According to my friends, Meredith and John, who had been checking social media to see the song predictions for the night's flavor of double chocolate, we were not the only ones that had "You Sexy Thing" by Hot Chocolate on the brain. It was an obvious choice - right in Trey's wheelhouse of classic '70s soul.
But who could have predicted the ridiculous mid-'00s internet sensation "Chocolate Rain"? (No one.) As an a capella opener, complete with moving their mouths away from the microphone to take a breath?!
As the rest of the band took to their instruments, Fish stayed at the front mic for just a little while longer to sing his awesomely silly "Ass Handed" (my first time seeing him do it!). Once again, Phish proves that dads in their 50s can still be wacky and have fun. These guys are definitely not phoning it in.
As if to drive that point home, they proceeded to play a set that combined the tight execution of difficult composed material in "Weigh", "The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony" and "Divided Sky"; the simple, rock out jams of "Free" and "The Dogs"; and surprises such as "Undermind" (which is not a big surprise for most people, but for some reason I keep missing it - seriously, I have see them play "Ride Captain Ride" and "No Quarter" more often) and "Destiny Unbound". Ending the set with the cute "Things People Do" and the deep funk of "Sand" gave this set the feeling of a mid-'90s super-Phish show (when they would cram a little bit of every style and genre into their shows).
Busting out "Have Mercy" at the start of Set II is one of those moves in which the song selection, not the actual song, sets the tone - in this case indicating that even almost halfway into the Baker's Dozen, with zero repeated songs (about 100 played), anything can happen and any song is on the table.
That said, next up was "Chalk Dust Torture", which is still my most frequently seen song - more than 50 of my 137 shows. The great thing about "Chalk Dust" is that it can still astound after all these years (7/13/14 comes to mind), and this one did so by keeping the middle solo section short before hitting the final chorus, and then taking off into a big jam.
As expected, "You Sexy Thing" appeared and its delicious chocolatey groove had us dancing with delight. To make things even better, the second performance of "Mercury" in the Northeast (prior to the previous week's Pittsburgh show, the closest the song ever got was South Carolina) finally let me experience this fantastic piece if music in person. The segue back into "You Sexy Thing" put the exclamation point on the sequence.
Usually, when Phish brings out "Backwards Down the Number Line" to end a set, it comes after a set of songs that already killed and just serves its purpose with a decent climax. Not only did this "Number Line" stand tall on its own, but it did not even end the set as "Rock and Roll" (the third Velvet Underground song of the run) instead capped it off with more of the high energy this set had been cranking out.
I am not really a big fan of "Fee" anymore, so the encore seemed like it would not do anything to move the needle either way on my opinion of the show, but when they brought out the barbershop quartet arrangement of David Bowie's "Space Oddity", it proved once again that these dudes have been practicing. The harmonies, shaky throughout the 2016 performances of the song, were much better - as good as a rock band composed of middle-aged guys playing in Madison Square Garden can be, anyway.
Like that super-dedicated employee character in those old Dunkin Donuts commercials, Phish is obviously taking the extra time to put the work in when it is "time to make the doughnuts."
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