Phoenix at Latitude 2009
When you have two of the best pop songs of 2009 under your belt it’s going to be hard to turf out a bad performance on the main stage of a festival, baked in early evening sun. Phoenix have, in the shape of ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’ released THE feel good album of the summer and there really is no band more welcome onto the Obelisk Arena to get fists pumping and feet dancing.
So apparently the French outfit have been releasing synth soaked pop like this for some years now, but it seems that only now is their star rising for the recognition they deserve. Opening on the first gem of the year ‘Lisztomania’, it becomes quickly apparent that this band cannot fail today. The whole band stand so close to the edge of the stage there is a strong feeling of 'oneness’ between crowd and performer, and the bands eager faces, encouraging the audience to ‘get’ the music that they love, makes the whole show feel more like a club night than the massive festival slot that it is.
The band is effortlessly cool, bringing their French chic to the weekend. It’s all tucked in shirts and lazy unkempt hair, but there is nothing lazy about their performance. Lead singer Thomas Mars gives his mike stand such a hard time thrashing it about, never content to stand in one place for longer than 20 seconds, while the drummer (not even a permanent band member!! Sign him up!!) smashes the living day lights out of his kit. So much so that the for the whole set roadies are running around him trying to fasten loosening bolts and unstable cymbals.
The set is concluded by their other pop gem ‘1901’, with its bouncy rhythms and chirping guitar licks, it sends to whole crowd into a hopping abandon. Mars gets the audience bouncing and clapping along by getting down into the thick of it and leaping over the barriers. It’s a wonderful way to end the set and is hopefully the dawning of an exciting new chapter for the band.