A great mix of new and classic, Opiated, haven't heard that in a little while. I was hoping for Fully Completely but they didn't disappoint one bit with Bones, ABAC, New Orleans, Nautical Disaster and a whole bunch of others... Tiger was very cool, it's a perfect live song. Just awesome, they deliver, as always...
CLD
"This song was written by a brownie, ....... not a girl guide"
- GD
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Of course there was snow..... lots of it. On the way there..in our
face...seeming so fitting ......... 4+ hours from Toronto we arrive in
Sudbury. Minutes after bundling up outside our car at the back of the arena.....
we see Gord Sinclair & say a quick hello asking him what time the sound
check was at.....he replies "around 5pm"...... So we head around to the
front of the arena and duck inside for some air above 0 degrees. The reporters
show up and we have a quick chat with them and they ask us what all of
the Band members names are....?? ?? So we tell them....shaking our
heads! 5pm arrives & we slide in for the sound check upstairs.... no
one sees us.
The boys play through Escape, Lake Fever and an instrumental Tiger
the Lion! Now we find out if we donate food they are giving away
3 more pairs of TIX for the Zone! They gave away the other 17 pairs Monday
at 4pm........and brace yourselves.... IT TOOK 1.5 hrs TO GIVE AWAY ALL
17 PAIRS at the secret location. Yes 90 minutes........are you seeing where
my Subject line is coming from?
Dinner............ now we enter the show & hand them 2 cases of
soup = 48 cans altogether figuring we'd get a pile of chances to win! NOT
..... 1 ticket each! They draw & we don't win. ... Well folks we had
a back up plan....we did not drive from Toronto not to be in the ZONE &
guess what ? ......Tod & Jeffro made it in... How? Well maybe I'll
reveal that another time.....but we were creative.
We stood on Bobby's side.....Looking for a Place to Happen... was the
3rd song.....and it was not in the other side of the Zone in front of Paul.
That whole side was sitting.....yep sitting down like the band hadn't arrived
on stage yet.....Our side was up and rock'in naturally and a few of us
turned to catch the groove out in the audience.....ummm there was none
past the 3rd row or so? The back of this 6000 seat arena was empty? At
the other end of the arena there was 100's of empty seats. Blend that in
with everyone sitting down in the left Zone....I'm wondering what the Boys
are thinking. Well I wasn't going to think about it anymore.... because
they just CLOBBERED me over the head with "Last of the Unplucked Gems"
.....my gawd.... no rants ..just a straight up classic... I was now hooked....into
the band Fully! Sharks soon came along and was nice.... then came
TIGER...another classic already....followed by Meridian, an tight Engaged
and finished off with Nautical!!
Ok I was really going in now for the kill.....arms on the stage I plopped
myself right in front of Bobby's position! Here they come & opening
with Wheat Kings.... Not one lighter was lit during this song but I didn't
care I just starting nodding into the jam with Bobby & Gord S.! TrainOvernight
came next & I just love this tune ...it really fits well with the 2
acoustics!
Then BAM.....Opiated.. a first for me now sprinkle some Courage into
it!!....Soon comes Toronto #4... wow has this ever tightened up since Massey
Hall! Solid Solid Solid. No....ranting just the song from the CD!.....and
now DADDY.... man..with me playing guitar abit myself I couldn't take my
eyes off Bobby's fingers..... & he knew it ....& he leaned into
that much more in that appreciative fashion during Freak Turbulance! Wherewithal
was last on the list but was not played!
Encore.... STAY.... even juicier than Toronto...what a flow this song
had last night ......as Bobby strummed his new 12 string.... the Security
guy beside me said .."what album is this from"?.... I said the new one..."Great
song" he yelled back over the crowd..! This guy had been singing along
most of the night!
And finally Little Bones.... Bottom line here is Bobby stepped over
the monitors towards the end of the song and basically presented the bones-solo
3ft from me/us ....I snapped a picture ...soaked the 15 seconds up
like it was my job....& the show ended. Bobby handed his guitar off....and
Gord S. looked over at us also nodding saying thanks.....& here comes
Bobby.... over towards us and high fives Tod (who grabbed his pic) and
proceeded to shake my hand and one other.
