![]() And this, I imagine, is how they pull off some of the most sweatless guitar music ever to work a huge venue so well. ![]() Their first encore at MSG involved popping up in the middle of the crowd to do a few gentle acoustic songs in a tight circle, including an oldie in French. The men in Phoenix have always seemed to me like they just stepped out of some upscale romantic comedy - like they should be telling you about their PhDs in classics, or how they used to model a little but found it silly, and they’re mostly working on fixing up their sculpting studios out in the woods. It’s an easy and sensible match, after all, and not just because the two acts go way back. A sort of victory lap ensued, and then there was Phoenix at the front of the stage, taking a bow with a couple of shiny black robot-men in their midst. They teased us with a little “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.” They slid over into a little “Around the World.” They added some extra thump to Phoenix’s breakout single, “1901,” which I’m surprised was still audible over the sound of thumbs tapping tweets on smartphones. Even people who’d never heard of Daft Punk were wowed by it: After all, there were people dressed like robots onstage, and everyone else was thrilled about it! were dropping by to toss in a few saxophone solos. Some people react to seeing those helmets the way you’d react if a fictional character showed up in the room - as if Count Chocula and E.T. (Here is some shaky cellphone video footage of that moment, around the 2:58 mark.) They’ve managed to create something that iconic and implausible. And here is something worth saying: Even when you expect to see Daft Punk, it is still amazing to see the lights come up on them - or at least on the silver and gold robot-biker helmets and the memorable samples we’ve all agreed represent them. And while Air remain lovely, their appearance at a Phoenix gig in 2010 would not be all that “special.” So would it really be Daft Punk? Who are not exactly often-seen? Who have been away for a while now, presumably hard at work on the soundtrack to Tron, which comes out in two months? The French robot duo, in the (metal and leather) flesh? When word started going around that last night’s Phoenix show, at Madison Square Garden, might include “special guests,” the consensus in our area was that it’d be either Daft Punk or Air, two acts with which Phoenix has long-running connections.
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