Arcade Fire Win Best Album, Group and Songwriter at Juno Awards

Watching Arcade Fire accept their Juno for Album of the Year Sunday [March 27] night in Toronto felt a little bit like déjà vu. The Montreal collective took the last award of the evening for 'The Suburbs,' mounting the stage as the audience rejoiced much like we've seen at nearly every major music award show this season.

"It felt like something crazy was about to happen and something did," Richard Parry said onstage with his bandmates at the Air Canada Centre.

"We'd like to thank Neil Young for being here, and speaking about what you spoke about, it really touched the heart," he added, giving the iconic Canadian folk singer props for his moving acceptance speech for his Allan Waters Humanitarian award.

While scoring a Grammy for Album of the Year last month was obviously a monumental occasion for Arcade Fire, being the toast of the town in their own country this weekend -- the band also won a Juno for Group and Songwriter of the Year respectively, as well as Alternative Album of the Year at Saturday night's gala dinner ceremony -- has to feel downright magical.

"Every crazy thing that has happened for us over the past five or six years, all the success, we relate to them as freedom, the freedom to make a record, and how we want to," said Parry during a press conference following the show.

"Our lives have been really changed by records ... the first time we went to make 'Funeral,' we pressed record and started playing; we didn't take that lightly, it's important to make a record."

Media backstage were given the most insight into Arcade Fire's mindset post-Junos as the collective tended to keep things relatively brief during the televised event, with frontman Win Butler sticking to heartfelt thank-yous before leading the group from the spotlight.

They did, however, take the opportunity to offer shout-outs to Royal City and Hidden Cameras (bands Arcade Fire "came up with," Butler said) after nabbing the first award of the evening for Group of the Year.

And later, after climbing the Juno steps to claim the Songwriter of the Year honour -- which paid tribute to the band's work on 'Ready to Start,' 'We Used to Wait,' and 'Sprawl II: Mountains Beyond Mountains,' all featured on their unstoppable latest disc -- the Montreal darlings drew attention to their charity of choice, Kanpe, which helps raise funds for relief effort in Haiti, where Butler's wife and Arcade Fire's co-songwriter Régine Chassagne emigrated from.

"Keep going, don't stop," said Butler, asking the audience and those watching the televised ceremony from home to continue donating to the organization.


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