Ooh La La – The French Charm Nashville
On October 4th, Phoenix returned to Tennessee once again, but this time fans had the opportunity to see them in a more intimate environment at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works as opposed to a large festival. The show sold out months in advance. No wonder – this French band has blown up over the past few years. They went from playing an in-store event at a local record store called Grimey’s to headlining major festivals in a matter of…oh maybe five years.
Knoxville’s own, The Royal Bangs, opened Friday’s show, but paled in comparison to the headliner. Phoenix treated its fans to a spectacular light show that required Marathon’s management to bring in extra generators just to supply all the extra juice to power those lights. The band opened their set with their new hit single “Entertainment” off their latest album Bankrupt! But they delivered a nice mix of old and new songs, even going back to their first album United, which was released back in 2000. They closed the set with “1901” off their hit record Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, but came back for a killer encore playing four more songs, including “If I Ever Feel Better” – one of their first ever released singles.
At the end of the show, vocalist Thomas Mars went crowd surfing, drawing all the girls to the front of the stage in hopes to touch the singer, murmuring promises to never wash their hands again. He eventually stood up on his fans’ hands and closed the show with a reprise of “Entertainment” (see photograph). Overall it can be said that Phoenix delivered an unbelievably dynamic show, leaving the crowd ecstatic and with big smiles on their faces – definitely a performance that will be remembered for a long time.
