Arcade Fire often blurs the lines between a nuts-and-bolts rock show and performance-art extravaganza. Despite an absence of costume changes, a cadre of flashy backup dancers, or life-size props, Win Butler and co. managed to dazzle the senses with ’50s-inspired, drive-in movie visuals and ferocious renderings of fist-pumping anthems from 2004’s Funeral (“Wake Up”) and moody observations from the unlikely Grammy Award winner, The Suburbs (“Ready To Start”).

On the final night of a sold-out three-date stand, the band aimed to please the packed-to-the-rafters arena with all of the hallmarks of an Arcade Fire experience: set changes between every song as members played musical chairs by rearranging positions and swapping instruments; dramatic percussion tapped out with flailing arms and swooping gestures; and ingénue Regine Chassagne’s mix of music-box ballerina and misguided hula dancing.

The raggle-taggle bunch lined the stage in a formation that brought to mind a Saturday morning classic – the “Care Bear Stare” – and, despite not bearing symbols of good cheer on their collective bellies, the group conjured the same warm, fuzzy feelings with a nostalgic, but never lazy “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels).” The barrage on the senses continued thanks to a bullhorn-heavy “Month Of May,” while a blood-red sheen casted a pall over “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out).” With a flurry of ribbons and sparkles, Chassagne skillfully penetrated Butler’s wall of stoic grandeur on “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” which sent a buoyed audience home.

Surly bastards (in a good way) The National brilliantly whined, yelped, and brooded through tracks from the band’s irresistible 2010 offering, High Violet, during a short, but permeating opening set. Suited-up frontman Matt Berninger managed to squeeze both hyper-kinetic noise and potential nervous breakdown out of “Terrible Love” and “Afraid Of Everyone” with his voice alone.

– Janine Schaults

For its third biennial guitar festival, Krannert Center For the Performing Arts on the University Of Illinois campus has changed the name. The Festival formerly known as “Wall to Wall” is now called “Ellnora: The Guitar Festival.” With that name change came a subtle focus change.

The guitar’s rise to prominence that came about with the rise of rock ‘n’ roll has, somewhat perversely, also limited the public’s perception of its versatility. Unfairly — and not — the expectations anyone alive since 1950 brought to the first Wall To Wall guitar festival reflected that. Both curator David Spelman and Director of Kranner Center Mike Ross wrestled with those expectations over the first two festivals, experimenting with the mix of styles, the relative importance of rock and blues, and, most of all, the tension between the visceral and intellectual. Where “Wall 2 Wall Guitars” evokes the mental image of a line of (mostly rock) virtuosi vying for sonic prominence, amps on 11, “Ellnora” calls up a more sophisticated, discriminating examination of the six-string. That was just what Ross and Spelman created this time around.

Ellnora emphasized the basics: classical guitar with Bachfest and Brasil Guitar Duo; bluegrass with Jerry Douglass; blues with Keb’ Mo’ and Laurie Morvan; jazz with The Sisters Euclid and Jake Hertzog; roots from the Derek Trucks Band; singer/songwriters from Ani DiFranco, Richard Julian & Jim Campilongo, Natalia Zukerman, and Erin McKeown. Dan Zanes & Friends brought rock, kid version. Indie band The National and, earlier in the week, an evening with local guitarists and musicians put together by Cody Sokolski and backed by The Delta Kings were as close as this festival ever got to raucous rock. (Full disclosure: Cody Sokolski is my husband.)

There was some conceptual fare and it, too, was more tightly focused than in festivals past. Alex de Grassi scored the silent Japanese film A Story of Floating Weeds, which he then performed with the film. The Leni Stern Quartet did the same to the silent Chinese film, The Goddess. Both had limited success. De Grassi’s film was difficult to follow; Stern’s music seemed disconnected from it. Bill Frisell’s Disfarmer Project: Musical portrait From Heber Springs and The Long Count by Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National) fused visuals and music. Both did well in using the two arts forms to add new dimensions to the other, but Frisell’s was by far the less compelling of the two. What started out strongly with lush, chiming music echoing Disfarmer’s gentle, black-and-white portraits of residents of small-town Arkansas taken during the Depression and World War II, soon grew stale.

