MONTREAL - It was a year in which Arcade Fire burned brightly

The coveted Grammy Award for Album of the Year, honouring their latest release "The Suburbs," kicked off a slew of honours won by the Montreal-based indie band in 2011.

By the end of the year, they had also swept the same categories at the Juno, Polaris and Brit awards and taken home anglophone album of the year from Quebec's L'Autre Gala de L'ADISQ.

After giving an international shout-out to their Montreal hometown at the Grammys, they also found time to say thanks to their local fans in September with a free outdoor show downtown which packed in around 100,000 people.

And that gratitude is about to continue into the new year as the band says it's going to invest in helping young artists while also working on their next undisclosed recording project.

"Their success has gone beyond anyone's wildest dreams -- even them, I believe" says Dan Seligman, the creative director and co-founder of the Pop Montreal indie music festival, which hosted the outdoor concert.

Seligman, who has booked the band often during the 10 years of his festival and in other gigs, says any attention Arcade Fire gets benefits the local music scene.

"The hope is that it'll continue to help other bands get attention and become successful, touring musicians and have careers."

The award haul sparked a brief amplification of the buzz around the band which first attracted the indie scene's spotlight to Montreal around 2004-2005 with the release of their first album, "Funeral."

The New York Times profiled them and the august rock journal Rolling Stone even dubbed Montreal "the new Seattle" at the time.

Leah Greenblatt, a senior editor at New York-based Entertainment Weekly magazine, said that even though they had been around for a while, Arcade Fire's Grammy win caused jaws to drop. Even the band looked stunned as TV cameras caught their reaction.

"I was shocked," Greenblatt said, explaining that as a longtime writer on the indie music scene she had often seen her favourite artists ghettoized into indie or alternative music categories.

"I just assumed that Arcade would get the alternative album of the year," she said, speculating that besides the quality of the album the Grammys were trying to appeal to a younger audience this year.

"In some sense it was a really old-fashioned record because it was sort of open about being ambitious and about being thematic. They weren't too cool to try. They were trying to make a big record and they succeeded."

Greenblatt recalled attending the band's party after the Grammy was announced

"They were pretty ecstatic," she said. "I think they were all in shock, honestly. They looked a little stunned but they were thrilled."

Arcade Fire declined requests to discuss their big year. Their publicist said they were taking a break after a gruelling tour.

But the band has said it might use its Polaris winnings to invest in its studio and help emerging artists record at a reasonable price.

It's not a surprising gesture from the band, which itself matured in the tight-knit Montreal indie community and is known for its philanthropy, especially in earthquake-devastated Haiti, where it also performed a concert this year.

"It's important to have a place in a music scene that's kind of a world class studio where people can record because if you don't document it no one will ever hear it," Arcade Fire lead singer Win Butler said at the Polaris ceremonies.

The band's studio, a reconverted old church in a town near Montreal, is already attracting a musical congregation.

Up-and-coming singer Little Scream, who recently recorded her debut album "The Golden Record" at the home studio of Arcade Fire member Richard Parry, said the band's Petite Eglise studio in Farnham, Que., has already proved invaluable to musicians.

"A lot of people have used that and it has definitely been helpful for a lot of other emerging artists around here," said Little Scream, whose real name is Laurel Sprengelmeyer.

She was happy for the band's success. However, she said recent events don't seem to have made much difference in terms of attracting people to scout out Montreal bands.

"I remember a couple of years back and they were a buzz band (and) it made a bigger difference," said Little Scream, who included Arcade Fire member Sarah Neufeld on her album. "Now it's just about them and their success and not so much about Montreal."

Steve Guimond, who books bands for Casa del Popolo, one of the first venues the group played, says any help they give to emerging artists is welcome, saying studio space is at a premium in the city these days.

While he agreed that the attention around the band was greater when it first appeared, Guimond noted their award haul this year probably piqued the curiousity of a lot of mainstream music fans who haven't heard of Arcade Fire.

"It sort of forced a lot of people to sit up and listen and maybe pay attention a little more to what was happening in the smaller circles of music," said Guimond, who is also a freelance music critic.

Sitting in his office in Montreal's trendy Plateau district surrounded by piles of CDs and booking schedules, Guimond says the Montreal music scene is "as healthy as ever."

"It's hard to say if it's the direct result of the attention Arcade Fire has brought to it," he said. "But what's kind of interesting to note is that things have continued to progress as opposed to staying a little bland or not too original.

"There's been some great stuff that's come out of this city and it's still coming out."