On a recent night in late April, the Grammy Award-winning rock band Phoenix exploded onto the stage amid billows of smoke, blasts of white light and a tidal wave of sound at Tokyo's Shibuya Stream Hall.
It was the tail end of a weeklong residency in the capital, but the musicians showed no signs of fatigue. Guitarist Christian Mazzalai bounced to the infectious, jittery rhythms of the hit single "Lisztomania," while lead singer Thomas Mars — a lithe Frenchman with floppy brown hair — leaned into the song's cryptically brilliant lyrics. He stopped abruptly as he launched into the chorus, but the crowd didn't skip a beat.
"Think less and see it grow," they roared back, finishing the line, "Like a riot, like a riot — oh!"