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All About Phoenix and Their Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony Performance
The French band is led by musician Thomas Mars, who is married to Marie Antoinette film director Sofia Coppola.
The organizers of the Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony are taking viewers back to the aughts with their inclusion of the French indie-pop band Phoenix.
After a whimsical creation of the Olympic rings, the band took the stage to perform their hit song "Lisztomania" as athletes sang to the song around them. After a brief joint performance with Angèle, the band performed yet another famous song, this time "If I Ever Feel Better."
The group previously teased their performance on X, formerly known as Twitter, sharing a pic of themselves posing on a Parisian rooftop. "Bonjour Paris! It’s so special seeing the city host this year’s @Olympics games, there is still so much more to come!" they captioned the photo.
Phoenix's performance was the perfect way to cap off the Summer Games and build anticipation for the Olympic's return to Los Angeles in 2028. The group is from France but found mainstream success in the United States with their songs "Lizstomania" and "1901."
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"Today, where we look at the history of music, it’s certainly the French music style and the artists behind it, who have had the biggest resonance in the world. So it was important for us to acknowledge it,” Thierry Reboul, the event’s executive director, told Variety of the decision to recruit the band.
Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig, Air, and Vannda Take the Stage
The band was joined at the Stade de France by musicians Angèle, Ezra Koenig, Air, and Vannda.
Vannda is a rapper from Cambodia, which used to be a French colony before gaining its independence.
Angèle, meanwhile, hails from France's neighbor Belgium and is a popular artist in France.
Phoenix was later joined in their performance by American artist and Vampire Weekend singer Ezra Koenig. The pop group collaborated with the Vampire Weekend frontman on their recent album Alpha Zulu, in which he sings on their song "Tonight."
The Members of Phoenix
The French group hails from Versailles, the same town where the French royal family and their court once lived, and is comprised of singer Thomas Mars, guitarists (and brothers) Laurent Brancowitz and Christian Mazzalai, and bassist/keyboardist Deck D’arcy.
They first began playing together in 1995, recording their demos in the garage of Mars' parents' Versailles home, according to GQ. They've come a long in the years since they were teens, releasing seven albums since the band's inception: United (2000); Alphabetical (2004); It's Never Been Like That (2006); Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009); Bankrupt (2013); Ti Amo (2017); and Alpha Zulu (2022).
Notably, their latest album Alpha Zulu — inspired by a terrifying and turbulent flight in which Mars heard the pilot shout, "Alpha Zulu," according to GQ — was recorded at the Louvre Palace at the height of the pandemic, allowing the group to take in art and other French artifacts while laying down their tracks. "We tend to suffocate in the walls of a professional studio, but for my experience we were more inspired by these things," Mars told GQ.
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Why does Phoenix perform in English?
Mars has said that Phoenix didn't necessarily decide to sing just in English, that's just the way it happened. "When I started writing, the first thing that came out was in English," he explained to New York Magazine in 2010.
Plus, the band's influences are largely American and British, with the members citing Prince and The Talking Heads as their inspirations.
And while the band primarily sings in English, Mars has said that the lyrics are distinctly French. "We’re singing in English but singing about stuff that probably makes very little sense to Americans because it’s thought in French. We love that it’s weird and there is something very French about it," he explained in the same interview.
For example, the popular song "Lisztomania" features lyrics like "Do let, do let, do let / Jugulate, do let, do."
Mars' Relationship with Director Sofia Coppola
When Mars and his bandmates are not working on new music, the lead singer often collaborates with his wife, Sofia Coppola.
He and the director, whose father is famed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, first met when Mars collaborated with the band Air — another Closing Ceremony performer — under the pseudonym Gordon Tracks in 1999. The group's song "Playground Love" is featured in Coppola's film The Virgin Suicides, starring Kristen Dunst.
Since then, Mars and Phoenix have made small cameos in Coppola's other projects, including Marie Antoinette and A Very Murray Christmas. And their songs continue to pop up in her films, including Lost in Translation, Somewhere, The Bling Ring and The Beguiled, with the band often creating original music to complement the soundtracks.
"It’s hard to differentiate the work from the private life,” Mars previously told Dazed of their work together, “but I’ve always felt a really strong connection watching her movies or anything by her brother (Roman)."
The director and musician worked together for many years and even welcomed two daughters together, Romy and Cosima, prior to their Italian wedding on Aug. 27, 2011. The nuptials were a small but star-studded event with Coppola's cousin Nicolas Cage and director George Lucas in attendance, according to People.
Unsurprisingly, Mars' and Coppola's talents have rubbed off on their children, especially their eldest daughter Romy, who released two singles earlier this year.
