mils out

- Grace Too is in my opinion the best opener.
-  Played the "hockey trilogy" (Fireworks, 50 Mission and 700 Ft.)
-  Great 100th Meridian (Gord recognizes his screw up of verses by saying "i remember every single f__kin thing except this song" - or something like that)
-  Happy to hear Locked in The Trunk of a Car and Membership
-  Played Wheat Kings instead of Scared (its about time!)

Fan energy was great - new songs (Lake Fever, Bastard, Turbulence) were great - all in all - it was an awesome show!

Hope to see it available on thehip.org soon!

Josh

Grace, Too (with the opening line being "He said I'm Tragically Hip!" both nights)
Save The Planet
Gift Shop
Vapor Trails
Lake Fever (from the upcoming album)
Poets
Springtime In Vienna
The Bastard (from the upcoming album)
Wheat Kings
Membership
Locked In the Trunk Of A Car
Turbulence (from the upcoming album)
Don't Wake Daddy
At The Hundredth Meridian
700 Foot Ceiling
Blow At High Dough

Encore 1
Bobcageon
Fifty Mission Cap (preceded with the comment "thank you, but do you know *this*one?

Encore 2
Ahead By A Century
Fireworks
New Orleans Is Sinking

For NYE, we had some tasty seats in section 120, and for NYD we ended up in the eighth row (many thanks to Steph and Rory!). I should have the four rolls of film I shot back tomorrow evening, and as soon as I can get them scanned, I'll be happy to share. In addition to tons of hip pics, I got some awesome up-close shots of the Headstones, and a few others as well.

I know that there are several tapes out there; there was guy right next to us NYD that taped the entire show and there was guy video-taping from the front-row of section 109. Whether or not these people frequent the NG or not, I can't say.

The highlights (can you say the entire show?) have already been touched upon by others, and while this in no means implies that there was anything wrong with the NYE show, the crowd on NYD seemed to be way more into the show than on the previous night, and therefore it seems that the band was as well. With the exception of some squealing feed-back (only twice, perhaps Rob got a little carried away), the show was flawless.As someone else noted, the roaring response to Wheat Kings and especially to Fifty Mission Cap, was deafening!

Thanks to all of the wonderful people we encountered on our adventure; you have helped to forge a memory that will last forever!

Scott

Highlights.
-Hearing Wheat Kings.  Yes!
-Hearing Locked.  Awesome.
-The crowd was great, and the band was about as loose as I've seen them on stage in a while.
-The new stuff was killer.  I wish they'd played more of it.
-The Watchmen and Treble Charger's sets were incredible.
-Didn't see the NYE show, but I was at the 'Shoe, and the Mahones played a killer set.  Damn amazing they had that much energy after coming back from the ACC.

Downsides. (Only a few, but there were a few).

-Found out about the secret gig 6 minutes before the show started.  I've been a Toronto resident and Hip fan long enough that I should have known to be at the Horseshoe that afternoon.  Ah well.
-Was anyone else sitting behind the second stage??  I was 8 rows up behind that stage, and the sound was HORRIBLE.  We couldn't make out anything with the delay in the sound.  The Headstones only played 4 or 5 songs, and most of us were convinced that was why Hugh left so quickly.  They had to be hearing what we were.  It ruined about half the sets.
-People cheering when Julie Doiron and Wooden Stars announced they were playing their last song (ie; cheering to mean 'get off the stage').  Get a fucking life and broaden your horizons, folks.
-I love everything the Hip does and was just happy to see them live again, but I'm still waiting for them to vary the setlist a bit.  This one was too similar to the one they played during PP tour, other than the couple surprises and the new stuff.

All in all, a great time.

Neil Faba
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Concert Review - The Tragically
                   Hip and Friends

                   The Millenium Ate My Baby - Jan 1, 2000
                   The Tragically Hip is arguably the best band in
                   Canada today. While we're arguing, some spoilsports
                   might want to point out that other Canadian bands
                   may sell more records, or might be better known
                   south of the border. True. However, the Tragically
                   Hip seem to be a puzzle that only the Canadian
                   record-buying and concert-going public can decipher.
                   The announcement of their millenium stint at
                   Toronto's Air Canada Centre was big news to
                   Canadian music fans, and the shows sold out
                   instantly.

                   The Hip like to share their success, and their festivals
                   and tours usually include friends, neighbours, bands
                   they like and bands they'd like to get to know. Their
                   New Year's gigs were no exception. The New Year's
                   Eve show featured Hayden, the Mahones, Starling,
                   Sharkskin and perennial Canadian road-hogs the
                   Rheostatics and the Skydiggers. The New Year's Day
                   show spotlighted treble charger, the Headstones, the
                   Watchmen and the Cash Brothers, among others. The
                   Music Insight staff, sensing a historically significant
                   concert event, decided to cover the New Year's Day
                   show. That way, they could spend New Year's Eve
                   holed up in the highly-fortified Music Insight Millenial
                   Command Bunker, watching people ring in the New
                   Year in Denver and Djibouti.

