It’s summer in Dublin city centre, the clouds loom overhead but the rain has been kept away and you can’t help but feel that was in part due to the arrival of Phoenix – the ultimate good
vibes band. Together for nearly 30 years now, the French indie rockers have truly perfected their craft for delivering energetic, pitch-perfect performances of radiant choruses which will never fail to put a spring in your step.

The Iveagh Gardens really is the perfect location for this type of act – the crowd isn’t raucous by any stretch of the imagination and there’s space galore to wander around the venue. Mosh pits are certainly not on the forecast. The band arrive on stage to a majestic harpsichord number, putting to bed any doubts over their Frenchness, before jumping straight into their 2009 hit Lisztomania to start the toe-tapping off on familiar footing.

The tone is well and truly set after that, where, even though the songs may get less recognisable for the everyman the further down the setlist we go, past the likes of Entertainment and Lasso, the band manage to put a huge amount of energy into every tune. Drummer Thomas Hedlund is a standout in that regard, whose day job for Swedish post-metal band Cult of Luna comes to the fore with a high-octane performance unmatched by any other member on stage.

Coming closest to matching Hedlund, though, is lead singer Thomas Mars, who is in fine form vocally and struts around the stage swinging his trusty red microphone like a man who has done this a thousand times before. It’s been seven years since Phoenix last performed in Ireland and six since they sadly had to cancel their 2018 Olympia show. Mars takes full responsibility for that, apologising for being sick that week – “It’s alright, you can boo for a few seconds,” he says, as the crowd half-heartedly obliges, but it’s hard to shake off any positivity here.

There is a brief lull throughout the middle of the set as the energy seems to wear off slightly, but it’s a relatively short performance, just under 90 minutes, so life is quickly injected back into the evening as we hurtle towards the finish line. The set ends full circle, using the band’s second huge hit off of breakout album ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix’, and probably their most celebrated, 1901, which gets a huge reception and is a sure example of leaving the best for last.

As the sky darkens above the Iveagh Gardens, Mars walks into the crowd to shake his fans’ hands and finishes off the set refraining Identical, before the lights dim and people shuffle towards a quick exit onto Harcourt Street, leaving vibes firmly set to magnifique.