I got it ! Bobby got it ! But I'm really not sure if Sudbury gets it?
Jeffroed!
P.S. - I lived in Sudbury for 3yrs or so and it is a great place & if your from there & your on this list....you obviously get it... but if you were in attendance last night... what did you see around you?
2 nights in 3 days and TTH changed the setlist about 35%.....10+ songs.....
very nice
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a couple of very nice little touches I caught during this show .....the
circular backdrop that comes down over the stage is actually a map of the
moon.....am I only one who never noticed this before?...particularly during
Sharks it now has new meaning....during Opiated when you hear " the medicineman
started seeing red ..." BAM! ALL the lights go deep red ...very
nice...what can you say...GEMS.....Lookin' ....Engaged....we were in
the zone and into BB huge...he was really getting into the groove...we
were yellin' for him the whole show and he responed....as Jeffro said stepped
right up to us and gave a beautiful Bones rock out and I would like to
go record by saying that I was handed the pick...Jeff ...wait for the video....the
soundcheck very nice...gotta love a nice orderly sound check....I was about
to go behind stage for a snack I felt so comfortable in there...the ride
sucked but the company was good...ran into Matt & Dave the 2 brothers
from Hamilton....they are in Ottawa as we speak and headin' to Montreal....Dave
passed me his Workplace stub to get me in the zone and I made my own wrist
band from a menu...yeah, yeah.. I hear what your saying...Is there anyone
on the list that would have done this ?...please
respond...Hey !... I donated 2 cases of soup and come on almost 2 hours
to give away the zone tix...that is if they were all givin away..by the
way the zone looked at 8PM....I think the radiostation van left the secret
location after a couple of hours cause noone was shown up...I had a great
time ... drove down with Jeff, Matt and Jeff's wife....snow on the way
there .. did I say SNOW and snow on the way back...made in at 4:10AM
...at work for 9:30 and home at & 7:15PM...there were over 10 songs
in total that differed from the ACC setlist on the 3rd...I can count
GEMS,LOOKIN',SOMETHING ON, TORONTO
#4, OPIATED,FREAK,BONES,ENGAGED, DADDY,SHARKS,LIONIZED, there were
a couple more I'm sure...anyway the band was into it for the people who
were into it ...during the PP tour Sudbury loved the Hip...maybe it was
the -29 degree
air....see ya in Hamilton...Gordie said to say Hi...thanks again Matt
and Dave.....Todd
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They just didn't seem to be really 'into' it, Gord especially -- this
probably had a lot to do with having so recently played in their home town
area down south.
But the worst part -- the absolutely unforgiveable part (as far as
I was concerned) -- was the absence, even during the encore (the one encore
that they deigned to bestow upon us non-Torontonians, anyway) of:
"50 Mission Cap". This is their signature song, fer cryin' out loud,
their "high watermark" of tunes, as the Toronto Star so eloquently put
it recently. When the Hip neglected to perform it during both the
1st AND 2nd acts, I was just positive they were saving it for the encore,
especially for a concert set here in Northern Ontario. Great way
to go out, I thought. Nope. "Little Bones" was the actual closer,
and that was suddenly IT. Sheesh. Whadda let down.
The muddy acoustics (in the grand ol' Sudbury Arena), which were not
their fault, didn't help matters either, as you so rightly pointed out.
Poor Gord was often babbling non-stop into his mic (as he is wont to do),
and I defy ANYbody other than those lucky enough to have been in the front
row, to repeat to me one word of what he was muttering to us when he wasn't
actually singing out loud. (The guys at the sound board might not
have had him mixed "up" quite enough, methinks.) And no banter with
the crowd? No sing-a-long invitations? The closest we came to anything
like that was Gord's offhand "it's a pleasure to be here" or something
equally generic. *Sigh* Perhaps the band **IS** in now wind-down
mode after all. Damn. Had good seats tho.....
Con
cpfelber@vianet.on.ca
Sudbury, ON