The Kee, Bala, ON
01: The Lonely End Of The Rink
02: New Orleans Is Sinking
03: Cordelia
04: Bobcaygeon
05: Luv (Sic)
06: Summer Is Killing Us
07: Courage
08: Thugs
09: Long Time Running
10: Springtime In Vienna
11: In View
12: At The 100th Meridian (Voodoo Chile tease at the beginning)
13: Scared
14: Fireworks
15: Family Band
16: Little Bones
Encore
17: Yer Not The Ocean
18: Fully Completely (Emperor Penguin was written on setlist)
19: Fire In The Hole
We arrived in Bala, after a brief but needed stop at Weber’s, at 7:30pm. There were a number of people milling about near the entrance tot he venue, but nothing like the “chaos” we had been led to believe we would see. The line-up was only about 30 people long, and moved quite quickly. The ticketless concert is a great idea and would be great to see it tried at larger venues.
This was my first Kee experience and I was surprised at the layout of the facility. It is a rectangle room with the stage along one of the long sides, not the short as one would expect. The stage is also about 6 feet high, ensuring that everyone has a good view, regardless of their height or position in the room. The room is lined by a balcony, but this space was reserved for VIPs (Lindros & Coffey, and a few other NHLers were up there).
The floor filled up slowly, and front row access was easy until about 8:45pm. The band took the stage around 9:20 and ripped into a blistering set punctuated by a back-to-back combo from Day For Night. The crowd, fueled by beer and fresh Muskoka air coming in off the lake and through the open windows, were into it from minute the band took the stage until the house lights and music were turned on after they left.
The encore, despite my thoughts to the contrary, seemed to sate most of the crowd. For me, and some in my group, it left us a little disappointed. (This band has set such a high standard for us, that unless a total rarity is played, we are not satisfied.)
The show rates an 84/100 for me. Great DFN combo, lots of animated behaviour from Gordie, and killer grooves from Gord/Johnny, complete with bass-in-the-air showmanship.
Notes:
Lots of booze consumed, and we watched more than a few drunks get carried out. Post show there was a pretty good COPS-style take down, complete with pepper spray, (and some crying).
Post-show highlight of the night:
Girl walks up to police who have resisting-arrest drunk in cuffs and asks, “Is there anything I can do to help? I’ve got a place for him to stay.”
Cops: “So do we.”
The Kee, Bala, ON
01: Yer Not The Ocean
02: Twist My Arm
03: Grace, Too
04: Lake Fever (wanna be your stars of Muskoka…)
05: The Drop Off
06: Daredevil (12 minutes of awesome!)
07: Inevitability Of Death
08: Gift Shop
09: Last Of The Unplucked Gems (extended intro)
10: World Container
11: Family Band
12: Blow At High Dough
13: Wheat Kings
14: The Kids Don’t Get It
15: Three Pistols
16: The Lonely End Of The Rink
Encore
17: In View
18: Ahead By A Century
19: My Music At Work
Woodstock En Beauce, Saint-Ephrem-De-Beauce
Setlist
01: Yer Not The Ocean
02: My Music At Work
03: Grace, Too
04: In View
05: Ahead By A Century
06: Family Band
07: Poets
08: It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken
09: New Orleans Is Sinking
10: World Container
11: Fully Completely
12: Springtime In Vienna
13: At The Hundredth Meridian
14: Bobcaygeon
15: The Kids Don’t Get It
16: Blow At High Dough
17: The Lonely End Of The Rink
Seeing my first show at the Artpark, I expected nothing less than a great Canada Day performance from The Hip. Thankfully again, I got what I expected. Avid fans from the Toronto/Hamilton/Buffalo area were whipped into a frenzy by Gord Downie and his band mates. From the start the boys were right on, playing many Hip favorites in a set list punctuated with songs from their latest release, World Container.
Near the beginning of the show Gord D. noted that we were in the Niagara Falls region. He then made a prophetic statement. Gord said, “Accidents causing injury or death are usually the result of showing off”. After saying that, the band launched into Daredevil. Downie was full of energy, (as he usually is), dancing and acting out. He raged back and forth across the stage belting out his lyrics while Robbie Baker and Paul Langois reproduced that wonderfully layered dual guitar sound. Johnny Fay played loud and hard on his stripped down Yamaha drum set as Gord S. plucked his bass, moving and dancing in his own unique style.
Some highlights of the show included Gord D. hiding behind his playback monitor as if he were in a fox hole in a war zone. He would grab an imaginary grenade, pull the pin with his teeth and toss it into the crowd. Then Gord would duck down behind his monitor as it exploded. During Locked in the Trunck of a Car, G.D. was dancing and jumping about. At one point Gord lept into the air using his mikestand as a pole vault. He fell to the ground as the mikestand snapped in half. He gave his mangled mikestand to a mom sitting right next to me who was with her 14 y.o. son attending his first Hip show. As the final song of the main set began to play, Billy Ray brought Gord another mikestand. Gord quickly dismantled it and gave another fan an unusual souvenier. Keeping the top half of the stand, Gord marched back and forth twriling it like a baton in his right hand. Now Gord was a “drum major” leading the marching band in a parade.
