Buffalo, Buffalo, my ears'll hurt for a day or so.....

No problem getting in to the show with a recorder, the boys at the gate seemed more interested in looking for booze.  While my tape is not the best (don't ask, let's just say it WON'T be used for any more shows) copies are out for anyone who wants to B&P or trade....  email me.

Well, let's see...  Stac and I showed up at about 7:20 and watched the fans trickle in.  BDR popped up on stage promptly at 7:30 and started into things.  Sorry, I didn't keep track of what they played.  Unfortunetly for them, an empty arena and *very* loud music don't really mix...  I've heard worse, but the guy who was running the soundboard must've been taking a shit 'cause for a while the treble was nearly intolerable....  it didn't help that I had been awake since 5am and was tired.  All in all BDR
wasn't that bad, and the chick playing the guitar looked pretty hot in that skirt from where we (I) was sitting.

So BDR is done at 8:05, and the hip showed up at 8:40.  I should've taken that time to go for a drink, but didn't.  Oh well.  I thought the beachballs were a little odd for das hip, it looked more like a roadside than a rink show.  Most of the crowd looked to be American to me (not that that should mean anything, it's just an observation.  Actually, I was quite surprised and pleased by this).

Now for the songs...
Save The Planet:  Nice opener, a lot of the crowd recognised the song and were bebopping along to it.
Twist My Arm:  'Twas good, I think it got the diehards in the audience into things.
Nautical Disaster:  Cool.  Gord sang a bit about swimming at the end, floundered around the stage and got me laughing.
Bobcaygeon:  The anthem of the working man....  the stars on the ceiling were a nice touch.
Lionized:  If you're at a show and you hear an intro that you haven't heard before, it's probably Lionized.  Gord intro'd it as "this is called Northern Lights....  a song about Canadian stars" and they did some GT jam before going into Lionized.
Poets:  Man, does Gord love those rattles.  Man, do I love the intro to this song, to me it sounds like a Stones riff.  At the end Gord could be seen swimming, doing his impression of those swimmin' women.
The Luxury:  Glad to hear this, as I was starting to get a bit bored by now.  While the assholes in front of us severly affected my enjoyment of it (see below), the tape turned out good and I listened to it on the way to work this morn and had my fun.
Courage:  Wow, was the house rockin'!  At the end they did a verse of Every Irrelevance, which I loved but was lost on everyone around me, who were asking "hey, what's he saying...?"
Fireworks:  The Edge (102.1 FM) had all but killed this song for me.  Hearing it at work 5 times a day gets to you after awhile, but at least this version was live.

Flip the tape...

Ahead By A Century:  Not exactly an amazing rendition, but I love the song anyway so it doesn't really matter now does it?
So Hard Done By:  A song I hadn't heard since Barrie '97, one I enjoy, and one that was sadly interrupted by aforementioned assholes (see pending rant below...)
Something On:  Crowd loved it, but it didn't do much for me...  In a foul mood, I hardly noticed what was being played.
Gift Shop:  See So Hard Done By.  At the end Gord broke into a spontaneous little snippet about life on the tour this year, singing about C'town and Quebec City and the whole nine yards.  I wish the s'board guy would've cranked Gord's mic a notch or so so we could've heard it better.
Springtime In Vienna:  At this point in the show, for reasons explained below, my only thought was "geez, I love the hip and all but this just sounds like I'm at home and listening to LBU...  the songs are pretty much the same...."
50 Mission Cap:  Oh thank God!  Something to get me interested again!!! I was having fears that IMO things were starting to suck but this was a great help.  The crowd went nuts, and rightfully so....  that song should be the Leafs official anthem.
Chagrin Falls:  Cool....  I like the album version, I like all the copies I have on boots, and this was no exception.
New Orleans Is Sinking:  Hmmm....  I think I've heard this song too many times.  I was looking foward to hearing Insomniacs during the jam, and das hip didn't let me down.  I got really pissed when some assholes started booing during it though.  The regular set ended like any other would've.

