“We love the 9:30 Club, so we weren’t sure if this [playing Constitution Hall] was a good idea,” admitted singer Thomas Mars of Phoenix somewhat bashfully to a sold-out D.C. crowd Monday night. It was a completely understandable worry – the last time Phoenix came to town, they played (and sold out) the comparatively tiny Rock ‘n’ Roll Hotel, and the 9:30 is the usual next stop for a band with a growing fanbase. Mars and his group needn’t have worried: the throng that came this night to the 3,700-seater venue were ready and willing to dance and show their appreciation for the the alt-rock / dance band from Paris.
Support for the evening was provided by the young Northern Irish indie pop / rock trio Two Door Cinema Club. I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty sure I’m their biggest American fan. Even though they’ve been selling out headlining gigs in the UK with ease, I was incredulous when I heard they were coming to play in North America so quickly (their excellent debut album Tourist History was just released in Britain in March). The Washington gig was only their second ever in America, having played with Phoenix at Atlanta’s Tabernacle 2 days before. Despite this, no hesitation in playing for an unfamiliar audience was evident from their lively set. They began with “Cigarettes in the Theatre,” which seems an appropriate title for a song by a band who named themselves after an actual cinema they frequented back home in Ireland. This one is actually a song about how red-headed lead singer Alex Trimble met his girlfriend.
Sometimes I wondered how the lyrics to their songs could tumble out of Trimble’s mouth so effortlessly and as frenetically as Sam Halliday (lead guitar) and Kev Baird (bass) could play their instruments. After playing a blistering rendition of the single “Something Good Can Work,” Baird told us, “this is our first time in America. America loves the Irish!” Everyone laughed. “We saw your [D.C.] sights.” Trimble added, “we saw the White House. The President lives there.” This caused more laughter before the band started into “This is the Life,” a song with a chaotic outro that upon first listen I immediately associated it with Republica‘s “Ready to Go.”
“What You Know” is one of my favorites from their album, with a sweeping chorus of “and I can tell just what you want / you don’t want to be alone / you don’t want to be alone / and I can’t say it’s what you know / but you’ve known it the whole time / yeah, you’ve known it the whole time.” Simply fabulous were Trimble’s vocals against the backdrop of Halliday’s melodic guitar leading the charge. Before saying goodbye, the band let loose with “I Can Talk”; if there was any song in their arsenal that could get people out of their seats and dancing, this was it. Tourist History was released this week in America and is available now from Glassnote Records, so if you love frenzied, guitar-driven indie pop, I highly recommend buying a copy today.
Two Door Cinema Club Set List
Cigarettes in the Theatre
Undercover Martyn
Do You Want It All
Something Good Can Work
This is the Life
What You Know
Eat That Up, It’s Good for You
Come Back Home
I Can Talk
Phoenix have been around for over a decade, but they’ve remained pretty much a mystery to me, even with songs like “Lisztomania” gaining a foothold in the American radio mainstream. For sure, their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (released in 2009) winning the Best Alternative Album Grammy and a Cadillac commercial featuring “1901″ have both helped them gain fans. They also explain how a band who played a little club the last time they were in town could sell out an indoor behemoth like Constitution Hall. Numbers like “Fences” and “Girlfriend” showcased the band’s dance bent, while others like “Playground Love,” a tune billed by Mars during the band’s encore as “a song we wrote with [fellow French band] Air,” showed a softer, more sensitive side.
The professional light show looked like it would be more at home at a stadium show than Constitution Hall. There was enough strobe and colored lights to potentially cause epileptic seizures and temporary blindness. Given the choice, I’d rather not be blinded when I’m trying to enjoy a concert; I ended up turning away from the stage when the lighting became too bright. The crowd however appeared unfazed by the light show, content to scream for the band in between songs and jump, dance, or do a combination of the two while the band played on, reveling in the adoration from their fans.
The lighting was not the only unusual feature of the night. Not afraid to be one with the locals, Mars chose to jump up on a speaker stage right and then (aided by an extra long red microphone cord) headed into the upper tier, to the surprise and utter delight of the crowd. After “1901″ was played and the hall was still dark, I thought the show was over. Instead, Mars reappeared in the middle of the floor, singing along to an extended ending of the song before pulling girls up with him as he made his way back up onstage, nearly inciting a riot as gig-goers followed him, madly rushing and clambering onto the stage to join him and the rest of the band. Judging by my fellow blogger Abby’s experience seeing Phoenix at Seattle’s Showbox SoDo in January, maybe this is just par for the course for Phoenix these days.
Phoenix: website | myspace | @ Record Bar | @ Monolith 2009 | @ Rumsey Playfield | Remix Monday: Phoenix – “Love Like a Sunset” | Remix Monday: Phoenix – “Fences” | 107.7 The End’s Deck the Hall Ball 2009 | @ Showbox SoDo
Two Door Cinema Club: website | myspace | Two Door Cinema Club To Tour with Phoenix in Spring, Headline First North American Tour | “Something Good Can Work” video
