I sat in the front row of theatre seating, directly behind the orchestra pit where there were two additrows of seating. (in other words, they had the two front rows up against the stage)

In those two rows, in general, were the most obnoxious group of indivuals i have had the displeasure of sharing a concert experience with.

They were
1) Too drunk
2) Given WAY too much room in the pit to run around in
3) They seemed to know each other (many of them seemed to) so when one got tossed about for drunken stupidity about 4 of them accosted the security guard for doing so...this meant that they acted like this was their party..their concert...
4) THEN - One asshole, realizing his buddy got tossed for being drunken and ruining the show for the rest of us, blamed the band and from the front row gave Gord Downie the finger constantly for several songs. This pissed Gord off something fierce, and thanks to him, the worked some of his frustration into some adlibbing in "Courage"

Finally, Gord said " Why is there all is anger in the pit" and he tried to calm them down (he made several other witty comments I forget...)

FINALLY...
In the encore, just when it looked like things were under control, simultaneously about 3 security guards were hauling away 3 different drunks and another woman jumped up on the stage...she was pushed off and her dumbass boyfriend then ran after the security guard (of course...."No one touches my woman but me"...what a stupid fuck...."

THE RESULT OF THIS??
After dedicating The Completist to Michel Trudeau as the first song of the encore (and playing it beautifully) the band walked off the stage...Gord said something like "that's it..we're done...." He was understandably pissed. The pit was out of control.

Granted, we were only cut short a few songs (probably 2 songs)....but the disgraceful behaviour of these people turned a wonderful evening sour.

Jeff
===================================================================================
Good evening... I wish I had as good of a report to give tonight but I am afraid to say that I don't. The band cut the encores short after finally saying enough of the BS with the fans in the pit tonight. It all started part way through the 2nd set when a guy was booted out of the pit and then his buddy came back and gave Gordie the finger and then it was all down hill from there.  A couple more guys were booted during the course of the evening and when a girl tried to get up on stage during the first encore that was the last straw.  Once they finished The Completists Gordie said Let's go......Hopefully things will get back to normal tomorrow night.  They did pull out a number of old tunes tonight which was good.... The show went as follows:

Puttin Down
Something On
Gift Shop
Lake Fever
Fully Completely
El Dorado
Fireworks
Thugs
Over Opiated
700 Ft. Ceiling
Grace, Too
My Music At Work
Emperor Penguin

2nd Set
Boots Or Hearts
Train Overnight
Scared
Courage
Sharks
Poets
Sherpa
At The 100th Meridian
Ahead By A century
The Last Of The Unplucked Gems
Freak Turbulence
Nautical Disaster
Tiger The Lion
New Orleans Is Sinking

Encores
The Completists......

Back for round 3 in Albany tomorrow night.....Until then....
The Maniacs
Bob, Fran, Sonny and Dave
==============================================================================
Putting Down
Something On
Gift Shop
Lake Fever
Fully Completely
El Dorado
Fireworks
Thugs
Opiated
700 Ft. Ceiling
Grace, Too
Music @ Work
Emporer Penguin
---------------
Boots or Hearts
Train Overnight
Scared
Courage
Sharks
Poets
Sherpa
100th Meridian
Ahead By a Century
Last of the Unplucked Gems
Freak Turbulance
Nautical Disaster
Tiger the Lion
New Orleans Is Sinking
------------------
The Completists

(at this point Gord D. stormed off stage and said "come on, we're done" - apparently some people in the front row were giving Gord the thumbs down for The Completists and he wasn't happy with that - end of show with only one track as the encore.

Great show! This night we had Kate take teh 2nd verse of El Dorado - that was the only thing close to a duet.

Boots or Hearts & Train Overnight were both acoustic.

See ya in Albany!!!!

I still have 2 8th row Center tickets I'm dying to get rid of for $50 (well under cost).

Brad
==================================================================================
It was on it way to being one of the better Hip performances that I have seen. Overall the crowd was great - just a few bad apples that ruined it for everyone. Unfortunately they were in the orchestra pit disrupting the band.

Not to nit pick but this was during Poets.