New tape...  for the encore....
Vapour Trails:  Ho hum.  That's all I have to say.
Scared:  Got me back into things, that's for sure.  The crowd really quited down and the scene was good... Gord pulled through, the boys kicked ass in the final verse and I was happy.  As a bonus, Gord sang a bit of my favourite snippet, the one about all his friends being gone and them showing up on his front lawn...  in my boot files I call this "Empty Halls".  I don't know if it'll ever turn into a song, but I can always hope.  Now for the sad part...  believe it or not some of the assholes behind us (not to be confused with the ones in front) decided they were going to try crowd surfing.  Yep, mid rink in the 100's, and this dink
wanted to surf.  After I got a boot in the head I politely passed the surfer to my left, which just happened to be the stairs.  Oh, darn.  The nasty cut he got kind of smartened him up.
At The Hundredth Meridian:  In the back of my mind I was secretly hoping for a 15 minute version with tons of Gordisms, but alas it was not to be. Still kicked ass, and Insomniacs showed up again during the mid song jam,
which was good. Spent the next 5 minutes watching people leave and laughing to myself. Wasn't sorry to see some of them go, that's for sure.  Finally the hip re-re-enter...

Fire In The Hole:  Gord started off with his snippet about the arsonists and the burning church that has become common place with this song in the past 2 years or so...  it was the first time I'd heard it live and it was neat.  Gord's impression of the choir singer was really well done.  The rest of the song was good too, and thankfully the crowd wasn't too wild.
Escape...:  Neat intro, sounds a bit more like the album cut than other times I've heard it.  The song lacked something and it seemed to drag a bit.
Blow At High Dough:  Wow, called the closer correctly.  I'm not overly big on the song but it was still a great one, a good note to close out the show on.

Now for some choice words...

First off.  The idiots right in front of us felt the need to stand up, ON THE SEATS, and jump up and down for the first song and everything after, with no regard for anyone in the rows behind them.  After I had politely asked "hey guys, can you at least not stand on the seats?" several times to no avail I got really pissed off and yelled "HEY ASSHOLES!!  I didn't pay $100 to look at the back of your fucking heads!".   A few of them turned around, one said "aw, fuck you", and they continued unabaited.  The guy two rows behind me threw his beer at the guy who said fuck off.  I sorta chuckled.
I could be wrong here.  Who knows?  Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky in my 23 years here?  I think most will agree though, that if you're at a show you can do whatever the fuck you want to enjoy yourself, but the very least you can do is show a little respect for everyone else.  These assholes' total lack of it pissed me and quite a few others off.  Sadly, I had nothing to throw at them except my pen lid, which was a 3-point shot on one of their heads.  Next show I'll remember my roll of pennies. I figure if they feel the need to spoil the show for others the least I can do is return the favour.  I know, I know, I should be the better man, do unto others blah blah blah, but by my best estimate I'm going to hell anyway so whiping a few pennies at some drunk and stoned dink's head won't add much to my sentance.
Anyway....  the drunk and stoned assholes behind us got really pissed off when they noticed I was taping.  Apparently (as Stac overheard) they hadn't thought of taping, and they figured that since they couldn't tape then I shouldn't either.  They spent several songs trying to bat the recorder out of my hands.  At one point when I switched tapes the one guy tried to pick the tape out of my pocket when Stacie, bless her soul, noticed and elbowed the one guy in the balls.  [Guys, always try and get a girl who played hockey; they come in handy sometimes].  A fight was just about to start when the guys behind them (the one who threw the beer) picked the one guy behind us up by the shirt and had a few words with him.  After that things were okay.
To close things here.....  So, somehow, in spite of this I still was able to enjoy the show.  It wasn't the best I'd seen. Technically, they did all the right things but the setlist just didn't do anything for me.  I guess I was hoping for too much.  IMO it sounded a lot like LBU, but without the spontaneity and excitment.  Listening to too many taped live recordings can be a bad thing, as I found out.  I'm still looking foward to the rest of the shows and hoping that things get better.

 later hipsters,
 james 'gord' gamble,
           the travellin' man


I read the Review on the show in Buffalo and I have to agree with it.  The guy who wrote this must have been near where I was.  There were some real fools behind us who wanted to bodysurf in the stands.  Like isn't that for the floor area??????
And the girl behind us was swearing up a storm about her bitchy boyfriend. You don't need to hear personal conversations like that at a concert.
But Yeah I thought the Hip were great.  They were on stage less than when I saw them in 96 at the Arena but they were great anyway.  They jam like nobody else I have seen in concert.  I had hoped to hear Emperor Penguin but no-- next time, I guess.  I wanted to see how they would expand on it.  I liked the way they did Escape is at Hand as it was not one of my favorites from Phantom Power.
It was a fun time all in all..   A few times I found myself closing my eyes and just taking it in that way.  They really can rock on.  I liked what they did with their backdrop and lighting to back up the mood to their songs,too.   Great.
And to end,  Gord is a sexy guy as anyone who can sing like that and ramble on with such esoteric stories is.  Makes me wonder what's inside of him--where he gets all that energy.

Till the next Hip concert,
a fan,

Ruth