After a six-month break from touring, New York duo Phantogram returned for their first trio of shows in 2026 with a three-night stint at the Troubadour. Despite more than 15 years of successful touring, this marked their first time playing the iconic West Hollywood venue. I caught the second of the three shows Thursday night.
I had seen Phantogram live 20 times coming into this show. From the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in 2014 to music festivals from Life is Beautiful to Hangout Fest to Governors Ball to Firefly to Just Like Heaven a few years ago. They’re one of my absolute favorite bands because they always seem like they’re having the best time doing it.
For these shows, it was just Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter on stage with no backing band behind them like we’ve gotten used to seeing. In fact, they were behind keys and synths rigs with live looping being a key part of the show, which changed things up a bit. The soundscapes filled the Troubadour beautifully as they tore into “News Today” from their album Spirals. This was a little played song that only got played on that 2019 tour and hadn’t been heard again until these Troubadour shows.
Then came mega bangers “You Don’t Get Me High Anymore” and “Fall In Love” which took my mind off wondering if I’m a past my prime concertgoer as all of a sudden my feet didn’t hurt so much anymore.
They also dusted off one more song they hadn’t played in a while — “I Don’t Blame You” from Voices hadn’t been played in a decade. This song seemed especially fitting for the stripped down setup as Carter’s lead vocals sounded beautiful drenched in synths. A few songs later they slowed the tempo again for the ballad “Answer,” one of the band’s most sentimental songs.
The live version of recent cut “It Wasn’t Meant to Be” sent me home to listen to that on repeat. It’s a departure from what Phantogram has been known for and a sign of where they might be going. Live, it had a 90s synthy feel to it.
“In a Spiral” had me wondering how fucking good a Phantogram redo of U2’s underrated Pop album would be (imagine them covering “Mofo”?)
“Black Out Days” for the 1000th time gave me goosebumps as Barthel stretched her vocals on the “If I could paint the sky, well all the stars we shine are burning reeeeeeeeeeeeeedddddd” that gave me flashbacks to see her do this at Hangout Fest (a video which has 640K views on YouTube).
They closed their encore with “When I’m Small” and sent the crowd home happy and me looking up ticket prices for the show in San Diego this Friday. I’ll be curious to see if they go back to a full band setup, though they did talk about how they’ve been experimenting with new sounds, “which is what Phantogram is all about” as Carter said. Bring it on, I say.
