The New Orleans Jazz Festival finished up on Sunday and the eclectic line up, which saw performances from the likes of Wilco, Robert Plant, Justin Townes Earl, Wyclef Jean, Mumford & Sons and Bon Jovi; was capped off with a headline performance on the final day by the Arcade Fire.
The band, who have been known to perform covers of Bruce Springsteen songs and had previously covered Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ returned to the stage for an encore, before front man Win Butler introduced the next number, saying “this is a song by one of our favourite artists of all time” before his wife, Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassigne took to the mic.
Sharing a spookily similar squeaky helium infused voice, Chassigne sang the first verse before to the crowd’s delight, Lauper walked out on stage to join her in a duet. Roaring their approval once she opened her mouth and that unique squeaky voice was unleashed upon them, the crowd sang along to one of the more inspired live duets of the year.
Lauper then returned the favour by again performing a duet with Chassigne on the Arcade Fire’s killer track off The Suburbs, Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). Lauper toured Australia recently on the back of her new album Memphis Blues, a collection of blues cover songs which was almost universally panned, but it looks like the Arcade Fire and the fans at the New Orleans Jazz Festival had forgiven her. Check out the videos here:
