Down
Poets
Fully
Eldo
Train
Fireworks
Fever
Spring
Long Time
Courage
Gift
Freak
Bob C
Tiger
Nautical
Music

ENCORE #1
Completist
Scared
Bones

ENCORE#2
Stay
New O
 

The show was amazing, a VERY rowdy but well behaved crowd. They even went crazy for Chris and Kate. As I mentioned in earlier posts I brought 14 first time Hipsters with me so I lost parts of the show due to questions and what not.

Gordy opened the show by walking up to the mike and announcing: "This is for Bob Clarke: Why would you let him go? FUCK YOU!" Now for all my fellow henhousers who may not be familiar with The City of Brotherly Love, this is a serious sports town. You do not get up in front of 900 drunk Philadelphians and say FUCK YOU to the original Bob C and live to tell about it. But with Gord it was like he just told everybody they won the fuckin' lottery for chrissakes! I have never seen anything like it in this town in my life the crowd went absolutely bonkers. It set the tone for the entire show.
Well the tape will tell the tale but I am pretty sure they went into Fireworks first not Down, it would make sense with the Eric Lindros reference and all (yes ladies for the second year in a row Eric was there). I also am almost positive that The Bastard was played at some point.
For the record I did not enjoy Eldorado at all. It was very slow. I also think Kate's parts were out of place and off-key, first time I have witnessed her take away rather than contribute to a song.

I would love to go into more details but I'm off for DC

Ciao for now       TW
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'lo all

Lubineski on the road here in Philadelphia.  Last night's show was AMAZING -the best I've ever seen them.  The band was incredibly on and the music was trascending.  I think Chris and Kate are a great addition to the live sound -they help bridge the gap between the band and the fans and also contribute musically too - Chris's organ was great, especially on Poets and Gift Shop and the wall of noise songs like Chagrin Falls and Tiger the Lion.

Set: (may be out of order in the middle)\
1 Down
2 Poets
3 Fully
4 Eldo
5 Fireworks
6 Train
7 Springtime
8 Fever
9 Long Time
10 Courage
11 Gift
12 Freak
13 Bobc
14 Tiger
15 Nautical
16 Music

17 Bastard
18 Scared
19 Bones

20 Chagrin
21 NewO
22 Fire in the Hole

Looking forward to tonight in DC.  I'll be in red.

--Lb.
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yeah, i know, this is late...

but let me just say that there's nothing cooler than having mr. gordon downie himself tell you he likes your t-shirt. i met him by the t-shirt booth, he was just talking to the guy behind it(one of the roadies), i think this guy was offering him a place to stay at some point, and he mumbled something like, "yeah, me , my wife and my 3 kids..." i was surprised at how deep his voice was. anyhow, i waited till he was done talking, and then i said, hi, how's it going, could you please sign this ticket? and he said
sure, whats your name... anyhow, i sincerely wish i would have been able to start a conversation some other way-i think autographs are stupid. ahh, well..

so. the crowd was good. i went by myself. i met tod(d)lyn right when i got there and he tried to convince me to go to dc as well. (sorry, todd!) there were some kids from niagara falls right next to me in the front row, so anyways, we all made friends before chris and kate went on. and they were really good again. thats now song(anyone know what i'm talking about?) blows
me away. i think i need to buy the cd. so, the setlist has already been posted, so i'll just give highlights.

eldorado was introduced with something like this: "this is a willem dafoe song. everytime i introduce it, the only thing i can think to say is "i think we should pull the eldo round back""

train overnight was intro'd with the line "we came from a land that was made by the train"

long time running. wow. i don't know what else to say.

during the 1st encore , they played scared...and introduced it as a request...apparently the kid next to me had met gord s on the street earlier, so it was cool that they played it. i personally think that they were already going to play it, but who knows.

overall, it was a great show. the venue was cool, perfect size, front row is always nice, there were no assholes pushing or spilling beer, and the band looked so happy. again, they were laughing and smiling throughout the whole show. except for johnny. he never smiles. well, almost never...

when he handed me his drumsticks at the end, and i smiled and said thank you, he smiled and walked offstage. and it was over.

then i had to wander around and try to find shari. it only took a minute or two. she was great, very cute, very friendly, very funny("we wouldn't mind giving someone money in exchange for food at some point") so, we went to a bar next door and they wouldn't let me in...and then friday's for shakes. and then another bar down the street to say goodnight to the guys shari had
met at the show. and then home.

all in all, it was great fun,  shari was wonderful, and the hip were fantastic.

loving life
meghan
===========================================================
playing in philadelphia in a beautiful little theatre with seats removed so you can dance and sing and feel the hands of the boy behind you on your hips as you sway to long-time running.

to begin, the dramatis personnae:

meghan -- i should first say that meghan had written ahead to describe herself so i would recognise her. but i misread her description. i haven't told her this, so she will be laughing now. ahem.

ok. she said she would be wearing a white lowest of the low t-shirt (and now you see the trouble with not using caps for proper names). given what i took to be her youthful and fairly casual approach to meeting whomever wanted to meet her on the road to philly, i read this description as "i'll be wearing a very low cut white t-shirt." oh dear. there is trouble at the henhouse. and THAT mental picture is all i had to go on :)

of course when i finally DO meet her she is wearing a t-shirt from the BAND Lowest of the Low -- d'uh -- and there is clearly no need for me to have worried about this very smart woman -- competing with silirat for a don't fuck with me attitude and a killer smile. except unlike silirat, meghan has gorgeous thick hair that literally cascades down her back. when she takes it out of a ponytail and shakes it, people watch.

