The band was pretty tight, Gord never forgot a word, and he had a big smile on for the whole show.  I heard Johnny miss a few beats during the night, I'm not sure whether he broke sticks or what.  During Fire in the Hole in the first encore, he went completely nuts on his drum set for about 5-10 seconds, sacrificing all rhythm while he tried to hit every drum and cymbal at once. It was pretty cool.  The crowd was pretty tame until Fire in the Hole, then some dummies tried to crowd surf in the front row.  Four or five guys got hauled off during the encores.  Before the first encore, the crowd got extremely loud, and when the roadies came on with the guitars, louder, and then when the band came on you could barely hear Gord say "You guys are too
good to me" over the sound system.  I was pretty amazed that a crowd which had been so quiet during the show could get so loud.  The only other Gordism I could make out was "Please don't hurt me" when some UFO's were being thrown around.

I had lots of fun as the Power Reporter, running around wherever I felt and snapping pictures.  I even climbed up on stage behind Johnny once with no trouble.  Security there was pretty loose, compared to Saskatoon.  I think security quit as soon as the lights came on, because when we were back doing our report, three different people without passes wandered in to see what was going on.  Ross, the Hip internet guy, took one of them with us to the Meet&Greet.  I got all the guys autographs.  Gord looked really
tired/dazed/wasted.  He had family there or something, he was giving hugs to these kids, their Mom (I think) and their Dad (I think).  I had a few words with everyone.

The drummer and bassist from BDR were back for the M&G as well.  They are really cool guys, I talked to them for quite a while.  Gord Sinclair, who I was really looking forward to talking to, left early, and I just caught him at the door for an autograph.  Paul was cool, I like him a lot more after meeting him.  He always seemed so antisocial to me, but after meeting him,
that thought is completely removed from my head.  He asked my name, and I said "Dan" and he said, "Hi Dan, I'm Paul."  I snapped back with "Really" sarcasticly, and then felt like I was being rude.  He wrote "Thanks again Dan" and signed my picture I had taken earlier.  All of the guys seemed pretty impressed that I had a picture from just a few hours before.  Gord D. wrote "Dan's Blues...we just play 'em." I asked Rob to come back soon, and he replied "For sure," and bit his lip for a while, and said "It will probably be at least a year though."  So hopefully that means that the boys will be going back to the studio after their five-week states leg of this tour in April.  Sources confirmed that Roadside is a no-go, but that the Hip would almost definately be heading to Newfoundland in the summer, possibly for a festival-like show.  They will NOT be playing the Corel Centre on 12/31/99, but there are rumours about them doing a Roadside style show at Skydome that day, with a lot cheaper ticket prices then the Corel Centre.

For the record, Johnny wouldn't shake my hand after the show, but after seeing the popped blisters and cuts on his hands, I don't blame him.

Today sucks after last night.  I'll post the complete setlist tommorrow.

Dan Thorson

I went to Saskatoon and Regina and first comment - holy shit, this show blew Saskatoon away.  Unbelievable!  Maybe it's cause I was on the floor instead of up in the nose bleeds, maybe cause it's a smaller building (8000 versus 22 000 in S'toon), maybe cause it was sold out with very few empty seats, maybe cause there are more drunken red necks in Regina wanting to make noise, maybe cause Regina hadn't seen the Hip in nearly a decade, whatever it was - wow!

Non-stop energy and screaming throughout the whole show and I did not sit down once after the Hip took the stage.  Stood in place dancing (Gord Downie taught me to dance!) and singing along getting more excited and animated as the show went on.  (Hard to believe I was once embarrassed to do this!) Here's the set list with comments, Gord quotes, near-quotes and rants as best I remember them...

