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Phantogram Setlist
The Veldt Setlist
Tour Dates
03/30/17 Bucharest, Romania Quantic Club
04/01/17 Athens, Greece Fuzz Club 04/03/17 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg 04/04/17 London, O2 Shepherds 04/06/17 Riga, Latvia Palladium 04/07/17 Moscow, Russia Izvestia Hall 04/08/17 St. Petersburg, Zal Ozhidaniya 04/14/17 Coachella 04/21/17 Coachella 04/22/17 Mesa, AZ Mesa Amph 04/23/17 Pomona, CA The Glass House 05/20/17 Project Pabst 05/28/17 Sasquatch! Music Festival 06/04/17 Governors Ball Music Festival 06/18/17 Firefly Music Festival 06/30/17 Reno, NV Grand Sierra Resor 07/01/17 Berkeley, CA Greek Theatre 07/12/17 RBC Bluesfest 07/28/17 Wayhome Music 08/25/17 Leeds Festival 08/27/17 Reading Festival Read More
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How high did electro-pop band Phantogram take the sold-out crowd in St. Paul? How about “palatially high”—
The band, on a brief six-date US tour that also served as a warm up for next month’s Coachella weekends, returned to one of the markets that first embraced them, as the first national touring act to play the newly re-opened Palace Theatre in downtown St. Paul.
We’ve talked about the aesthetics of the theater previously in December when going through their afternoon open house, but after only their third proper show, can say the venue is a great addition to the metro’s music and performance venues and the informal nickname of First Avenue East, is not that far off.
Owned by the city and co-operated/managed by First Avenue and Chicago’s Jam Productions, plenty of familiar staff were seen, business was relaxed but orderly, and operational professionalism had already been established, long before the public was ever let in.
The building’s interior signature look is the modern beside the vintage- brand new HVAC pipes next to hundred year-old holes in the wall, a sleek new bar near a turn-of-the-century tattered wall poster, broken cornices framing new stairways, but it mostly works.
Although somewhat cavernous, the sound carries well, with the audio staff fine tuning things on a rented system, until the permanent one arrives in May. Sometimes (as in during opening acts) the din of conversation ends up carrying farther to sometimes clash with the music, but things seem overall acoustically sound. One or two shrill tones were struck during the opener (with a local man mixing the board) but all was sonically crisp with the headliner.
The evening began with a welcome return of experimental shoegazing soul band The Veldt and a too brief thirty-five minute set that truly showed their music was ahead of its time. Formed in the mid-80’s in Raleigh, NC, the group led by the Chavis brothers (Daniel and Danny) have influences that lean from Prince to Echo and the Bunnymen, Otis Redding to My Bloody Valentine, and were on labels like Capitol, Mammoth, and Mercury during the ‘90s. Layered experimental sounds coming from artists like The Weeknd, Anderson .Paak and Miguel, are just catching up to what The Veldt was exploring twenty years prior.
The group recently signed to Schoolkids Records, with a new EP out soon, The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur (full-length due in the summer) and were clearly pleased to be re-introducing themselves to the mainstream. Opening with ‘Everlasting Gobstopper’ (by the Chavis’ following band, Apollo Heights) Daniel Chavis’ falsetto voice sounds like a meld of Corey Glover, Claudio Sanchez and someone on Stax Records , while their music ebbed and flowed like Flaming Lips with their guitarist strumming furiously on the kind of dual neck guitar you expect to see on Jimmy Page. A hearty welcome back.
Greenwich, NY electronic duo Phantogram (Josh Carter -vocals, guitars and Sarah Barthel-vocals, keys) continues to evolve as a band, playing the area for the third time in less than three years, but bringing a completely fresh show along with them.
The band is out in support of third full-length, fittingly called Three (Republic Records) and featured touring players Nicholas Shelestak- guitarist/synths and drummer Chris Carhart on an upper level stage above the duo.
Always concerned about the visual identity of their live shows, it’s only recently that it’s fully come into fruition, with star patterns, video clips and patterns beamed on stage and Barthel disappearing from the upper stage in a cloud of smoke several times (a far cry from a strung up bedsheet as film screen, when they first played the 7th St Entry).
The group was eager to start with the new, opening with ‘You’re Mine’ and ‘Same Old Blues’ before reaching back for 2011’s ‘Turning Into Stone’ with Barthel in black pants, meshed halter and short leather jacket and the bearded Carter flying the shoegaze flag by wearing a Ride t-shirt.
“Twin Cities!” Carter announced, looking at the capacity crowd before the opening vocal sample of ‘Don’t Move’ did the complete opposite, getting the crowd swaying en masse on the crowded floor. The band’s breakout hit, ‘Mouthful of Diamonds’ was done almost halfway in, with cellphones then darting in the air from to left to right for the slower ‘Answer’.
‘Calling All’ featured rapid fire lyrics from Barthel, a song destined to boom speakers in a strip club, the throb of ‘Fall in Love’ pushed the room’s acoustics, with Barthel proclaiming “You guys are, as always, our favorite city to play!” to the crowd’s roar, before the beat of set closer ‘When I’m Small’ took over.
The three-song encore started somberly, with VHS-quality family movies shown as Carter took the lead on a heartfelt ‘Barking Dog’ with its lyrics “I'm sorry for what I've done, and hurt people hurt people too”, as a song done to call attention to suicide awareness.
The new ‘Cruel World’ had equally dour lyrics, but more of an upbeat tempo, and the new album’s crushing lead single, ‘You Don’t Get Me High Anymore’ (written by six people, no less, including Semisonic’s Dan Wilson) was saved for last, the crowd responding in kind to Carter’s call to “turn this motherf**ker out!”
Phantogram does an equally brief European run before returning for Coachella and several summer festivals, but they’ve already made history locally, as the first national touring act to christen the new (and old) Palace Theatre as it begins its new life.
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Phantogram at Palace Theatre, St. Paul (12 March 2017) |
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