s a clip of Helms Alee, from Friday night at Seattle’s Cha Cha Lounge, during Capitol Hill Block Party 2010. Atmosphere, Blonde Redhead and !!! will rock the main stage today, and you can find the schedule here.

U2′s show at Qwest Field is back on – just a year later. The band postponed its previously scheduled Seattle date after Bono hurt his back. But a new date has been set for June 4, 2011. Tickets for this year’s nixed show will be honored. Find other details here.

Could Pearl Jam’s two-night stand in Seattle last year have been our last shots to see the band for a long, long time? Several sources, including Harms from Seattle’s KNDD-FM (The End, 107.7) in Seattle, are reporting that Pearl Jam is going on hiatus.

“Thank you for coming to our last show,” Eddie Vedder told a crowd at the Optimus Alive Festival in Lisbon Portugal. “Not our last ever, but our last in a long time.”

That’s the widely circulated translation of …

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Tool is one of the strangest, most inspiring anomalies in pop music today. The “thinking man’s metal band,” as they’re called, crafts songs that are brazenly weird, cerebral and arty. They eschew trends, instead packing albums with sprawling prog-rock epics that have more in common with Rush and King Crimson than anything trendy on top 40 radio today. And they take their own sweet time between albums, having produced just four proper full-lengths in 18 years.

Yet, in the fickle world of pop, they’ve remained staples of MTV and mainstream radio since grunge was king. Hey, how’d that happen? And based on Saturday night’s appearance at KeyArena, Tool may be more respected and relevant than ever.
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