Something On - "this is something on..." and we're off
Fully Completely - one of my top five fave Hip songs
50 MC - have I ever heard this song live before?  Seems like every Saskatchewan show gets a version of "Wheat Kings" whereas 50 MC is an "Ontario" song (sorry, don't want to start East-West wars here.)  But anyhow, hearing this one, I KNEW we were in for a good night!
Membership - I liked this song when I first heard it but now it's become stale for me.  I'm not sure why.  Also, does anyone else find it similar to Vapour Trails - I don't know why but I do.  Maybe cause they were two of the new Phantom Power songs I started hearing on boots around the time of the Concert Hall show?
Giftshop - "this is about a canyon that makes you appreciate your life" (not an exact quote)
Lionized - "what is a Canadian star system and where do I get one?  I want to be lionized.  I want to be lionized!"
Poets - great crowd reaction for this song
Cordelia
Vapour Trails - see comments re: "Membership"
ABAC
Bob Caygeon
Nautical - another song that everyone gets into
Springtime in Vienna
Fireworks - this is an awesome song.  So much energy.
Meridian - wicked jam including fragments I didn't recognize.  I think it was in this song where Gord did this "Yeah!  Whooo!" chant which eventually turned into him going "Yeah!" and the crowd yelling "Whooo!" back.  Has anyone heard this before?  Is which song?  Normally, this sounds like it'd be some arena rock star trick for audience interaction ("okay, right side of the arena go "You give love" and left side yell "a bad name!") but here, spontaneous and uncoached, it sounded awesome.
Chagrin - "Born free - as free as the wind blows..." as an outro (seriously)
Blow - WOW!  I read all the reviews from all the shows but my eyes sometimes glaze over and song titles sorta blend into one another.  But when you actually step back and think about it - being in an arena with 10 000 other people, hearing that distinctive "de-de-de-dee" opening guitar riff (hey, just realized - does anyone else think this intro riff sounds like the theme to the old Batman theme song?  No, that was da-na-na-na, da-na-na-na) Then the slow words, "They shot a movie once/in my home town/Everybody was in it/From miles around.  Out at the speedway/Some kind of Elvis thing/Well, I ain't no movie star..." HUGE pause then BANG! "BUT I CAN GET BEHIND ANYTHING!"  Possibly the entire reason to go to a Tragically Hip concert right there.

Encore:
Escape - "Escape is at hand...escape is at hand for the travellin' man...escape is at hand for the travellin' man" over and over along with only the bass line to start the song.  Very cool sounding and just another reason Escape is my PP fave!
Scared
Fire - a rant at the start but I can't remember what Gord was on about.

Encore #2:
Daredevil
Rules
NOIS - fragments including Insomniacs and others I don't know.  I might not be remembering this correctly but I would swear that at Roadside in S'toon in 97, the band finished their set and two encores WITHOUT playing NOIS so no one left the stage area and a huge chant went up "New Orleans!  New Orleans!" till the Hip came back out (even as roadies were starting to break down the stage) and played it.  (I wasn't drunk or anything but I DO tend to romanticize great moments like this so who knows if this is actually how it went down.  Clarity anyone?)  Anyhow, I was thinking this might happen again in Regina till they got to the
final song of the final encore.  What a great way to finish!

Lots of mumbling before, during and after songs - I don't remember much though the sound seemed clearer on the floor in Regina than up high in the nose bleeds in Saskatoon.  (I agree with whoever was talking about the murkiness of sound during Gord's asides.  Hopefully sound does come out better on boots.)

(By the way, here's one of those weird coincidences of life for you. I'm at Saskatoon, way up high, listening to By Divine Right and fuming cause EVERY store in S'toon was sold out of tape recorders so I was going to have to track down the show myself, etc. etc.  Then my girlfriend notices a guy two seats down, who has a mini-disk recorder in his hand.  I introduce myself and turns out to be Henhouse's own Rory Young!  We chat a bit about the Net, boots, etc. and he kindly agrees to send me a tape of this show and a few others.  Awesome!)

One last observation... is it me or is Gord more restrained than he used to be?  Between playing guitar for more than half of the songs now and just not flailing around like a wild spastic anymore, he just seems so...plain somehow.  Still charismatic but definitely lacking.

Oh well.  Anyone else go to Regina have comments?  Feel free to e-mail me at jhammond@dlcwest.com.

Jason Hammond