The Setlist, Saskatoon, November 27, 2000

Set 1

M@W
Grace
3 Pistols !!!!!
Down
Gift (nice keyboard intro)
Titanic
Fireworks
Completist
IOD
ABAC
Meridian
Engaged
Nautical
Tiger (awesome combo to close set one)

Set 2

Wheat
Train
Opiated (awesome!!!)
Thompson (not Penguin as was planned)
Blow
Fever (just a great tune)
DD
Twist
Long Time (back to back from Road Apples - awesome!!!)
Poets
Flamenco (Kate was great)
Courage
Penguin (switched with Thompson)
New O
Wherewithall

Encore

Bobc
Inch (not Freak as was planned)

Great list, no major disappointments - was hoping for Locked but didn't happen. 3 Pistols was a surprise, also Twist My Arm and Long Time Running were highlights. So many great tunes and 3 hrs is a long time to stand, but I'd do it again!!! Johnny, Paul, Gord S. and Bobby were in great form. Bobby just tore it during New Orleans. We were a little far away (row 20) from Gord D. to see all the facial contortions, or to make out much of the ranting but he was definitely in the zone. He made one
reference to the election but didn't really dwell on it. What else can I say... Oh, yeah, about the setlist......
During the last moments of Inch an Hour, I kinda snuck back toward the sound board. About two seconds after the last note, I leaned over and yelled "hey Mark". He barely glanced at me, just reached over and handed me the setlist!!!! Thank you, Mr. Vreeken! Definitely going to put that under glass and hang it up in the rec room! Once again, great, great show, I just hope that they can find their way back to Regina next time.

Jay :-)

Rory

The Gods They Played
All of a sudden, he was there. Not the bottle blonde ready to bop to the hits, not the highlight-haired peach-fuzzed pretty boy on his second date, not Joe Plaid who had dusted off his well-worn grunge jacket for the occasion.
Out of the prairie snowstorm and into the concert hall came Pan. He leaped from chair to chair, alternately scaring and puzzling onlookers on the arena floor and drawing a crowd of security guards. No, the Tragically Hip didn't hire the god of nature as a side show totheir performance at  Saskatchewan Place in Saskatoon Monday night. Pan came unbidden to bask in the savagely seductive strains of music, to toy with the mortals he would be sitting with, to experience. Dressed in black pants and matching tank top, he had the aura of a man out on day parole. Coal-black eyes sat sedated behind cruel slits, a wide crooked grin beneath them. A black goatee curled under his chin. Thin muscles showed off the blurry black tattoo high on his arm. And he was on something, of course. He wasn't drunk. It was something more than the puffs of marijuana that slowly breezed through the crowd of 7,000.
Then the Hip took the stage - date nine on their Fall/Winter Tour 2000 that will take them coast to coast by Christmas. As the primary colours of stage lights melded to cast strange beams on the crowd for My Music at Work, Pan couldn't stop himself from prancing away from his seat. His body danced in full, arms waving at his sides like a seagull's wings. It was enough to invoke two burly security guards to escort him back to his seat.
He sat down, now subdued by the gaze of close-by watchdogs. He hung his head, shoulders shrugged, elbows on his knees.
"Faggots!" he yelled above the fizzling bass lines. The hesitant snare taps of Grace, Too picked up Pan's head and drew the
goat-like man to his feet. With flailing arms, he darted from his seat. His goal: the stage.
The burlies brought him back to the 35th row where he settled, head bowed.
Familiar songs woke up Pan periodically. Bodily waves and poetic hand gestures punctuated his movements during Trickle Down and Fireworks. The Hip had warmed up by this point. Lead singer Gord Downie had removed his staid single-breasted suit jacket, gun-metal grey. His office tie loosened, top button undone. By the time the Kingston band launched into At the Hundredth Meridian, Pan had warmed up too. But celebration and elation didn't mark his movements while Downie ranted and raved like a preacher from the pulpit. Pan stood still, a calm came over his face. He spread his arms wide, arched his back and tilted his head as a golden, flooding light from the stage bathed him and the crowd. His upturned face was expressionless -- eyes and mouth closed, brow unfurled. Pointed shadows curved up his temples. Strains of the funkified Meridian appeared to ripple through him in waves. Beyond Pan, the wall of faces in the rows of seats rising from the floor gazed indifferently at the stage. Like winter stars, a pair of eyes would randomly blink away from the trance to look down on Pan -- in a mixture of pity, confusion and disgust. By the time the band ended the set with the Tiger the Lion, Pan had, after repeated attempts at energetic expression, bowed his head once again.
Pan didn't return after the intermission.
This meant the last song he heard contained the musings of John Cage, as interpreted by the Hip. Cage was a postmodern composer, lecturer and artist whose concerns about art becoming less important than daily life were captured in his 1961
collection, Silence: Lectures and Writings. In Tiger the Lion, the band picks up on this thought.

