Forever is a long, long time

MANILA, Philippines - Twelve songs into Phoenix’s set at the World Trade Center, they start laying out the foundations for the blissful ride that is Love Like a Sunset. Arguably, the centerpiece of Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix—taking up seven minutes of an album that only runs for 30 minutes — the song’s live performance captures its cinematic scope as the French quartet slingshots into the wild yonder of fading love. Red lights fade in, echoing the atmospheric wiles of the titular phenomenon, while Thomas Mars lounges behind a speaker, taking a much needed break, as the rest of the band — Deck d’Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz — paved through a glorious crescendo. It took the band until their fourth album to gain some cred and as they pimped out their alt-fuzz soundscape last Tuesday night at the halls of World Trade Center Manila, their presence proved that our third world soil ain’t no longer a place for washed-out has-beens. 

A live performance has always been the physical counterpart of listening to an album — and more. While the latter has always been an isolated act, with only your brain and the music wired into a singular experience, hearing the songs performed live is almost an act of redemption. Hands (and cameras) held high, with Mars taking charge of the revolution, you sing along to each song, bodies swaying in worship. Phoenix is an act that is definitely best heard live and Mars is the kind of frontman who knows how to give the pleasures of such rare company. The GoPro-wielding a**holes might mar your experience (Kids, here’s a tip, it’s still better to drink in the whole experience rather than recording it in your devices that wouldn’t even give it justice) but it’s best to lay yourself down the altar and surrender.

It’s only fitting that the band used ‘Entertainment’ as a bookend. The song’s Oriental thrum of an opener leads us to a wall of guitars and percussions, all coming down with Mars’s rebellious plea for seclusion. It’s an interesting choice of track to open and close the show, especially one that outlines the pros and cons of success, which Mars pronounces in his own weird way (“What you want and what you do to me/I’ll take the trouble that you have in mind”). As Mars jumps from the stage after the encore finale, Rome, swimming through the crowd for a more intimate expression of gratitude — people patted his head, hugged him, and even grazed his crotch — you wouldn’t think his earlier crowd-surfing antics were generic rockstar posturing. And as the confetti starts pouring in, and the band picks up from their extended whirring to make way for Mars’s march, you start to realize that witnessing this performance is also a testament to how music can be an act of consummation, an act that reaffirms the immensity of existence.