“1901 (with coda),” Phoenix. Live at Tipitina’s on Thursday. The audio quality is only so-so, and the camerawork predictably spazzy, but this captures the manic energy that was pulsing through the club at the time. Listen to all those people shouting hey-yay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay! (Cheers to YouTuber MWillie70 for uploading this one.)

Regarding the Thursday night Phoenix show at Tipitina’s in New Orleans:

• The place was completely sold out, which seemed to catch the band off guard. Frontman/Frenchman Thomas Mars related that the last time they were in town, they played to a tiny audience. But on Thursday Tipitina’s was sold out and packed to the rafters, the floorboards creaking underneath our feet as we all pogoed up and down. Making the night yet more enchanting was the fact that I saw the show with Sazerac and Danimal; prior to the previous evening’s Walkmen concert, the three of us hadn’t seen a show together since college, when we went to shows all the time.
• The opening three songs — “Lizstomania,” “Long Distance Call” and “Lasso” — proved to be about the best 1-2-3 punch imaginable. After “Lasso” wrapped up, I looked over at Danimal, half in disbelief, and asked him what they could possibly do next. (They did “Fences,” and I appreciated the breather.)
• I’ve seen polite bands before, but Phoenix were solicitous to the point of absurdity. Mars shouted “Thank you” after almost every song — and when he didn’t, he shouted “Thank you so much! Thank you so much!” You’d think the audience members had agreed, shortly before the band took the stage, that upon the show’s conclusion they would donate Mars a kidney. The funny thing is that by the time the band wrapped up, we would have.
• Some of Phoenix’s songs are instrumental, and I was curious whether (and how) they would play them live. They did, at which point Mars left the stage to let his cohorts take over. The instrumentals work much better live than they do on the record — music that builds so gradually to a crescendo, as do the band’s instrumental efforts on Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, is much more impressive when played as loudly as you can stand it. What comes across as keyboard wankery on your iPod earbuds is totally arresting when played at the volume of a jet taking off in your living room.
• The main reason to see the show — my main reason for traveling to the South, really, besides getting to spend so much quality time with amazing friends — was to hear “1901” live. It’s (still!) my favorite track of the year, and band’s best song ever. Appropriately, Phoenix saved it for last. When it came, the opening keyboard line hit like a punch in the gut. (I don’t want to overstate how it, but I felt a bit like Adam did in this painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.) The song is a pitch-perfect sing-along, and every “hey-yay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay” got us all pumping our fists, as you can see in the terrible photo above. Nearly a hundred listens in, I still can’t tell you what the lyrics are about, and at this point it’s fair to say they’re beside point. Three minutes and thirteen seconds of bliss; it was over before it started. (There is video of this!)
• After “1901,” Mars thanked us a few hundred more times, and I got ready to leave. But then, in a nice surprise, the band wheeled up into a kind of wordless, extended coda to “1901” — nothing you could sing along to, but it still gave my friends and I one more chance to bliss out to those head-rush keyboards. We emerged from the show as converts; I had to go a long way from Phoenix to see Phoenix, but it was very well worth it.

Silversun Pickups play a raucous “Panic Switch” on Spinner. This is my go-to treadmill track of the year (along with “1901” and “Zero,” obvs.)

Girls - “Lust for Life”

Hard to argue with Casey’s notion that “1901” is the single of the year, but this song by San Francisco’s Girls has a great opener: “Oh, I wish I had a boyfriend.” Also: a bottle of wine and a beach house.