You'll be serving the song
When you find out you won't change
Serving the song
Walking the range·
If there's a perpetual plan
For discovery days
Where everyone can take part
In what he called
Purposeless play
And there's a sign of life in this play
Not to get order from chaos
Tell you how to create
But simply to wake to your life.

                           U of S Student Newspaper since 1912!
                                                                        November 30, 2000
                                                                                                                             Volume 92, Issue 18
 
 
 
 

                            The Tragically Hip still reign as Canadaís Wheat Kings
                            By Erin Harde
                            Sheaf A&E Editor

                            ìThis is my music at work, music at parking, music at driving," cried Gord Downie before launching
                            into Music@Work ís title track. Promoted as ìAn Evening with The Tragically Hip,î fans might
                            have been leery about the definitive Canuck bandís new concert format being executed in the same
                            mellow fashion as the new album. But after a decade of great albums and performances, The Hip still
                            put on one of the best rock shows in the country. With less than memorable warm-up bands in the
                            past, like the Rheostatics and By Divine Right, two and a half hours of pure Hip was a refreshing
                            change, and all fans know that it takes at least this long to do justice to their catalogue. Black suit,
                            bald shiny head, three limbs in the air, Downie was full of "Grace, Too," as were the other four
                            members who all look the same as they did when Fully Completely was released. At least they do
                            from section H; complimentary tickets don't always work out to your advantage.

                            As per usual, Downie incoherently rambled in between songs, but did little bantering with the crowd.
                            His passion and focus were reserved for the music, and every song was superb, even that nasty
                            "Thompson Girl" from Phantom Power. The Hip picked up a keyboardist and female vocalist for
                            this tour, the latter who seemed useless until "flamenco," when she and Downie alternated the
                            chorus. With a voice resembling Judy Garland, she won the crowd over, but for the most part her
                            presence was gratuitous and Downie is not in need of vocal assistance quite yet. Due to shitty
                            weather, people were late getting in, but by the end of the two sets and 31 songs, SaskPlace was
                            almost at full capacity with everyone in the building on their feet shouting appreciation. Not only
                            was it white outside, the building was turned into a giant snow globe for "Gift Shop," with reflective
                            white lights rotating around the roof and nosebleed section, and all of the audience were trapped in a
                            model of a traditional Christmas ornament. I won't even begin to digress and figure out if Downie
                            had some obscure concept in mind. It's more than likely they were just trying to mimic the video.

                            The first set included classics ìAt The Hundredth Meridian,î a fantastic version of "Inevitability of
                            death," "ahead by a century," and the gorgeous "Nautical disaster." The crowd, though content, had
                            short attentions spans during new songs "The Completists," and "Putting Down," which seemed to
                            provide good opportunities for getting beer. The first set wrapped up with "Tiger the Lion," a great
                            rock song that keeps the new album from drifting into the foreboding category of adult
                            contemporary. After a 20 minute break, the Hip began the second set with the quintessential prairie
                            song "Wheat Kings," and a sea of lighters flooded the building. Downie's odd behavior on stage, the
                            jerking, the bizarre ramblings, etc., has in the past, been attributed to more than his musical genius,
                            and I suspect that playing "opiated" shortly after the break indicates his preference for, ahem, the
                            finer things in life. This didn't slow things down, however, as they launched into "Blow At High
                            Dough," followed by "Courage," "New Orleans Is Sinking" and finally "The Wherewithal."

                            With all of the fan favorites played, an encore seemed unlikely, but after a good five minutes of
                            whistling and screaming, they graciously returned to play ìBobcaygeon" and "An inch an hour."
                            After well wishes ,"If I don't see you, Merry Christmas," Downie and The Hip left the crowd well
                            satisfied.

                            Due to The Tragically Hip snubbing campus papers for interviews, I was prepared to give them a less
                            than glowing review. But, in the half dozen times I've seen this band, they've always put on a great
                            show, and despite increasing mediocrity with their new albums, you can bet they always will.