French band Phoenix rocks the Orpheum

French alt-pop act Phoenix could be described as an overnight success. You know, if that night took roughly a decade to pass and, in the morning, Chevrolet decided to use 1901, a track from their fourth studio album, in a television advertisement for its 2010 Cadillac SRX.

Yep, it turns out American car commercials are great vehicles.

Phoenix, though, deserves all this newfound attention. The boys have smartly honed their craft through the years and, building off the solid 2006 album, It’s Never Been Like That, the band’s latest release, the Grammy-nominated Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, continues to blaze a musical path that will, eventually, lead to an arena near you.

For now, though, it’s the Orpheum.

Nothing wrong with that, of course. And Friday night’s sold-out gig, part of the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad, kicked off witrh a raucous (and impressive) opening performance by local act You Say Party! We say Die!

Then, roughly 15 minutes after their scheduled start time, the Europeans took the stage, kicking off their set with Lisztomania, a track from the new album that gets its name from a 1975 musical comedy starring Roger Daltrey. Not to be outdone by a car commercial, this track has done its serious share of television work, appearing in the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, in the season premiere of Cougartown and the season-six finale of HBO’s Entourage, just to name a few.

If that’s not enough, it makes you want to do the Carlton! (See Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.)

Sure, that an old-school reference, but Phoenix brings that out in a dude.

Proof-positive: the Orpheum crowd was on its feet before the band even took the stage and didn’t sit down for the entire show. This made me happy because, as anyone who reads my reviews regularly (my mom) will tell you, I have serious issues with fans who don’t stand.

In fact, I can’t stand it.

Regardless, Long Distance Call was next, but where the band really shines is on impossibly catchy tracks like Lasso, which followed. The vibe unapologetically screams 80s pop but it’s a dressed up, more sophisticated sound.

Which is fitting, since it’s from Paris.

The show lost a bit of its momentum when lead singer Thomas Mars disappeared off stage for a break during part one and two of the track, Love Like a Sunset, but quickly regained pace for the snappy Napoleon Says and the crowd-pleaser, Too Young.

Inexplicably, the band bridged from the relentless chorus of Run, Run, Run – which should have ended the set – to an abridged version of the 10-minute Funky Squaredance, which seems to be channeling fellow French band Daft Punk and is only interesting because of its video. (Search for it on YouTube: directed by Roman Coppola, you will either think it’s brilliant, or, conversely, you will feel like you’ve wasted 10 minutes of your life.)

The four-song encore – which inspired a massive dance-off on stage comprised of about 200 concertgoers that completely obscured the band – fittingly finished with the aforementioned 1901: "Counting all ideas drifting away/Past and present, now the future’s sorted out…"

Past or present, this is fuzzy, feel good pop.

This is montage music for the masses.

Because everybody needs a montage.

A montage and a Chevrolet.