wow! the 1st of two sold out gigs in Amsterdam, and it was absolutely great! great sound, great audience and a nice band.
jeff trott as support act wasn't too interesting. the hip played for about 1 hour and 45 minutes, including a 2nd encore that didn't seem to be planned. some guitars had already been plugged off, but the audience kept asking for more.

the setlist:
- silver jet
- music @ work
- new orleans is sinking
- chagrin falls
- fully completely
- nautical disaster
- use it up
- fireworks
- poets
- the dark canuck
- springtime in vienna
- at the hundredth meridian
- all tore up
- locked up in the trunk of a car
- wheat kings
- blow at high dough

encore 1
- it's a good life if you don't weaken
- three pistols

encore 2
- the wherewithal
 

jan


Yesterday, november the 6th, I saw the Hip for the first time in my life in Amsterdam's Paradiso...
An old small theatre compared to those big stadiums in the USA and Canada. No seats, you could almost touch the guys. My eldest son came with me instead of my friend Beat.
At 9.15pm they came on stage. I stood right in front of it, a perfect place!! Within ten minutes Gord was so sweaty, drops were flying everywhere, giving the front row a free shower. The crowd really enjoyed the way they did the show! Everybody was dancing and singing along with the band. They finished just before 11.00pm... I had a great and wonderful evening.. I'm hooked for life...
Fully completely was amazing.. and so was at the hundredth meridian. Well I've to say the whole show was amazing...but those two songs...... WOW!!
After the show we found out Amsterdam had been struck by a very big power failure. Almost 80% of the city was completely dark. How lucky we were!! We didn't notice anything until we left the theatre..
-Storm

OK, here goes. Kind of as you predicted - brilliant, very focused. Still, took me by surprise - I have rarely heard a band that made their performance stand like a building from the very beginning, but they did it. Starting of with Use It Up, then M@W, NOIS... short stops between songs, but essentially just keeping playing. Also, almost everything was up-tempo - with the exception of Wheat Kings and Good Life. I don't know, but something was different about the band. Rob Baker seemed to be much more 'into' the band, less into himself, and his guitar playing seemed to be even better, relaxed and very well audible, than before. (The
sound was an important part of the night anyway. It was In-cred-ib-le.)
Paul Langlois was much more relaxed than usual, also seemed to enjoy playing more. Downie was... well, I don't know, very good at voice at least. Not all his rants were audible, but never out of place. And he must have lost gallons of water... Johnny Fay and Gord Sinclair were, well, just themselves (where I was under the impression that Fay at times hit the kit so hard that I heard the 'live' sound before it came through the amplifier...). We had one encore of 2, 3 songs and I don't think they planned to come back
for another - crew signalled (Mark Vreeken? Who's the guy with the cowboy hat), part of the lights went on, amplifiers were switched off. But they weren't walking away that easy. So we had them come back for another song, and they played Wherewithal. 5 FC songs in all (also 100th, Locked, FC), 5 IVL songs (also Jet and Canuck), 3 PP (Poets, Fireworks, Chagrin), Nautical, M@W, 3 Pistols, Springtime, and Blow at High Dough. If I recall it right.
And it could have been such a different night. When we left the Paradiso, we found out that a power outage had been plagueing large parts of the city for almost an hour... as through a miracle, the Paradiso was left untouched! Do I have a favorite song? That must have been FC, which was played in a very good mix - the guitars almost quiet, so the vocals were carrying the song. Beautiful.
Ý
DP

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