                   The evening was grueling, yet rewarding. Cramming 6
                   bands into a 4-hour show would traditionally require
                   15-minute sets, but those canny Hipsters built a
                   stage at each end of the arena, allowing bands to set
                   up and break down their equipment while another
                   band entertained. It worked wonders. Our evening
                   started at 7:40, as the Music Insight staff arrived en
                   masse at the venue. The first band that we caught
                   was treble charger, a gang of Southern Ontario
                   power-popsters whose show balanced material from
                   their forthcoming album with crowd favourites like
                   "How She Died", "Morale" and their signature song,
                   "Red". "Red" is their masterpiece, channeling the
                   ghost of Neil Young, and treble charger will toss it on
                   every album they make until it becomes a world-wide
                   hit. I'm not kidding. The band had a ball onstage, and
                   their catchy tunes and goofy onstage behaviour won
                   the audience over. The next band, the Headstones,
                   feature Canada's toughest, most rock-and-roll
                   frontman, Hugh Dillon. Hugh is one of those guys who
                   probably gets up and has a breakfast of shoe polish
                   and carpet nails. The band had a pile of great tunes,
                   but technical difficulties saddled them with a
                   ridiculously thin sound. The band bravely soldiered on
                   through their short set, and then smashed up the
                   stage and stormed off, looking for the sound tech's
                   head on a platter. They also won the "most profane
                   merchandise" award for their t-shirts (favourites with
                   our staffers).

                   The same sound board that scuttled the Headstones'
                   performance managed to muster a crystal-clear
                   sound for the next band, the Watchmen. The
                   Watchmen countered with a stellar show. Opening
                   with "Stereo", from their recent release "Silent Radar",
                   the band blazed through a set that included a
                   magnificent rendering of "All Uncovered", "Boneyard
                   Tree" and a new song that the band claim that they
                   wrote a week ago. The highlight of their show was an
                   a capella version of Tom Waits' "Heart of Saturday
                   Night", which mesmerized the fans and earned a
                   hearty round of applause. The next set was a short
                   one from the Cash Brothers, whose rootsy sound
                   proved too much for the more boneheaded of the
                   Hip's fans, who heckled mercilessly. The band closed
                   with a version of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline",
                   that had the less musically open fans screeching for
                   the headliners.

                   Not long after the Cash Brothers left the stage, the
                   fans got their wish. The Tragically Hip took to the
                   stage, and delivered the kind of solid live
                   entertainment that they've been giving since they
                   formed in 1983. They whipped the crowd into a giant
                   mass of crazed singing Canucks with old favourites
                   like "New Orleans Is Sinking" and "Blow At High
                   Dough". Not-so-oldies from "Fully, Completely" such
                   as "50 Mission Cap", "At The Hundredth Meridian" and
                   "Locked In The Trunk Of A Car" made appearances,
                   as well as the Zippo song du jour, "Wheat Kings",
                   which easily earned the title of the bic-flickingest
                   tune of the evening. Vocalist Gordon Downie provided
                   mid- and between-song stream-of-weirdness rants,
                   and generally strode around the stage switching
                   personas by the minute. First the singer was a
                   baboon, then a prizefighter, then a majorette. He can
                   get away with this because the rants and the
                   on-stage plays are usually entertaining, and are often
                   the place where the band fits pieces of potential
                   songs together like building blocks. Some fully-formed
                   new tunes were also debuted, so Hipophiles will be
                   expecting to hear "Lake Fever" and "Music At Work"
                   when the new album's released. The band wrapped
                   up the show with one of the traditional closers, "New
                   Orleans Is Sinking", and the crowd roared approval
                   and left happy. The verdict? Yet another
                   transcendant show by Canada's top live band. If you
                   live in the U.S., and get a chance to see the Hip, go.
                   If you live in Canada, you most likely already have.
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just back home from TO and the NYD Hip show......incredible....unbelievable....i finally got gift shop last
nite....and as an american, well....blew me away.  hated 50 mission cap till that night.   had to be the best show i've seen, period.  and it was my first hip show too.  i consider myself one lucky boy.  will not miss them
ever again.
if anyone has a boot of NYD please, please, please let me know.

Trea Johnson
Birmingham, Alabama
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The following is an outline of my trip to Toronto.

Myself and Kalyn (roommate) left Moncton, New Brunswick, on December
28th around 9am.  My '97 Sunfire was loaded to the brim with blankets,
CD's, and good spirits.  We dismissed the idea of taking the shortcut
through the US, deciding instead to stick to the more roomy and
familiar TCH.

