Phoenix / Constantines

A Phoenix concert paints a picture of a mercurial band heading in the direction of unmistakably mainstream success, not unlike a ship drifting unknowably toward a snarling iceberg. Theirs was a sensational mess—Phoenix with lights—that was at once instantly accessible, incredibly fun, condescending to the point of arrogance, and, as only a massively accessible commercial experience can be, ultimately an alienating performance with diminishing returns. When they opened with “Lisztomania,” their drummer on his feet, keeping time on the snare with air band syncopation, the crowd—made up, as far as I could tell, of 14 year old girls—went insane; every word of every song from then on was sung, every beat clapped out, every entreaty from Mars gratefully reciprocated; the crowd stood dutifully agog when the boring-as-hell “Love Like a Sunset” arc was played out, replete with a coordinated light show and the guitarist indicating each note of self-styled brilliance with the kinds of faces one makes at a baby; the accumulated love-sick sighs during “Girlfriend” drowned out both the band and my attempts to shout cynical things into the ears of fellow concert goers. It occurred to me that I had not attended a show so polished, so mawkishly enamored with the simulated world domination that is a sold out show in a big venue, since seeing the Smashing Pumpkins on their Mellon Collie (1995) tour back when I was a ripe, uncynical 16 year old. It’s not necessarily that I recommend skipping Phoenix; it is, like a amusement park ride that promises unforgettable experiences and delivers momentary dips and bops, or a NASCAR crash, nothing if not fascinating how quickly we gravitate towards it. Phoenix are just a goddamned band, though every decision obfuscates this.

By merciful contrast there’s the once-mercurial and now reliably blue collar Constantines, who kicked off their 10th anniversary show in Ottawa for about 100 diehards as a snowstorm barreled down on the city from god knows where. There’s something appropriately and cyclically poetic about Constantines opening this tour in Ottawa, and at a bit of a dive bar, the town in which they played their first out-of-town show and after so many other bars just like it. Where a band currently enjoying better recognitions (see above) might someday return to a similarly entrenched and highly respected venue and wax philosophically about the relative poverty of the surroundings in comparison to arenas and buses, Constantines seem to effortlessly endure, to rely ineffably on an indestructible formula. After these ten years—during which I must have watched Constantines play in Ottawa a half-dozen times, in bars of various sizes and polish—their remarkable consistency is a broad red line throughout, as sharp a call to arms as their self-titled implied back in 2001. Having seen them in Toronto and Vancouver, in Montreal and Chicago, what the Cons give during a performance seems exactly equal to each preceding and following performance. They are as starkly relevant, as inexhaustibly giving, as ever.

“Long Distance Four,” long out of rotation on the performance circuit and here triumphantly resurrected, is still a lyrical masterwork for the books and bootstraps crowd. These years later it still resonates: “For those stuck between the wars / it’s boredom beyond measure / roll me over.” The crowd sang along, much like Phoenix’s crowd, though to parallel is misleading; a mainstream concert allows one to rub identity clean, to blend and act however one wants for the fact that shows, for mainstream show goers, are rare occurrences. “Scene” is replaced with “event.” To sing a ten year old song in front of a dozen people you see at every show in a little town like Ottawa is testament to the band’s transcendent loyalty to its fan base, and vice versa. Where one might think that admitting such fidelity is to date oneself, Constantines have always tapped some timeless effigy so that, even there, even in front of a relatively sparse crowd—and with no lights, at that—one feels that ten years from now only one of the bands mentioned in this review will still be around.