Were the first-set songs connected through their lyrics about going or being crazy (some more outright than others)? Did that speak to the idea of "feeling glazed," as Page McConnell declared near the end of the set?
The theme was a stretch, but who the hell cared? This was the final night. Expectations were high, emotions were higher.
Despite that, the band gave us a first set of primo fun with songs like "Dogs Stole Things", "Rift", "Ha Ha Ha", "Camel Walk" and "Saw It Again", the latter rocking its way through the thunderous closing section. There were some surprises, too, like quieting down for the "Boom! Pow!" section of "Sanity" before triggering the "You thought there was going to be a HUGE explosion" sample from "The Very Long Fuse".
Other unexpected delights included the Mike Gordon tune "Crazy Sometimes", played by Phish for the second time ever, and the Phish debut of the excellent "Most Events Aren't Planned" by Page McConnell's band, Vida Blue. Big kudos go to the guy next to me up on the Chase Bridge who called it from the opening synth pulse.
"Bouncing Around the Room" and "Bug" were their standard selves, though I know there were people that were holding out one last bit of hope that the former would get the "Lawn Boy" treatment from Night 4. Instead, the set closed with the first "I Been Around" in three years and, probably to the delight of the people who had been holding up the giant "Izabella" sign on the floor for much of the run, the first performance of the Hendrix tune since 1998 (fourth Jimi song of the run), and lordy, how it rocked! Trey completely shredded it, despite getting distracted by a wayward balloon that he had to kick out of the way.
There were three tunes that they simply HAD to play at this show and the first came out of the gate for Set II with a 25-minute "Simple" that was so good, with a jam so incredibly hooked up and tight, it managed to eclipse the much lauded version from just a few weeks prior. The new tune, "Rise/Come Together", with its beautifully ascending chords, provided continued peaks, but Bowie's "Starman" felt like the wrong song to be played with only a half of a set left to go.
The second of the must-plays, "You Enjoy Myself", worked the crowd into such a frenzy (Firenze?) that glow sticks were flying everywhere from the upper sections on down. Just when Trey was ready to put down his guitar and start dancing to the groove before the vocal jam, he had a change of heart, picked it up again, and played a little more. So while we did not get the always entertaining Trey dance, we did get some bonus jamming. Wrapping up the set with the reliable climax of "Loving Cup" was no surprise and completely appropriate.
On a previous night (Night 8? It is all a blur), a fan threw a T-shirt onstage that read "Is this still Lawn Boy?", so after giving a whole new emotional heft to Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again", Page came to the front during a funkified reprise of "Lawn Boy" and answered the question with perfect deadpan hilarity - "It is."
And if that was not enough, while Page took his place back behind the keyboards, Fish and Mike played the intro to "Weekapaug Groove" that had been left out on Night...uh...10? But that was just a fake-out, like the "Harry Hood" intro at the end of the Big Cypress marathon set because the third completely necessary song, "Tweezer Reprise" ended the Baker's Dozen in the biggest, most rousing fashion possible. Even the fans on the floor got into the visuals of the show, popping off explosions of confetti and glitter with each pounding downbeat.
On the final crashing chord, I hugged Gloria and shed a few tears - of joy for what I had experienced over 13 nights and of sadness that it was ending. Just before the encore, a banner was raised in Madison Square Garden, commemorating the already historic run, but nobody who witnessed any of it needs a banner as a reminder of what transpired. The details may get blurry over time - we may forget the flavors or some of the specific song choices - but we will always remember that our favorite band (and, honestly, should they not be yours, too, by now?) played more than 200 different songs in 13 nights at one venue and it made a lot of people extremely happy.
Good things can not last forever, but we learned that they can last a baker's dozen nights.
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