Amazing show my hip loving minions..Elisha and her better half Jeffrey got there early ( painfully early for a saturday ) and camped out on a blue sleeping bag...I was worried that I would be late!
I left SF at 11:30 and got to the grounds 1pm-ish drum circle music filled the air as I approached
the grounds of the show / festival walking alone from the "parking" lot...no one around.. so strange
I'd seen Heksenketel too many times I guess and was paranoid about getting a good spot..
.. I hand in my ticket and walk to the grounds to see... about 150 people there mostly bored looking , cooking in the California sun..and there's Jeff and Elisha all by themselves right up front...I lay my jacket down just left of the center mic...against the weak fence four feet away from the stage..
We spoke of being shocked at the turnout I mean how fun is an outdoor hip show with three people pressed against the stage?  Bets were placed on when the bus from Vancouver with a big red maple leaf on the side would show up and pour 75 Canadian Hip fans out..??
You could buy gyros, veggie hamburgers, drums, rasta hats, goddess bumper stickers, psychadelic hoola-hoops and Tony Furtado CD's Earnest, earnest enviromentalists..I felt dirty..I wasn't into the jam type bands they had on...I'm not a festival type guy... I wore a shirt and got sunburned I was there for the Hip.. I like lots of other music (nomeansno, reivers, nick drake) but I felt wierd not getting into the bands I'm cool with not doing the Hip chant while the opening band(s) are on, ... I mean it's a due respect thing, right? but everything got good closer to 4pm.. all the hipsters moved closer to the front..gradually my jacket was off the ground and now folded over the fence holding our place under the mic (which I didn't earn as Elisha was under the mic first,truly) all day we held each others "spot" for bathroom breaks, food,water , whatever...cool cool cool we are phone - email pals now..and have been since Transmission..4:30... 5:00... okay time to get all enthused
suddenly all these people are there...a couple hockey jerseys here and there the beer line is longer and livelier..
lets go..
I guess the crowd has grown to 300 up front and another thousand hanging back...***Ladies and Gentlemen.. welcome the Tragically Hip** Gord steps onstage and does a psuedo endorsement
for the ability of storm soda (aka pop) to produce burps...he can't with good concience endorse a product without a swear word so he gets this big grin on his face and points to the can in his hand
and says, commercial like, "this is good fucking pop" "***bbuuurrp**" I hadn't seen him like this in years...He talked into the mic incessantly..with the guitar off he was jubilant, complimenting the audience on the "good feeling" he got from everyone..with the guitar on his eyebrows twiched.. he shook and stopped playing to grab the mic to get a point across that staying within the verses
wouldn't have facilitated... really exiting..You all know the excitement I mean...when you look to whoever's next to you at the start of "The Luxury" and half grin and half shake your head for disbelief that it made the setlist, and your here to see it and he has the banana shaker out (which he did )
everything was Sooo Coool...Gord forgot the words to Nautical Disaster after the first verse "it just sorta jumps up and bites you in the ass, y'know?" he caught up slowly ..I saw Johnny laughing with his band-mates and Gord joining in on the joke late...a wide grin and a wry smile later he caught up lyrically...he talked his way through it and no one missed a beat When a jam turns into something amazing like "killerwhaletank" it's great, but when it spirals around something new in his head like
""let the yellowjackets have the night""..you know it's a great show...Same thing with New Orleans..  it opened up wide in the center and Gord had plenty to say...and I must pause here to say I wish I could be a little back in the crowd to really hear what he's spitting out lyrically, experimentally... but I driven to be right up front so I miss a bit of whats going on at the mixing desk... Hundredth Meridian went on forever and they threw a buch of stuff into the middle of that...Good stuff folks..they were really in thier element...glad I went..
g'night
kwoods
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High Sierra Music Fest, Novato, California  October 17th, 1998 review by Casey Routly via alt.music.tragically-hip

Hey everybody, just got back to Calgary from San Francisco.  What a weekend!  Saw The Hip at the High Sierra Festival just north of San Fran at a place called Stafford Lake Park.  We arrived at the show around 1pm and were amazed to discover that there was only about 100 people there. By the time the Hip took the stage at 5pm, the crowd had grown to maybe 300 or so, but that was it.  My buddy and I along with about 30 other Canadians lined the front of the stage for the entire show.  Gord was at
his zany best, rambling and telling stories in almost every song.  The American girl beside me was in stitches the whole time.  At one point, she leaned over to me and said that Gord would make a good comedian. The set list went something like this: (I might have the order mixed up a little, but this is close)

Fully
Grace
Planet
Membership
Courage
Something On
ABAC
Gift Shop
Luxury
Bobcaygeon
Fireworks
Nautical
New Orleans

encore:
Springtime
Meridian

        Unfortunately, the park closed at 7pm and we only got one encore, but Hundredth Meridian must have been around 12 minutes long with a newer song developing in the middle of it.  It was a fantastic show.  Best I've ever seen them.  I took about 13 pictures of the boys, so I hope they turn out.  Anyway, just thought I'd share my story.

Cheers,
Casey