If Phantogram’s performance last Friday, December 10 @ Il Motore was a novel it’d be the kind that hits you out of nowhere (like that first snowball of the year). You’d be silently reading the introduction, when all of a sudden you’re right in the middle of a lightning storm of direct-awesomeness imagery and you love every fucking flash. Excited? I bet you are. So, let’s get to the goods about this lightening storm (dancing in the rain not included)…
It’s dark. It’s quiet. They’re plugging in and we’re all standing directly in front of the stage patiently waiting for an introduction (because that seems to be the norm). Well, Phantogram seemed to say, “fuck the norm, let’s get right into this, these kids need to dance.”
Then it happened…
The phantom-like presence came to life. The strobe flashes wildly danced around, Josh Carter (guitar/vocals) cued in with deep, heavy guitar strumming, Sarah Barthel (keyboard/vocals) bounced in swinging her knee back and forth towards the keyboard, where her fingers danced and silky vocals poured into our ears. Oh yes. And it gets better. The drummer, Tim Oakley (from The Mathematicians, newly joined Phantogram), starts lightly tapping his drum set; keeping the industrial beat flowing (don’t we all just love it when you jump right into the unknown? I sure do).
For Phantogram and their fans it was all about the strobin’ and dancin’ to the electro-industrial -rock beats that boldly scaled the walls of Il Motore they’ve got the kids dancing again (thank god, because someone had to rip up that fake prescription for Ritalin a zombie audience is lame). Phantogram’s tunes are also somewhat disco-esque (agree or disagree, disco has a new sound). Hear this in your ears and read it with your eyes. Let’s break it down to musical genre sex and the offspring of those genres. If disco, rock and electro-industrial had a threesome, and electro-industrial produced some sort of genre offspring, it would be Phantogram. And you’d wanna babysit it every weekend.
But more importantly, back to the dancing and not the supplementary income opportunity you wish you had.
I feel like I’m getting old, but that’s okay.
Both shows I’ve seen at Il Motore in the past two weeks have been filled with young, fresh-faced, dancing hooligans (okay, not hooligans).
And you know what? That’s fucking rad.
It’s rad because the kids are getting their muscles greased by beats and letting their
feet slide all over the floor. It’s awwwwesome, just like Phantogram.
Even though they just finished their North American tour, and are headed back to Saratoga Springs for the Holidays, they let us know a little secret – they’ll be back in Montreal in Spring 2011 with a new album and some serious, serious beat-grease. Get ready kids.
Cool beans, stay in-tune for the FTB Phantogram video interview. In meantime download their album, Eyelids and keep up via Indica, MySpace and Twitter.
Phantogram preformed @ Il Motore on December 10. Solar Year started the show. Bad tits loosened our joints and Phantogram helped us let it all go.
Photos by Chris Zacchia