His comments:

Is there some type of unrest in the pit?
Is there some kind problem with your view?
Whats wrong - Please I want to know
You can't keep giving me the finger and expect me to go one with the show
It has an affect how could it not
I could try and ignore you but that is not the ticket you bought
What about your friend - young Castro where did he go
That is how Milosevich started

Back into Poets

Mark
=================================================================================
i was in the orchestra pit of this show and have a different story than yours.  the security guards were hassling us from the moment the second set started.  I have had those same seats for many other shows, and some of the same guards (one in particular, the guy with the mustache) have had the same attitude.  as far as flipping off the band, that aint too cool.  but one after another people were led out for just dancing and after a while others in the pit got sick of it and started to rebel. do not blame the folks down there.  most of us were up early to get tickets and are die hard fans.  i was seriously bummed about the way the guards treated us and plan on writing the landmark about this problem that i have experienced more than once.  i understand that they have a job to do.  however,  that job is not abuse your authority and basically taunt paying concert goers into getting tossed out.  it wasn't pretty.
=================================================================================
I will admit this : The guards weren't consistent. They had a lot of patience for some people and not for others. However, from my view behind the pit, many of the people in the pit were far too drunk. And no one got tossed for standing in their space and dancing. It was people who stood on their chair and RAN ALL OVER THE PLACE

By the time the show ended, it was chaos! The people who were dancing in their place didn't appear to be harassed to me. However, the ones who were running all over the place were, and they should be!

Besides, when one person got tossed out, why did everyone have this mob mentality where everyone then chased after the security guard? (which happened on about 5 occasions?)

I'm sorry..I'll buy that security should have consistent and that some people were allowed to be out of control for too long. But as someone who could see the whole pit, it was out of control, drunk and rude.

The Hip had no incentive to continue, and I don't blame them. The pit was acting like this was their own little private party to the exclusion of others. There seemed to be this "me" feeling there...a sense of entitlement...which I guess resulted in giving the band the finger because of ill-perceived/booze clouded problems with security? Why did no one stop them?

While talking to many concert goers sitting behind me and beside me, they felt the same thing was going on. It was a group of 10-15 ruining the show for everyone.

No one is entitled to this show..paying $25 does carry with it the right to get drunk and obnoxious but that is what happened..

PS - I also accept that not everyone in the pit is guilty either...so I am not pointing my finger at you...
===================================================================================
I was in the pit, and I can tell you first hand........................that group was WAY TO DRUNK!!!! I enjoy a buzz before each show, but no way should you go that far overboard. There was one guy flipping off Gord, another guy and girl repeatily screaming in a drunken stupidity hazz...."Blobbee Bhaker...Blobbee Bhaker"

So as far as the guy who is trying to rationalize his group's behavior in the pit......you either weren't in the pit, or you are a mute. Although in his defense, some security had more patience than others. I 100% sided with the house security. It was not the pit who was rebeling, it was a group of drunks.

Bottom line..............they were being assholes.
===================================================================================
From my vantage point the pit had alot of extra space in it. This allowed people to move about freely and this lead to lots of dancing and moving around.... not really a bad thing.. but as the show proceeded the drunkeness of many in the pit, especially those at the very front became very very apparent. I was rather lost in the music myself and happily dancing in my seat, but near the end of the set i saw more and more unrest in the pit and gord tried very hard to calm them down.. I wish that more security had been present in the pit this probably would have put the ~10 trouble makers in their place a little more.  Here is a suggestion for Gord, that we came up with while discussing on the drive back to Ottawa.  How about stopping the show, saying over the mic to the security people asking to have the people who were pissing him off removed from the theatre all while making some of his witty comments to embarass the hell out of them and then go on to put on a tremendous encore... this would teach them to behave... while not pissing off 2000 other people....

Aside from the crappy ending to the night, i did love the concert... i liked hearing old favorites played with a different tempo and sound.  I really wish i had not sold my Rochester tkts.... or had the time/money to see more of the new york shows...

Owen

on a side note, did anyone else notice that you could see right into the hip's dressing room from the street?
===================================================================================
The pit was about 40 seats all told. Of the 40 seats, one individual had purchase 24 tickets for him and his friends. In fine, idiot form, the proceeded to get blotto before the show and during the first set. Before the first song of the second set was finished, the first of the knuckleheads was ejected for being a general dangerously drunk doofus. Within two songs, a second and third person were being removed. At this point, the prince of the boneheads starts giving Gordie the finger. Gordie is obviously none plused. Soon afterwards, another one or two are ejected.

