I've been checking out your site a lot this summer, thanks for all the quick updates.  I saw the hip last night at Mulcahy's and now I think I'm deaf.  The show was amazingly loud.  It was a good thing.  Sometimes I feel like I'm one of the only American fans, and last night was no different. Everyone I talked to was down from the north country.  This is something I've greatly enjoyed over the years at hip shows.  The Canadien fans can't believe they are seeing the hip at such small places, and I can hardly believe that they sell out 20,000 seat arenas back home.
 Our night started off on a very high note.  I used to teach swimming lessons to the owner of Mulcahy's kids, so he gave me a free pass (admission is usually 10-15 bucks).  If you didn't have a ticket last night they were charging 20.  So as we were going in I showed the bouncer the pass (which was a piece of scrap paper that said "admit jimmy, comp, J.M. Jr.").  He asked me how many people were with me, and since it was just me and my buddy he let us both in free.  We thought this was real cool.  I've seen the Hip twice this summer and both times it was free, the first time was in Central Park last month.
 Anyway, the show was really good and really loud.  Gord came out to sing with Kate during her set, and they sang Dylan's "Tears of Rage".  Being that the Hip and Dylan are my favorites this was a very nice treat.  I was right up front for this, and seeing Gord sing a song which is so different than anything the Hip would write was really cool.  I pretty much knew it was going to be a great night.  I had had just enough alcohol to be at the perfect buzzed stage.
 Now for the hip.  I've seen them live 6 or 7 times and I have to say that "Grace, Too" is by far the best show opener.  There really isn't anything close.  When I heard the opening chords I practically shot my load.  The setlist was top notch, with several real nice surprises (So Hard Done By, Yawning, Long Time Running).  The set complimented Central Park very nicely, almost as if they did it on purpose because the two are so close and probably had many of the same local fans.  They played music, something, putting down, giftshop, springtime, ABAC, fever, train, NOIS, freak, fireworks (!!!), bobcaygeon, don't wake daddy, as well as the above mentioned songs. The encores were planet, and poets, then long time and little bones.  The only thing i would say was wrong was the fact that Gord was very hard to hear.  I love to listen to his talking during the songs, but you really couldn't understand a word because the music was at work so loud.  He didn't even try to talk during the normal spot in NOIS.  Like I said though it was great to hear different songs this time.  They didn't play NOIS, Bones, Bobcaygeon, Spring in Central Park.  To be honest I didn't miss Tiger or Courage last night.  I don't know if Gord has something for Bruce Springsteen but this was the second straight show where he referenced him.  In Central Park he quoted "Atlantic City", then last night he introduced Putting as "another Bruce Sprinsteen song about boardwalks".  I just thought this was kind of interesting.
 Anyway, it was a great show and a great night.
-Jim
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sorry, can't give you the wantagh setlist...i'm always afraid i'll miss something or (worse) include something that they didn't play (maybe a flashback to a different show)...but it was a great concert...kate seems to be gaining more confidence and expanding her role a little...i think it adds
to the set but i'm sure there are detractors...bummed that i didn't get to hear tiger again but i hadn't heard long time in a long time so that was nice.
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gord came out for a dylan song during kate and chris' set (i think it was a dylan song...)   ok, so i'm getting the dylan info from another review, so sue me!!! the rest of this is my report!
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johnny tried to give a girl his drumsticks at the end of the show, but apparently someone wrested these out of her hands.  johnny's smile turned to anger and when the dude wouldn't give the sticks to her, he reached into the crowd, grabbed the guy's cowboy hat and flung it into the crowd...i thought
he was going to jump onto the floor and have at it...then either a bouncer or stage guy tried to get the sticks into the right hands...not sure how successful he was...
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I thought the Wantagh show was excellent -- but a select few fans (and you know who you are) were idiots -- absolute idiots.  I don't think I'll be jockeying for a place near the stage henceforth -- too much testoterone, competition, and hostility up there (and again, you know who you are).  I'd
rather listen to the band than to some moron bragging about giving out tapes and backstage passes (which, I got from several sources, never seem to appear despite all sorts of squalid transactions in attempt to score them).  Sorry if I sound bitter -- I guess Gord D. said it best when he mentioned (and paraphrased) that the band suffers form some "dubious fans".  They are easily recognizable, and incredibly distasteful.  Blech.

Long Time Running was beautifully performed, and I couldn't have asked for a better last show (for me) of the summer.  Finally, I just closed my eyes, and listened (blocking out the frat boy losers) and was...transported, as usual.

I caught that whole drum stick debacle, as well.  They made it up to the girl by letting her backstage (did JF fancy her??) after the show.  It just sucks that these little audience dramas get in the way of others' enjoyment of the MUSIC (the reason we're there, right?) and distract from the band.  Pissed me right off.

Tra-la.
Jen
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well, everyone's so darned quick at this, i don't have that much more to add about the music itself. there was just something so strange about this show that is compelling me to write about it anyway: i don't know how else to put it except that it felt like a festival show, even though it was inside a bar. maybe it was the loudness and the inablility to hear gord's ramblings, maybe it was the craned-neck feeling i got from the super-elevated stage. most likely, it was the gropage. why do people grope
short females smushed up at the front? i'm not surprised anymore when it happens at festival shows, hip or non-hip. up at the front of every other hip club show i've been to, though, it's been tight, but there's still been breathing room and no need for hand action.

anyway, i just wanted to comment on the greatness of some of the people i ran into that night. one of the upsides of the festival-show feeling was that the giants in the front and second rows (and anything over 5'2" is giant to me) didn't build that impenetrable wall i'm used to seeing if i don't get my act together to get to a show early enough, and let me through. thanks to you guys. and  to the guy who offered to switch places when he noticed i couldn't escape the groping, thanks. the same guy heard
me say "oh, dammit!" when i reached out but didn't get a setlist, and kindly passed me the one he did. and even though i think i know who the "idiots" previously referred to were, if i'd driven 14 hours to see my gods in the flesh, i'd be pretty damn giddy too.

one funny note: back at the tour bus, jf looked out the front window, saw and pointed at the cowboy hat amongst the groups of stragglers, then quickly closed all the curtains on the bus.

there's something amusing but satisfying about seeing the same groups of people ready at the bar, hours before a show, then up at the front, then around back stalking after the tour bus, then winding down at the closest 24-hour donut shop, then riding your last train home.

veronica