Besides a brief pause to take a picture of a road sign telling us how
far to St. Louis de Ha! Ha! (an actual town in eastern Quebec), as
well as a food stop in Drummundville, we arrived in Ottawa around 9
that night.  Ren Bostelear was nice enough to provide us with a place
to crash in exchange for a drive to Toronto.  This was easily worth
going slightly out of our way to pick him up in Nepean.

After breakfast courtesy of the Bostelears, as well as a quick stop at
the Steve Yzerman arena, we set out for Toronto.  I resisted the
temptation to stop at the Milhaven maximum security prison and we
arrived in Toronto around 2pm.

We dropped Ren off at a hostel in downtown Toronto.  Kalyn and I
debated what his chances were of getting out of the city with both his
camera equipment and his life.  Ren proved us wrong, retaining both.
The next two nights we spent time with friends in Toronto, enjoying
such pleasures as the Hockey Hall of Fame, Peel Pub, Wayne Gretzky's
Restaurant, and Pizza Pizza (we gotta get that stuff out east).

The morning of December 31: "The sun came up, shock to the blinds.
Today was the day, and I was already behind."  The excitement was
building inside us.  We resisted the temptation to buy floor seats
from the scalpers (they were asking less than face value) and instead
took our places behind the main stage.  Not bad seats at all, but I
would later learn that there are no bad seats in the ACC.

The opening bands were good.  The Skydiggers were hard to hear but I
enjoyed them nonetheless.  Rheostatics were very funny and
entertaining.  I think Hayden had to be the best of the opening acts,
though Kalyn and Rob (concert companion) really loved Sharkskin.

Gord stepped to the mic with his familiar, "Hello."  The shivers ran
up and down our spines as he launched into Poets, much to my surprise.
I was convinced they would go with the epic opener, Grace Too, which
was next.  That was followed by a new tune, My Music At Work, which
was incredible.  I could distinctly see the ever-bobbing head of the
Rohit in the first few rows.  It's hard to miss a six foot Rocket
Richard jersey...cool.  The band closed out 1999 with a shortened jam
version of unplucked gems (great).  The crowd counted down the New
Year in unison...very cool.

Just before the band came out for encore #1, balloons were released
from the ceiling of the Air Canada Centre (anti-climatic).  Most of
them landed on the stage; I knew we were in for some Downie
shenanigans.  Sure enough, as Hundredth Meridian went on, he began
jumping on the balloons in a mad fury.  Like a man possessed, he ran
around the stage bursting the balloons, often by throwing himself onto
them.  He paused to yell, "This isn't rock and roll, this is
GENOCIDE", referring to the fact that he was wiping out the balloon
population.  This went on for well over ten minutes.  The band, used
to this sort of behavior, played on.

After the second encore (do they always play two now?), we spilled out
into the crowded streets of Toronto.  We walked the streets for
awhile, waiting for bedlam to break out, but it never did.  Unharmed
by the deadly Y2K virus, we slept soundly.

At supper the next day, Jana (another concert companion) arrived with
good news, she had won two tickets for the Phantom zone!
Unfortunately only she and Rob could go, but Kalyn and I enjoyed the
New Year's Day show from the balcony.  Once again, these seats were
not bad at all.  Despite the poor sound from the Headstones set (we're
big fans), the opening acts were once again very enjoyable.  Kalyn
complained that the Headstones should have been on the main stage.  I
agreed.  The Cash brothers were great and I will definitely look
around for their CD.  They even did a Skydiggers tune.  Julie Doiron
and the Wooden Stars had trouble...maybe it was equipment problems.

The boys did open with Grace Too this time.  As the concert went on, I
was surprised that they were able to equal the previous night's
performance.  More balloon shenanigans when someone threw one on
stage.  Gord put it under his shirt and used the mic as a sonogram,
tracing it across his belly.

One new tune sounded amazing tonight, "This is the Bastard."  Gord
said something about the bastard was "having to choose." or something
like that.  They followed this with a surprise performance of Wheat
Kings, much to the crowd's delight.  Kalyn was glad to hear Blow at
High Dough.

Gord was equally entertaining, riding around on the mic, "Now that's a
horse!", and even falling a couple times.  "I try a couple of Celine's
moves and I go down!"  I thought Johnny was especially into it this
night.  I wouldn't want to be his drum set, he beats the hell out of
those things.  Rob echoed those sentiments.

We left Toronto two very satisfied Maritimers.  These were the fourth
and fifth times I have seen the Hip and they continue to amaze me.  I
recommend driving, flying, or crawling to see this band live.  What an
experience.

Take care,

Andrew