    They quieted down for the before-encore break. Not for long, though. The first half of the Completists was approaching ( it was dedicated to Michel Trudeau, BTW ) when another of the idjits starts makin' a fuss again. As they led him out of the pit, his girlfriend leaped to the stage, and managed to hop on. The Hip's bodyguard dude sorta teleported to the spot where she was, and hopped off the stage with her ( where she almost hit the ground, because she just sort of tried to fall away from him ( like running away, but lazier ). By this time, it was all over for the show. I fully endorse the Hip's reaction to the utter stupidity. The hardest part to believe is that these people were my age or older.... Jimminy Cricket..... I thought us old folks were supposed to be mature.

    On the plus side, at least two of the idjits were arrested.

SiliRat
==================================================================================
We're on our way back to MTL after a night with TTH in Syracuse. I've got got about an hour of battery left and I was too
drunk to drive so I'm trying to do the typing...

That was a great show but it had to come to a bad ending... So, we were into The Completist in the first encore and these guys who were being complete assholes from the beginning just threw GD over the edge by giving him two thumbs down so they just left the stage without any words after the first encore... They were the same guys who gave him the finger at the beginning of the second set during Poets and GD was even asking "Why are you giving me the finger?" or something, at this point... Like Peter is saying, "It just takes a few people to ruin, well not really ruin because it was still a great show, but it's too bad it had to end like this..." indeed, it leaves a sour aftertaste.

The show was great and we're happy to have met a few henhousers at Clark's before and after the show. The venue was very beautiful and the sound was awesome.

Rob is mentionning right now that he guessed right about "Purple Paint" and they did "Insomniacs" in there somewhere. We're not sure if Rob was right about the connection between Purple Paint and P.E.Trudeau though...

C&K did a good job although Chris was really drowned into the mix. I had the impression that Kate was more backing up for GD than usual (Funny thing we can say "usual" now...) so we could appreciate more Paul & GS work! She seemed to refuse to sing a verse of Thugs while talking with GD right before the song... maybe she's been lurkin' too much around here?!? During Eldo she was having fun and seemed amazed at GD singing about drinking, loving and recovering...

Sound Check
...
Boots or Hearts
Jamming...

1st set
Puttin Down
Something On
Giftshop
Lake Fever
Fully Completely
Eldorado
Fireworks
Thugs
Opiated
700 hundred foot ceiling
Grace, too
Music @ Work
Emperor Penguin

2dn set
Boots or Hearts
Train Overnight
Scared
Courage
Sharks
Poets
Sherpa
100th Meridian
Ahead by a Century
The Last of the Unplucked Gems
Freak Turbulence
Nautical Disaster
Tiger The Lion
New Orleans is Sinking

Encore
The Completist
...

So I got 11 songs off my wishlist!!! I'm very happy with this!

If anybody has a clue what they were supposed to play after, please tell us so we can be more mad at these complete idiots who pissed off the band... if we can be!

There were a couple of guys video taping the show and we might get a nice audio copy of it so look forward for a tree on http://www.livehip.com

So now we're ready for the canadian leg of the tour... and for Pearl Jam at the Molson Center in a few hours!

Off to bed!
10-0-7
Slacker
==================================================================================
My desire for "man love" aside, last night's show kicked ass.

Stupid drunken idiots next to me in the pit (did I mention I upgraded to front row 5 minutes before the show?). I should have let stage climbing girl fall on her head when the security guys started dropping her. Can't blame the band for wanting to leave "early" because of it. Gord aimed a funny "Fuck You" rant at them during Poets, something about having solid sentence structures...

Too tired to write anything coherent. Pearl Jam in 6 hours.

Oh, thanks to everyone I met last night whose first words were, "You ready for Chris' organ?" For the record, where I was standing his organ was front and center! It was cool meeting more Henhosers. I think I'm winning the "Who's met the most Henhousers" competition. That being said, I need to get out more... :)

Rob
==================================================================================
From the 6th row, the people in the pit appeared to be well behaved save a few who we acting very much like non-hip-fans. Very disappointing to have a great show like that end with Gord giving up, pissed off. Anybody that stands in front of the stage and gives Gord the bird should be given a backseat for the rest of the show.
To them I say: Get drunk and rowdy at the big shows where your stupidity won't be noticed so much. There were only about 2000 of us there last night and we all had to sit there and watch you take the wind out of the show. Too damn bad, eh?