All the performers shared a professionalism that made their performances reliable – and often reliably good. But transcendence was in short supply this year. Only The National, The Long Count, and the evening of local musicians that opened the festival provided any of the edginess or creative risk that turns a reliable event into an exciting, powerful one. Those three performances were the highlights of Ellnora.

The Long Count: Commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy Of Music, the brothers Dessner and visual artist Matthew Ritchie created an hour-long performance piece that integrates the Mayan myth of the fourth world and a baseball diamond to explore time and space. No, it’s not a clear concept — and it doesn’t get any more logical after seeing it. Utilizing a 12-piece orchestra (brass, strings, bass, drumset, and the Dessners on guitar) joined by singers Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), Matt Berninger (The National), and Kim and Kelley Deal (The Breeders), The Long Count is nonetheless a masterful piece. Carefully crafted, it soared, becoming intriguing, enthralling, and, finally, magical.

The National: Krannert Center is nationally known for its superb acoustics and they were perfect for the Leonard Cohen/ Roxy Music -descended chamber pop of The National. What can be buried in a miasma of blurry noise in a club became clear, rich, and meaty in a concert hall. Beginning their set somewhat intimidated by the formality of Krannert (“We’re excited. We’ve never had a ‘Turn Off Your Cell Phone’ announcement before”), the band settled in, took advantage and then took over. Yet the concert hall setting also revealed, starkly, how little (as in “no”) blues or R&B roots are in the music of this band. That’s not been a limiting move so far, but worth noting because it could be in the future – particularly given the skill with which the Dessners created The Long Count.

The Delta Kings with Special Guests: Introducing the Festival, the inclusion of an evening dedicated to the many (although certainly not all) guitarists in Champaign-Urbana turned out to be more than a savvy piece of community outreach. It was one of the best concerts of the festival. The Delta Kings, who are known for their roadhouse rock and superb rhythm section, served as the house band and Rena Day (Champaign) led a seven-piece choir. Together, they served as the backdrop for artists such as Angie Heaton, Kilborn Alley, Jack Brighton, Bruce “Bruiser” Rummenie, Eleni Moraites, David Howie, and Kathy Harden (among others). Deliberately, the styles ranged across the board. What unified the evening was the energy, passion, and, most of all, the sheer delight of the performers. As can happen, but doesn’t often, that delight transferred to the audience and back again, creating an evening as extraordinary as it was unexpected.

– M.S. Dodds

While we’re still waiting for Pitchfork to hire one of the black-metal bands they wrote so much about in 2008, there is a change in store for this weekend’s festival that proves they’re paying attention.

Last year continued the All Tomorrow’s Parties “Don’t Look Back” series, in which veteran bands revisit a classic recording. In 2007, that meant Sonic Youth playing Daydream Nation, Slint doing Spiderland, and Gza recreating Liquid Swords. Fifty-two (or so) weeks later we got Public Enemy (with a newly VH1′d Flava Flav) and It Takes A Nation Of Millions, Sebadoh and the questionably honored Bubble & Scrape, and an underwhelming offer of Mission Of Burma and Vs.

Instead, 2009 has “Write The Night,” for which ticketholders could vote on sets for Tortoise, Built To Spill, The Jesus Lizard, and Yo La Tengo. Competition with Lollapalooza has put strain on the rest of the weekend, which is bravely headlined by repeaters The National, Grizzly Bear, and The Walkmen, but also one of the premier outdoor-festival bands in The Flaming Lips.

Pitchfork, per its name, should be more about the breaking and unknowns, of which there are many. They lost the bidding for Yeasayer last summer, but the band’s lo-fi Peter Gabriel-ness should translate better in Union Park. Fellow Saturday bands Plants & Animals, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Bowerbirds, and The Antlers tweak known-quantity indie-rock formulae (psychedelia, Up Records, indie pop, and loneliness, respectively) and it’s not an afternoon without abrasions suffered from Fucked Up, Wavves, and Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

(Only two substantial hip-hop acts this year as well: MF Doom and Pharoahe Monch.)

Sunday represents a more standardized indie-rock lovefest, with M83, Vivian Girls, The Thermals, Blitzen Trapper, Frightened Rabbit, and Mew. But the most pleasant surprise is the return of Chicago’s duellin’ basses Dianogah.