My purchase over three years ago of
It's Never Been Like That -- the fourth album from French dance-rock/rock-synth/alt-pop band
Phoenix -- resulted in 120 days (possibly more) of the album's namesake song on repeat in my car and on my iPod.
I found myself enamored not only by the album itself, but also by the fact that lead man Thomas Mars happens to be the baby daddy of Sofia Coppola, whose directorial take on
Marie Antoinette was brilliant in costume (though somewhat mediocre in story) and whose film
The Virgin Suicides is a celluloid favorite of mine.
So when I found out that Thomas Mars and his merry band (Deck D'Arcy on the bass, Laurent Brancowitz on the guitar and Christian Mazzalai on the guitar) were coming to Vancouver as the first major music act to open the
2010 Cultural Olympiad -- which brings over 500 artists to town in a span of 60 days -- I knew some way, somehow I had to be at The Orpheum on the night of their sold-out show.
Then on January 22, after local band
You Say Party! We Say Die! kicked off the evening, lights dimmed and the opening notes to "Lisztomania" rang through the theatre, signaling the entrance of Phoenix onto a hazy, blue-lit stage. Their performance went through the best tracks of
Wolfgang Amadeus and
It's Never Been Like That (yep, they did "Long Distance Call"), punctuated with very polite, profuse thank yous from Mars to the crowd every few songs and the guitarists going head-to-head with solos on their Gibsons.
The crowd stayed on its feet all night long, going wild with Phoenix frenzy.
A slower track ended the set, followed by a four-song encore that finished off appropriately with the crowd-pleasing "1901" -- and an invitation by Mars to concertgoers to dance on stage with the band (no bodyguards, either!) for the final hurrah.
And from here, Thomas Mars and his Phoenix continue to rise -- not that they were anywhere near ashes in the first place.