-- The band completed its arc of playing opening tracks off of their
albums, performing both Blow at High Dough and Little Bones in addition to
Courage, Grace, Too, Gift Shop, and Poets (which they had performed in
Santa Cruz the night before).  All we needed was Small Town Bringdown--do
they even play that anymore??

-- The light show was really superb and added a great dimension to the
show; the setup was more professional at the Fillmore as well, plus had
the added attractions of its legendary disco ball and chandeliers.  Before
the Hip take the stage, they flood the club with some sort of odorless
smoke in order for the beams of light to be more visible and striking, so
please suppress any fear that you are being gassed (as I did) before the
show starts.

-- For a minute there I thought that someone with the band had read my
post about the Santa Cruz show, b/c Gord D. didn't put the guitar on until
after the first three songs or so!  But if anything it appeared he had the
guitar for even more of the songs than the night before.  In general, he
seemed a little less animated, making me wonder whether an antagonistic
crowd (like that from the previous night) actually juices up the band
more.

-- To compensate for Gord D.'s relatively subdued antics, Rob Baker wore a
purple velvet shirt.

-- The audience was much more of the laid-back, city-dwelling, smartly-
dressed crowd, which at least made for fewer meatheads although did little
to quell the number of hockey jerseys and related Canada apparel.  What's
that your T-shirt says?  The U.S. is actually Canada's 11th province?  How
droll.

-- As a slight further indignity to the band, the Fillmore's traditional
post-show poster which they give out to the first 700 or so people to exit
the building (I once asked an employee handing them out about how many
they make--it's fewer than the capacity of 1150 so as to encourage people
to leave more quickly) featured a hockey mask, a puck, and a maple leaf.
Maybe it's not that big of a deal, but I get the impression that the Hip
don't make as much of their Canadian roots as their fans do, preferring to
let the music speak for itself (despite the Canadian references in the
lyrics from time to time).  Not that I minded collecting a free poster of
one of the best bands *ever*, mind you.

-- It's amazing how the Hip play throughout the range of their entire
catalog of music (their debut EP excepted).  Naturally there's an emphasis
on songs from Phantom Power, but they also seem to play at least two songs
from each of their previous full-length albums.

Hope you've been at least mildly entertained by my random input.

Chris