Phantom Planet played the last of three shows at SXSW tonight, with a rousing show at Spiro’s Amphitheatre.
Taking to the stage at 11pm, the Californian band went down a treat with the crowd who yelled song titles between tracks.
“I thought we were playing for a new audience tonight “ said singer Alex Greenwald, “but I just heard two of our most obscure songs shouted at us, which is nice, but you’re not gonna get ’em because we haven’t rehearsed them!”
“Bands have the worst memories so if you shout something that’s like a hundred years old like ‘The Galleria’ I don’t know if we could do it justice.”
Greenwald recently became known for his cover of Radiohead’s ‘Just’ with Mark Ronson, and tonight addressed head-on another reason for his notoriety – namely the theme tune to TV show ‘The O.C. ’
“For those of you who don’t know we wrote this song and then it got a lot of stigma attached to it, but this is our last show here and then we go back to California so it seems appropriate” he told the crowd, who went bananas for the track.
The band previewed new material at the show which features on the band’s forthcoming album including opener ‘Geronimo’, ‘Do The Panic’ and ‘Leave Yourself’.
Dedicating ‘Don’t Panic’ to a band called Chief, Greenwald said:
“They’re friends of ours from New York and they’re awesome. They played today and if you didn’t see them you really fucked up!”
The band were thrilled with the crowd reception with Greenwald asking his bandmates:
“Do you not agree this is the best audience we’ve played for? It’s like a house party.”
Phantom Planet’s new album ‘Raise The Dead’ comes out April 15.
They played:
‘Geronimo’
‘Always On My Mind’
‘Dropped’
‘Lonely Day’
‘Do The Panic’
‘Knowitall’
‘Leave Yourself’
‘Big Brat‘
‘California’
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