Arcade Fire's Richard Reed Perry Joins the National at Osheaga

It's not a far stretch to say that Brooklyn-via-Cincinnati band the National and Montreal-via-Texas group Arcade Fire are musical blood brothers. Both use dark metaphoric observations on modern life as a starting point before either bathing them in moody, reverb-drenched atmospherics pulsed by unpredictable shotgun percussion stabs (the former) or surging, grandiose, multi-instrumental euphoria (the latter). Either way, the results can be both arresting and moving.

So no one was too surprised when the Arcade Fire's ginger-haired multi-instrumentalist Richard Reed Perry arrived on the Mountain stage during the National's Osheaga Festival set -- minutes before his own band was to headline the main River Stage at the Montreal-based festival.

Most notable of the bunch was 'Conversation 16,' off the National's latest album 'High Violet,' for which Reed reprised his recorded contribution.

In truth, the National needed little help to get a response from the tens of thousands watching their performance. Right from opener 'Bloodbuzz Ohio,' the group were adulated by the crowd. By the time signature tune 'Fake Empire' and live favourite 'Mr. November' rolled around, the group had worked them -- and singer Matt Berninger, pictured -- into a frenzied state of near violence, setting up the night for the hometown heroes Arcade Fire to finish off the night in firework-inducing fashion.