As the last song began to end, Gord prepared to “hang” himself with the cord from his mike. Wrapping it around his neck, he stood on his tippy-toes waving goodbye to everyone. The song ended and Gord collapsed to the stage, his dirty deed complete. After a three song encore, we were sent home happy and exhausted as Gord thanked everyone for celebrating Canada Day with The Hip.
Art Park, Lewiston, New York
01: The Lonely End Of The Rink
02: New Orleans Is Sinking
03: Courage
04: Good Life
05: Drop Off
06: Daredevil
07: Family Band
08: Bobcaygeon
09: Poets
10: Don’t Wake Daddy
11: Yer Not The Ocean
12: Nautical Disaster
13: Scared
14: The Kids Don’t Get It
15: Locked In The Trunk Of A Car
16: Fire in the Hole
Encore
17: In View
18: Summer’s Killing Us
19: Little Bones
01: Yer Not the Ocean
02: My Music @ Work
03: Grace, Too (representing the jersey)
04: Gus
05: In View
06: Ahead By A Century
07: Puttin’ Down
08: New Orleans Is Sinking
09: Thugs
10: World Container
11: Family Band
12: Springtime In Vienna
13: 100th Meridian
14: Sherpa
15: Kids Don’t Get It
16: Blow At High Dough
17: On The Verge
Encore:
18: Lonely End of the Rink
19: Escape is at Hand for the Travellin’ Man
20: Fireworks
Niagara Gazette – JOINED AT THE HIP: After 20 years, The Tragically Hip remains a big draw
BY Brent Hallenbeck GANNET NEWS SERVICE
Greater Niagara Newspapers
Why is it, Gord Sinclair, that The Tragically Hip is so popular around these parts?
Sinclair, the band’s bass player, says their roots in Kingston, Ontario, which is a little more than a dozen miles from Watertown, places The Tragically Hip’s home base closer to a host of U.S. burgs than to Canadian cities. He also mentions their tendency to play sold-out shows in Vermont and their close proximity to New York.
When the band’s vocalist, Gordon Downie, sings about intrigue on the ice on “The Lonely End of the Rink†from the band’s new album, “World Container,†fans in hockey-absorbed communities say, “I hear ya.â€
“World Container†is the 12th Tragically Hip album and they are currently touring nationwide through September. The band leaned on producer Bob Rock, who is known more for his work with hard rockers Metallica and Motley Crue and not so much with anthemic pop-rockers like The Tragically Hip.
“What he brought to us was a real focus on each individual song,†according to Sinclair, speaking recently by phone during a tour stop in Seattle. Rock helped refine the arrangement of “The Lonely End of the Rink,†Sinclair says, turning the track into a Who/U2/Midnight Oil-styled rampage that’s one of the disc’s highlights. His contributions weren’t all about frenzied moments, though; Sinclair says Rock also steered the band toward an elegant piano texture on the track “Pretend.â€
“He just has a really focused ear,†Sinclair says. “He became the ersatz sixth member of the group.â€
Speaking of The Who, an obvious influence, The Tragically Hip recently played several opening dates for the legendary British rockers. The Tragically Hip have been around more than 20 years and the band members are in their 40s, but they still feel a rush of teenage hero worship around The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend.
“It’s impossible to divorce yourself from when you’re 15 years old,†Sinclair says. “We grew up with that group.â€
Opportunities like that make you a better band. You have to get up and you have to entertain these rabid Who fans,“ according to Sinclair. â€In terms of a dream come true, that’s right up there.”
The Tragically Hip might be aiming toward their own Who-like longevity. It’s already rare for a band to have the same five members it started out with more than two decades earlier. Sinclair says there are moments when they get together after time away and find themselves saying, â€How can we do this again?“ Yet they always manage.
â€We’ve grown up together, put the band together as young men doing this. It’s based around our friendship and the bond we have as a group. It’s a collective experience, a shared experience,“ Sinclair says.
â€It is a lifelong bond.“
The Tragically Hip continues the “World Container†tour with a two-night stand in Lewiston’s Artpark, beginning at 8 p.m. Saturday and continuing Sunday at the same time. Both shows have been sold out since the day tickets went on sale to the public.
The band is a world-class album-rock ensemble, and its studio efforts have been consistently inspired across the span of its 20 years together. Live, however, the Hip is notorious for taking it all somewhere else. Singer Gordon Downie has transportive powers as a front man, and he’s more than eager to take the audience through the looking glass with him.
Once there, the band’s music — which, when stripped to its core components, is straightforward rock- and folk-based stuff — transcends itself, as Downie leads the proceedings like a mad carnival barker trying to break on through to the other side, the uber-tight rhythm section becomes hypnotic and sensual, and the twin guitars weave together into one. This usually happens by the end of the opening tune.
Hopefully, the Hip will wend its way back to our neck of the woods near the tour’s end. In the meantime, keep one eye on www.thehip.com for the consistently updated “song of the day†and “featured video†content.
— Jeff Miers
Air Canada is featuring “That Night In Toronto” as part of its in-flight entertainment options; both on the projection screens, and the seatback personal entertainment systems.