Laura
Lockport, NY
==================================================================================
there seemed to be a lot more idiots outside the rochester show. but apparently, the idiots at syracuse took it directly up front. unfortunate for all of us. ahh, well. i don't blame them for leaving but do i ever wish they would have stayed. with all the surpises last night...i *finally* got opiated, and then boots or hearts, sherpa, last....heaven, i tell ya. so, i wasn't even pissed when
someone from the balcony dumped a beer on us.  i was pissed when they left the stage. so simply decided to lie to myself, and pretend they ended it another midnight and 50MC. thats my story and i'm stickin to it...
meghan
==================================================================================
Last night was my first hip show.  What the hell took me so long?  I'm 35 years old and I've been to hundreds (no exaggeration) of rock shows.  U2 in a club, The Police in the same club with only 5 other people, James Brown, Lou Reed, Rolling Stones, The Clash, Black Flag..on and on and on.

I have never been to a show that was as much a celebration as last night in Syracuse.

Yes, assholes did ruin the evening somewhat, both for me, and clearly for the band.  Assholes are everywhere these days.  Syracuse seems to have its share of those who behave inappropriately in some situations. Hell, I've even seen people start mosh pits at Juliana Hatfield solo acoustic shows.  Go figure...

Saturday I saw a bunch of guys try to stage dive at a Black 47 show, until Larry made them stop.  It never ceases to amaze me.

Yeah, too much beer for the front row cretins, and maybe security was overzealous, that may very well be true.  Security is often full of the same bozos that will form mosh pits at shows where moshing is just plain uncalled for.  They just get paid to be a pain in the ass when they don the "Security" t-shirt.  Not to make sweeping generalizations mind you, they do keep bad things from getting worse sometimes, but even when the security is a bunch of thugs, don't flip the band off. Don't show the thumbs down when security has the "gall" to keep you off the stage, where you don't belong.

anyway...

I had row f left center.  I was the guy in the hawaiian shirt and glasses.  I met some very cool people.  To the guy to the right of me, sorry I kept crowding you during the first set.  My wife was trying to see around the "tall" people and I just kinda slithered over, and well, when Fully, Completely happened, well, I lost myself.

I met Eric and his buddy, from Montreal..Eric..I got your card, I'm e-mailing you next!

Did I ever expect Boots or Hearts?  Well no, but my god, it took me a second to realize they were playing it.  Amazing.

The song I never warmed up to on M@W was Tiger the lion, I actually have said to myself, "I just don't care for it"  After last night, I love it..A lot..(I never knew I knew the words!)

One song encore..well, I wouldn't have stuck around to be abused like that by those knobs either, but did you hear the applause before the encore?  It was louder than the show!

It was my first hip show, I ve only ever heard boots and the live album, so I have nothing to compare it to, as far as live experiences go.  I will never forget it, that much I do know.

I hope somebody posts the show to thehip.org.....

Eric, I'm e-mailing you next, like I said....it was nice to meet you guys...nice to meet you all..I feel like I joined a club...

Oh..Kate?  Call me....

Thanks for the chance to ramble..

John
==================================================================================
Great show last night regardless of the happenings up front.  Wouldn't be a Syracuse show without some kind of bullshit, right?  Thanks SiliRat for the lowdown on how the events occurred.  I thought maybe Gord was pissed at the way security was handling the situation.

My one complaint aside from the drunken stageside idjits, is that it was very tough to hear anything Gord was saying.  Not sure if it was where we were sitting or if they were mixing it as if it were in an arena. There were points where I could barely hear Gord or even Kate.

My take on Kate?  I went in skeptical but she won me over.  I thought her take during "Scared" was excellent.  <donning the asbestos suit now> Overall, I thought she added a nice touch but not something I would want to see the Hip doing on a regular basis.

