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Tue Sep 22
8 pm
Phoenix and Chairlift at First Avenue
Phoenix has always been less a great rock band and more some sly, sensitive, clever-but-not-coy enthusiast’s idea of a great rock band. Part of that owes to it being French and thus born slightly outside the rock margins—the group’s first two studio albums, 2000’s United and 2004’s Alphabetical, are dotted with quick bursts of giddy, danceable music, though a lot of the songs are dryly conceptual. But more of it owes to Phoenix’s uncanny command of the form; since 2006’s It’s Never Been Like That, and again with its best release—2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix—the group has mastered the soft touch with everything from a muted-string Fleetwood Mac guitar run to the dramatic splash of a cymbal crashed at just the right time.
First Avenue 701 1st Ave. N., Twin Cities, MN
Phoenix has always been less a great rock band and more some sly, sensitive, clever-but-not-coy enthusiast’s idea of a great rock band. Part of that owes to it being French and thus born slightly outside the rock margins—the group’s first two studio albums, 2000’s United and 2004’s Alphabetical, are dotted with quick bursts of giddy, danceable music, though a lot of the songs are dryly conceptual. But more of it owes to Phoenix’s uncanny command of the form; since 2006’s It’s Never Been Like That, and again with its best release—2009’s Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix—the group has mastered the soft touch with everything from a muted-string Fleetwood Mac guitar run to the dramatic splash of a cymbal crashed at just the right time.
Updated 10/04/2010
