IMO, too many songs are being replayed every night i.e. Puttin,
Poets, ABAC
Not that I'm complaining, I love all Hip songs equally but I hope they
mix up their setlists for the Canadian tour. Maybe the American tour
setlists are PP / MAW top-heavy because of the promotion of the band down
there. I know they don't need to re-hash all of those songs for the
arena tour. LTR, Greasy, Thugs, Wherewithal, IOD were awesome. That
type of mix would be better than bunches of songs from PP and MAW (yes,
I know this is the MAW tour but I thought the 'EWTTH' format would kind
of shoot that to shit for Canada).
Anyways, it's 330 am and time to hit the hay
Nick
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Hey gang,
This was only the second time I've seen this band in concert.
I saw them last year at the Paramount and was very impressed with their
live performance.
I lucked out with my seat. I was trying to get a ticket for the
Wednesday night show, but only balcony seats were left, so I procrastinated,
and they added a second show. Cool. I paid Ticketbastard a
lot of money, but I got a seat in the third row, directly in the middle.
The Hip write great songs, and their albums are excellent, but you
gotta see this band live to appreciate them. The singer is fascinating
to watch, but if you fixate on him, you miss seeing some exceptional guitar
playing. You also might want to check out the female backup singer
- she looks fine, and her throaty, almost raspy singing voice fits in
well with the band's song.
The drummer played loudly and furiously, unfortunately for me, a lot
of Gord's ad-libbing was drowned out by the mix.
A couple new songs really stood out last night: "Tiger the Lion" and
"Lake Fever". It took me a couple listenings to "get" these tunes,
but the band has really polished them for concert play. "Something
On" is a song I'd never heard before - WHOA!! It rocks. The
band was tight the entire show, but never more so than on "Poets".
I'm glad I was close enough to the speakers that the crowd singing
along didn't interfere with my listening to the band. These fans
are nuts. They know all the lyrics to all the songs, and think the
band needs help singing them. Oh, well, I think I'm beginning to
understand their devotion. I was sitting right behind a couple girls
from Vancouver who had been to the concert the night before, and are going
to see The Hip up there, too.
Strains of "O, Canada" filled the Moore as the crowd filed out after
the encore. Many hockey jerseys were worn.
I certainly won't miss this band when they come back to Seattle.
==================================================================================
I dragged my Seattle friends to see the second show. They weren't even
familiar with all the songs, even though I sent them the CDs weeks in advance.
They were still completely stunned by the concert. It was simply the best
live performance I have ever seen, ever.
-gg