Chris, on the other hand, was virtually impossible to hear most of the night.  I enjoyed the feel the keys added to "Boots or Hearts" though. Glad I was able to catch that tune, as well as "Opiated," "Sherpa" and "Last.."

Glad I was finally able to meet some of the prominient members of the house at the pre-show.  I wish I could have spent more time BS-ing with all of you.

Hope the trip back to Montreal/Chic....(sorry Eric, I'm not even going to attempt to spell that one) was a safe one.  Hope you were able to find what you were looking for last night Slacker.  Sorry I couldn't help you out.  Call me a square....a paranoid square at that.

Convinced that the henhouse is full of the coolest people on this or any other planet,
Kohls
==================================================================================
Good Mornin All!
We're home safe and sound.
Where do I start.
I have to first say the last 2 days were THE best party I've done in 31 years!!!
You henhouse people feel like family to me and I would invite each and every one of you to my home!!!  There is just something about the TRUE hip fan that we seem to share, like a common knowing or something (does that make any sense?). (still in that cloud of AWW) Pre-show at Clark's was great, but HEY why didn't you guys tell me you were going in for a sound check? and I tried to upgrade my ticket and Margie said NO REFUNDS! How'd you do it?
I agree with Kohls, I didn't hear the rants from Gord, but the view was amazing! And the building was the most ornate/beautiful scenes I have ever seen. Other than the hotel, which actually dawned a "grand Ballroom" But the Post-show activities were the best, other than fighting with the milkman to stay awake, Kohls right after you left the guys came out, Gord S first, so we mentioned that we gave him the "Bluesfest video" and he immediately warmed up, thought that was Great and called us "old freinds". Then Gord D' who lit up to my conversation with him about "Dusty" his old goalie coach, who still has only one leg!!! He gave me the "you smart ass" look for that one. And then Robbie B, who patiently posed for a very long hug while Mr. Milkman tried to figure out how to work the camera, it was VERY nice and cozy, although I appologized for the length of time, he didn't mind, the picture ended up cutting half of Robbie's head off!!!! Then back to the room where we tried to wind down and throw back a couple more wobbly pops, and crashed immediately, till 3 in the morning when I was having such viturally real dreams that Rob B was in the hall trying to find our room because we had beer from the Kingston Brewing Company!!!
Ahh but home again, the kids were SO excited to see us again, back to normal life, till lunch hour when I have to go to the radio station to pick up my "free" Ottawa Hip tickets!!! YEAH!!
tina
==================================================================================
Hey Folks

Hope all is well..first off if any of this makes no sense sorry, I've only had a few hours of sleep the last few days.. Syracuse was unbelievable all the way through until the end.. sure the show was stopped early, and sure it would have been nice to hear an inch or one more less played song, but WOW.. couldn't have been much better... from the sets so far, I'd say Syracuse was
definitely the best... Boots/Sherpa/Gems/THUGS! etc.. haven't heard thugs in about 5 years I think.. anyway, the show was definitely one to remember, and the pre/post game show was a good time too.. I actually thought the sound was pretty good.. didn't have too much trouble picking up the rants, but then again we were lucky enough to have been in an aisle with only a few
people.. 5th row and it had like 3-4 empty seats.. what a shame...

Managed to catch Boots or Hearts in the sound check from the street.. Kate belted out one of the last verses and it was like, oh no, that better not happen in the show, and it didn't, which was good... but surprisingly Kate was good on Tuesday.. I think she's either reading the henhouse, or something... she seems to have stopped singing as much as before, and didn't touch Thugs, and did a nice job on Scared.. Eldorado wasn't all that bad either.. I could barely hear Chris though...

Everyone was mentioning the fact that the people in the front were screwing around and giving the band the thumbs down etc, but I wonder if a part of the reason why they left was not only because the crowd was getting annoying up front, but also the fact that the Completists was dedicated to Trudeau, and that Gord might have gotten offended because of that as well..

Anyway, pre show was great seeing some fellow henhousers... I think 2 people might have showed up at the beginning but left Clarke's.. anyone go and not meet and henhousers at Clarke's before the show? great time going to the show with Rob, Dan and Eric.. I think everyone that was there has Eric's business card.. Rob, sorry about getting Eric drunk and you having to drive the entire trip home..

