Live performance Assessment: Phoenix at Revolution Reside

Think about having the audacity to invoke one of many biggest composers within the historical past of music by calling your document “Wolfgang Amadeus [band name].” The French indie pop outfit Phoenix has by no means been bashful, particularly not throughout its imperial period, when 2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix was immediately hailed as a contemporary basic LP and a benchmark of millennial indie music. On the power of singles like “Lisztomania” and “1901,” the group headlined the behemoth Coachella pageant in 2013, amongst loads of different large-scale gigs around the globe within the decade since. But in 2023, they’re enjoying a mid-tier venue in South Florida.

The group’s most up-to-date full-length, Alpha Zulu, which was launched simply over a yr in the past, wasn’t a dramatic fall-off in high quality—some within the music press even known as it a return to type after 2013’s Bankrupt! didn’t set the world on hearth, and 2017’s Ti Amo was a disappointment. However the downgrade in stature that Phoenix has skilled over the previous decade appears to be extra of a results of altering tastes than a decline in high quality. The easy truth is that Phoenix’s particular model of indie music—one thing like a Strokes souffle that’s been seasoned with Daft Punk spices—has fallen out of favor as time has handed. This band, which was as soon as seen because the vanguard of crossover indie music, has since been resigned to resting on its laurels.

And so there all of us had been, braving the rain on a blustery Tuesday evening to reach at what was initially speculated to be a gig in “The Yard at Revolution Reside,” an out of doors area the venerable Fort Lauderdale venue has taken to utilizing when it books acts which are extra of a draw than its ordinary indoor space can accommodate. “Thanks to the employees right here,” frontman Thomas Mars stated in direction of the tip of the present, “as a result of we arrange outdoors, then the rain got here, then we arrange inside.” Despite the fact that he additionally opined that Revolution’s indoor area “appears to be like like a combat membership or one thing,” it was the suitable name. Heavy rains continued to fall all through the evening, and town’s much-maligned drainage system had as soon as once more backed as much as the purpose of native flooding by the point attendees had been heading dwelling.

The draw back, after all, to shifting the present indoors, is that the venue was much more packed than it usually would have been for a gig of this caliber, with sturdy sightlines almost unimaginable to come back by for any attendees who didn’t arrive early and wait within the rain. Even the sound suffered from the glut of extra our bodies within the venue, with notably muddy vocals and lead guitar strains that struggled to chop by way of the synth-heavy textures the band has leaned into over its previous few data. From my preliminary spot on the very again of the venue, I wrote in my notes “Ah sure, the dulcet tones of a band you want enjoying two homes down the block” because the group opened the present with “Lisztomania.” Finally, I used to be capable of shuffle right into a spot the place I might see the musicians’ foreheads, and thought of {that a} success.

Regardless of all the above gripes, it’s no small feat that this present did go on, weathering the storm in additional methods than one. A testomony to the band and venue employees’s talents to adapt to unexpected circumstances, what might have been a really moist and depressing night open air—or perhaps a postponement or cancellation—as a substitute went forward on time and with out difficulty. The group was as tight as ever, a coalition of 5 professionals who know properly in any case these years the right way to greatest leverage a secure of impeccable songs to nice impact. Mars deployed his uniquely sturdy and easy vocal type to steer the group by way of tracks previous and new, ultimately making his manner into the group by climbing alongside railings and crowdsurfing in the course of the encore. Drummer Thomas Hedlund, who has been a touring member of the band for almost 20 years, stays probably the most gifted and compelling musician inside its ranks, attacking his package all through the night with a measured fury on basic beat-forward tracks like “Lasso.”

A Phoenix present in 2023 is precisely what one would hope it could be—heavy on tracks from Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix with a wholesome smattering of singles and fan-favorites from all through the remainder of its discography. Whatever the dimension of the venue or the climate outdoors, it’s onerous to stroll away upset when a present closes with a tune as anthemic as “1901.”

SET LIST

Lisztomania

Leisure

Lasso

Too Younger / Girlfriend

Alpha Zulu

Ti Amo

After Midnight

Armistice

Sunskrupt!

Lengthy Distance Name

Tonight

Winter Solstice

Rome

If I Ever Really feel Higher / Funky Squaredance

ENCORE:

Telefono / Fior di Latte

The whole lot Is The whole lot

Artefact

1901

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