Once again, the crowd were good.  No sitters on the floor.  That surprised me considering there were plenty at the last tour.  I hate it when people start trying to get people in front of them to sit down.  IT'S A ROCK CONCERT PEOPLE.  Anyway, there was none of that last night.

Bobby was wearing blue jeans.  I hope he breaks out the paisley pants for Halifax.

Titanic Terrarium was fantastic.  The crowd ruined Sherpa and Long Time Running by yelling and screaming.  I'm all for doing that between songs or during a loud song, but the slow songs are so much better when you can actually HEAR them.

During Courage, Gord intentially delayed one of his lines.  The crowd of course sang with it on time.  Gord, joking around, apologized that he had "missed his mark" and that it "wasn't very professional."  He then let the crowd sing the second verse.

Very short rant during NOIS about a coffee house shutting down.

Opiated!  On the Verge!  Train Overnight!  Great setlist.

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All in all my favourite part of the shows is it appears that they boys still enjoy themselves.  Does anyone else think that Gord Sinclaire enjoys The Tragically Hip the most?  He is always rockin out.  During Three Pistols he was singing the words to most of the song (though not into the mic), and not just his background vocals.  To me this indicates that he's enjoying himself.  Oh and the band seems to joke around with each other a lot.  Gord D must have said or did something because he looked over at Bobby with a smile and Bobby was laughing. This happened several times during the two shows between different band members.  They seem to share a lot of inside jokes.

I will say that I think this should be the end of the arena tours. The band is not selling as well, and I for one would love to see them revert to smaller venues.  Sure it would be harder to get tickets, but that's kinda the point.  It would weed out a lot of the "arena folk"; people who shout out requests during slow songs, push and shove, etc.

I remember one time last year when this drunken moron tapped me on the shoulder and said he and his buddies wanted everyone to chant "New Orleans is Sinking" with them so the band would play it.  This despite the fact that they already HAD played it.  It's obvious that many of the people there are not even paying attention to the show.

Anyway the shows were great, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's show in Halifax.

On and Gord D was on the front page of the Times & Transcript (Moncton newspaper) this morning.  It seems he and the band were dropping off thousands of dollars in music equipment to a local high school.  Is there a classier band in Canada?  The world?

Enjoy the boolegs,

Andrew
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Moncton Show:
I was to the Moncton show and let me just start this review by saying that I thought the band was very tight musically and put on a great show.  However, I felt the format of the show and the crowd were a real let down.  First of all there were only about 4,000 people there no where near a sell out, three whole sections of the lower bowl had no one in them. And the crowd never got into the show until after the intermission when they started playing the crowd songs like 100 Meridian.  Compare this to the last show '99 which was the loudest concert I've ever been to.  There are probably lots of reason for the low attendance they were just here two years ago, it's almost Christmas, etc. but still the crowd should have been more into the show.  I think the format of the show was the problem.  I agree with Andrew Sharpe that if they want to continue with these "evening with" shows that they should stage them in smaller venues (like Blue Rodeo has done in the past) to weed out the "arena crowd".  I know the hip want the first part of the show to be at a slower pace and play older songs but a lot of the people at the show just want to hear NOIS.  I know one guy who left after the third song to go drink beer in the lounge and wait for the second half.  If the hip want to continue with these "evening with" shows and I certainly hope they do then they need to change the venues and if they want to sell out arenas then they need to do a "rock concert".  I realize that it's tough to play tunes like NOIS for 2 hours
every night but that's what people want.  If the hip want to sell out "rock concerts" they may have to visit less often or do less shows even though cost wise that's probably not possible.  I am interested in hearing what people who went to other shows thought of the format and the crowd.  The article Disconnected Hip on the Jam music page indicates some of the same problems that I mentioned here including that there were only 11,000 people at the concert in Ottawa and I'm sure that place
holds 20,000.