Hello's go out to Brian, Kohls, Meghan, Mark S., and of course to Tina and her milkman.. thanks for the video! it's really great.. Tina, please email me so that I can send you some cds for it..

Also if Leon or the guy that sold Rob the front row ticket are on the list please email Rob/Dan/Eric or myself...

be good and I hope everyone made it home safe.
Peter

PS sorry if anyone on the list got offended by the bathroom incident, but I made sure I put the seat down afterwards.
==================================================================================
Speaking of Hard core hip fans, I am from Australia and flew from London, England to meet my friend Jacks in Toronto for a road trip down to Rochester and Syracuse. The Rochester show absolutely rocked and Jacks and Myself managed to get
backstage after the show and spoke to Gord Sinclair for about 10 minutes (What a great guy) he asked us what we wanted to hear at the Syracuse show, I said Emporor Penguin and Jacks said Opiated hence those two songs were our little part of the Syracuse show which was a great feeling.
At the Syracuse show, I watch the orchestra section from the start from the 3rd row of the 1st balcony, I had a totally unobstructed view of the band and of the action that unfolded during the show. I saw one member of the group walk the whole line of the orchestra section and "high five" everyone, he did this at least FIVE times in quick succession, If I was in the orchestra, even if I was his friend I would have told the idiot to bloody well sit down.  It was events like this and constant bumping of security that obviously caused security to get pissed off by the start of the second set.
As a hardcore hip fan with an unobstructed view, I can honestly say that the only thing security did wrong was not to throw the trouble makers out earlier.  And what's with giving the band the "thumbs down" after Ricky was just doing his job by removing that idiot of a girl from the stage?
If you guys are hardcore hip fans with respect for the band then I have misjudged what I thoughthip fans were and that is generally fantastic people who are passionate for the best band in the world and know what is right and wrong and how to behave. I kept saying out loud "how do people like that get front row tickets at a hip concert?" I assumed they won them from
the local radio station, but I guess that would be an insult to the wonderful people of Syracuse.
All in all, Jacks and I had a great road trip, I will never forget it and it was worth the almost 2000 Canadian dollars that I spent, I could have gone home for the olympics, but chose to come and see my heroes.  Everything about the trip was amazing
until the end when in a mark of blatant disrespect for the band the dream trip was cut short by a bunch of drunken louts.

On a lighter note, I would like to say a huge thanks to Jacks, Mike (DrPhishHip) and all of the other wonderful genuine hip fans who made the trip so memorable.

Just my thoughts,

Dan Coates
==================================================================================
Ok, at the Syracuse show I promised a few of you that I would not lurk so much & do some more posting, so here goes:  I had a great time Tuesday, the Hip were awesome & I loved meeting the other henhousers. Actually I did not even let the debacle at the end bother me, I was enjoying the show to much (even in the 2nd row I was only vaguely aware of the idiots in the front, until the trollop hopped on stage - and Rob, you SHOULD have let her fall!)  But Wednesday I wasovercome w/disapointment; the fact that I was suffering from a bigtime hangover didn't help, but I think it was more a hip-hangover because I didn't have that much to drink -  I don't know when I'll have another chance to get to another show (hopefully in the spring). Living in the states poses other hip related problems:  First of all, nobody I know has so much as heard their name naverless their music and secondly, they get NO radio play here, which makes me wonder why.  Both of these two issues
makes it very hard to discuss "my" passion with anyone here.  So I am so glad for all of you who I can share this with and allow me to gain so much insight & knowledge by lurking!   Thank all for letting me express my angst!

-Melissa
==================================================================================
The Hip were great as usual, I was 2nd row right behind the pit being distracted by the action there. Well I only knew they were assholes until intermission when I went to the bathroom. The one I'll call the "Ringleader of the Pit" decides he's to damn good to wait in line and walks past about 15 of us. He then decides the line is still too long and walks over to this empty room and pisses on the floor. Myself and another guy were saying "yo, if you have to go THAT bad at least piss the sink or something but not on the floor". Thats when I knew they were  much worse than A'holes. That was the most respectless thing I ever saw. The Ringleader of the Pit was the last guy thrown out when his girlfriend jumped on stage. Rob, you should have let her fall.
Felt bad for The Hip.
-Kirk
==================================================================================