The Odds play their role as number two in the order to perfection. Opening with the textbook perfect "It Falls Apart," they deliver 45 minutes of guitar-based pop highlighted by the band's pitch-perfect harmonies. On this night they leave out "Heterosexual Man" and nobody minds, the band having swapped their reliance on novelty for full membership in the school of pop craftsmanship.

Then comes a 20-minute break for the crowd to absorb the less familiar opening bands and hit the information tables for the four beneficiaries of this special hometown show: the Kingston AIDS Project, the local food bank, the Kingston Environmental Action Project and the Lennox and Addington County Library.

The lights go down and the Hip take the stage. Launching straight into "Grace, Too," this is live Hip to the nth power. Mixing psychedelic visuals with a sound system that wraps around your brain like a two-ton pair of headphones, the band embark on a journey that opens your pores and overstimulates your nervous system.

Concentrating more on material from Day For Night than the tried and true, the Hip are as demanding of the crowd as they are of themselves. The new songs match Gord Downie's lyrics and performance with musical intricacy, as Bobby Baker and Paul Langlois weave their guitars in, through and around the pulsating rhythm laid down by bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay. Older numbers are delivered like snapshots from a favorite photo album.

But the emphasis is on the new: "Inevitability Of Death" and "Titanic Terrarium" are epic, but the evening's centrepiece is the back-to-back double shot of "Nautical Disaster" and "Little Bones," delivered with such force that you're left simultaneously gasping for air and wanting to explode.

Downie speaks little this night, despite it being a hometown show -- and his birthday. Though the Kingston audience react more with swellingpride than screams of adulation, the Montreal show saw 16,000 fans on their feet from the get go. Change Of Heart's John Borra called that show "one of the greatest rock moments of my life."

As this three-headed carnival of sorts crosses the country, showing off the new faces of Canrock, one image sticks with me, though. It's the night the Hip were denied entry into the Moncton rock club Spanky's because they were wearing steel-toed boots. Change Of Heart got in, although Borra had to remove his hat. Let's hope it wasn't his lucky one.