i had planned to meet meghan and tricia, another rowan colleague and neophyte hip fan, at the theatre. i find a parking spot right behind a car with ontario license plates. i smile. surely a fellow fan! their metre has expired. i drop in a caribou or two. (the u.s. equivalent of course :) later, after meeting todd (todlyn) we think it might have been his car. this seems too perfect. hey todd, got your note ;) yes it was great meeting you too.

tricia and i meet at the door to the theatre where three tall, lovely men (all my age as it turns out -- how wonderful and amazing) ask if we need to buy a ticket. we say no and keep walking but i stop at some point and say to tricia -- "hey, they were lovely, are we just stupid? i'm going to go back and say hi." she laughs and thinks that's a great idea and we all collide at the door and smile and laugh some more. at some point i interject with my famous hip entree -- get this: "so are you guys canadian or are you from around here?" (so much for a critique of nationalism at a hip show ;) but it always works. well two of them live right around the corner and the other's from south jersey where tricia and i work. and they love that i'm from canada and they've been listening to the hip and coming to their shows since road apples. wow.

hmm... not only are all three tall and lovely but one is very funny and one is drop-dead gorgeous. neither are both. tricia tells me not to be so picky ;) and we wander in and end up standing with them. i'm keeping my eyes peeled for meghan so i decide to enlist the help of my new friends to find her. "ok", i say, "i'm looking for someone whom i've not met before and they're coming home with me tonight." the funny one looks at me and gestures to his friend, the drop-dead gorgeous one, and says "well, here's
your man."

see? he's very funny. ok. so i correct the horrible misunderstanding ;) and i proceed to describe meghan as this potentially naive twenty year old who will be sporting a low-cut white t-shirt. (that this is about as backwards a description of meghan as you could get, still cracks me up). at any rate, all of the men agree that they too are interested in finding meghan. we all laugh some more.

i should say that we had missed chis and kate which bugs me, 'cos i've yet to catch them on this tour. and after the hip came on, tricia was hard-pressed to decide with whom she was more in love, kate or gord downie. she has since bought a hip t-shirt and two chris and kate cds. very cool.

anyways, about the show. you've all heard various versions of the setlist -- real and imagined -- but for me, hearing long-time running was amazing. i told tricia to watch gord's left hand which carved gentle arcs as he sang. mmmmm....

but you could have knocked me over with a feather when he got to eldorado. i've heard others say they've heard them play this before but i haven't and i could have died.

just the mention...

so he brings out the banana, with that sly little smile on his face.

and i swoon.

look in here it's all hardwood.

tricia is swooning too. at both kate and gord.

and i am now completely hot and bothered.

at some point in the song, i turn to all three of the lovely men behind me and announce, "ok, forget about finding meghan, we all have to leave now and have sex." they all laugh, unsure if i'm serious. (am i serious?)

(music venues or dance clubs place such interesting constraints on conversations with new people. the sound is so loud that any talking has to be done very close. cheek to cheek. hands on each others' shoulders or hips to better direct their attention... it's erotic by definition. like the only sex scene in the matrix -- maybe you missed it -- where trinity is whispering to neo in that dance club -- very close to his ear, but not quite touching -- "i know why you never sleep..."

man.

i get goosebumps all over just thinking about it.

speaking of which, livi, i'm sure there's other songs that move me, but the first one that comes to mind is titanic terrarium... and i very much enjoyed your own list.)

back to the show. unfortunately, i couldn't hear anything gord was rambling. todd promises to get me a copy of the show which he taped. but as others have said the whole band was in fine form and having a really good time.

because our new friends are so tall, they had a policy of not standing too close to the front, so tricia and i hung back with them. she and i are tall enough. i've never been at the back of a hip concert before. there's more room, and more older folks :) and if you catch someone's eye they break out into a smile, and as people mill by they're all singing and you sing with them and squeeze their shoulders as they pass.

the right reverend gord at another successful revival.

hallelujiah. may the peace be with you.

as i wonder whether to leave our friends and move to the front to make eyes at gord i decide to practice what i preach; making a quick mental calculation about my odds of having sex with gord vs. my chances of having sex with any or all of the new guys, i end up staying at the back for the whole show. (no matter what happens later, i still believe that was the right choice ;)

at 10:24, all of us count down to scott (mcdow's) birthday. we note the song that was played -- it was scared -- it was in the first encore and apparently by request. i try to take a picture of the band but i'm too far away. i take a picture of the guys behind me and tricia, instead. scott, you have four new friends :)

and then the show is over, but as usual i have the sense that the fun will still continue... and right on cue, up comes meghan.  we have a mutual fanclub going right from the start. anyone can join by the way ;) i note her t-shirt and smile to myself at my mistake. she has johhny's drumsticks shoved down the front of her pants to protect them from the over-excited boys up front who dove for a setlist until it was in tatters. she shows me the sticks and i notice they're pretty shredded and rough in spots. she
nods and informs me that she has slivers in her panties from them. i laugh and can't get this out of my head all night.

and then. there's mike b. an old henhouse friend i'd never met. or mr. yummy as i now call him :) he's with another boy, who for various reasons seems ambivalent about seeing me again. oh those youthful indiscretions... ;) but for mike and i there is nothing but enthusiasm. unbridled. well ok, he's married. so not completely unbridled :)

you've pretty much heard the rest -- aside from patronising a number of fine south street establishments and exchanging phone numbers with all the appropriate folks, meghan and i head home to exchange henhouse tales and photos. eventually, after what seems like hours of gossip, we finally make it to sleep. in the morning she leaves me with a hip poster and a smile.

it was great.

so now i'm left back at the houseful of anarchists. ralph nader is speaking down the street at 3:00. i've always liked him but i imagine the sex would be terrible -- someone would have to remind him that threats to sue the mattress company do not make good pillow talk... :)

i can't wait to hear more from dc and darien lake.

i hope everyone drives safely.

peace,

shari