Born in the historic Paris suburb of Versailles, the music of Phoenix is best described as a tour of the European mainland, hopping onto a dance floor in one region or country and then brandishing a vibrantly-colored Schengen visa to board a bullet train that shoots directly to a station feet away, the doors of which open directly into the next club. The band has an exuberant presence, one that gained a windfall of attention and TV appearances in 2009 with the release of their fourth record, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Even those unfamiliar with the album have probably seen its now-iconic album cover’s triplet of bomb silhouettes, and likely have the melodies of hit singles ‘Lisztomania’ and ‘1901’ bouncing around somewhere in their memories.
Now approaching their seventh LP, the band have embarked on a tour in support of Alpha Zulu, scheduled to arrive on the 4th of November via the band’s label Loyauté in collaboration with Glassnote. Its announcement was presaged by the release of the title track as a single, and then the reveal was paired with a second track, ‘Tonight’, which features Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend in a cross-continental collaboration. The band fills the floor of Boston’s new Roadrunner venue amply and have brought a deeply elaborate visual production to accompany their music, surrounding the stage with two frames that form a trio of concentric rectangles that transform wildly throughout the night. As the band takes the audience through their discography, the surroundings follow suit, switching from Corinthian pillars to palace wallpaper to colorful visualizers synced perfectly to the music.
Led by Thomas Mars, Phoenix sees him onstage with five others, and they begin with ‘Lisztomania’, a foreshadowing of how they’ll ultimately bookend the night with a pair of their most celebrated cuts from Wolfgang Amadeus. But they’re also quickly into other areas, showing off ‘Entertainment’ from mid-period record Bankrupt! and a pair of cuts from their most recent effort, Ti Amo, which found the Frenchmen moving between multiple romance languages with a specific focus, on Italian turns of phrase, yielding an album that is no less than quadrilingual. After Ti Amo’s title track, they play ‘Alpha Zulu’, their first preview of the night from the new record. It’s got an airy synth hook from Robin Coudert that is soon followed by bassist Deck d’Arcy repeating it on the low end, and between notes allows for just a fraction of a second of total silence, no notes ringing out. Phoenix have always had an expansive range in terms of whether they leaned more into the direction of synths or guitar, and this one finds them far more in the realm of the former. But guitarists Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz have plenty to do as well, and in ‘Armistice’ they show off restrained picking patterns in the verses that turn into gorgeous, flowing melodies in the chorus.
The lights go low for a moment between songs, and a projection appears behind the band as they begin the next. Starting with an aerial view at a small scale, the projection zooms out interminably, eventually encompassing entire continents, then the Earth itself, then the solar system, galaxy, and finally the simulated reaches of the known universe. This soundtracks ‘Sunskrupt!’, a live-show-only synthesis of ‘Love Like a Sunset’ and ‘Bankrupt!’, coming together under this portmanteau as an epic sonic journey through the innards of both tracks (technically three since the former has two parts on-record); certainly worthy of the invocation of something cosmic. After this opus, Mars calls for the house lights to come up, and looking out at the sea of faces he genuinely thanks everyone for coming, talking briefly about how it’s been quite some time – four years, in fact – since Phoenix have been able to play the area.
‘Tonight’ impresses even sans Koenig, a more guitar-forward piece that invokes a bit of The Strokes riding a bouncy bass groove throughout the song and rounding itself out with synths in the bridge. Backed by a display of morphing, fractal-patterned ice crystals, Mars and company perform the fittingly-named ‘Winter Solstice’, yet another teaser for Alpha Zulu. ‘Long Distance Call’, another classic from the 00s, features an intense, shouted chorus that sees the lights flicker and strobe rapidly, matching not only words but the pounding drums of Thomas Hedlund as well. There’s a certain quality of Mars’ voice especially in these moments, something he carried forward into Wolfgang in spades, that feels like an embodiment of an era as much as the instrumental sound does. The set closes with ‘Rome’, and the room flashes blue and red, Mars calling on the entire room to put their hands in the air, and they’re more than happy to oblige.
The surprises aren’t quite finished yet – Mars and d’Arcy return from backstage and gather around a purple piano; it’s the size of a baby grand but along with its uncharacteristic lavender finish is also tuned to sound more like a harpsichord. The two perform a deconstructed medley of Ti Amo cuts ‘Telefono’ and ‘Fior di Latte’, and as he sings Mars rises first to sit on the front of the piano, then pulls himself up and stands atop it near the finish. It’s not the only unconventional place Mars stands during the encore. After formally closing the night with ‘1901’, Mars removes his light jacket and while the band improvises an extended version of ‘Identical’, he climbs the barrier between stage and crowd and goes walking through that ocean of people, stopping roughly at the middle of the room to be hoisted up, feet level with heads and hairdos, on hands and shoulders. He gestures joyously at the band, then gives a thumbs-up around the room, and finally lets his arms fall and looks down, no doubt returning the beaming smiles of those underneath. It’s quite hard to fully encapsulate the excitement and release of seeing Phoenix live, but suffice to say a moment of pure connection like this is perhaps the only way the night could truly end.
Review and photos by Collin Heroux
