Culture Collide Festival 2010: Phantogram
By Seraphina L.
The last time we caught New York-based band Phantogram live, we had made the west coast trek up to Sasquatch Music Festival. Five months later, we had the pleasure of seeing them again in our local neighborhood as part of Culture Collide Festival‘s block party. Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter may be one of the most beautiful musical duos who have surfaced within the indie music scene during the last three years, but don’t let their pretty looks deceive you into thinking they don’t hold up on the musical front. With their urban indie rock sound which boasts a variety of influences including hip hop, trip-hop and R&B, Phantogram was one of the bands whose set really stood out from impressive lineup of artists yesterday.
After having some technical difficulties during their soundcheck, Phantogram made sure to make it a true block party when they kicked their set off with the hard-hitting song “As Far As I Can See,” a song with grinding beats underneath butter-smooth vocals from Barthel. As she put her arms up in the air and swerved her body to the heavily-synthesized melodies, Carter finished his cigarette on stage and poised himself to shred his guitar and add on dark, heavy vocals to songs such as the playful “Turn It Off.”
For two very different vocalists, Barthel and Carter do a fine job of intertwining their tones and harmonies making it all sound as successful as their mash-up of genres. With sets only running 30 minutes all night, they finally introduced themselves a few songs in to the set and were gracious enough to be thankful for the LA sunshine. However, by then they also had to announce that their last song of the set would be coming up. Not surprisingly, a majority of the dancing audience reacted with a “Boo” here and there. Barthel simply replied with a reserved “Calm down, you guys. Shit happens” and with that they ended their set with the gorgeous “Mouthful of Diamonds.”
