The Tragically Hip

Brady Ehler, OP Reviewer Guy

Sunday at home doing homework,

I had been planning to spend a quiet

so imagine my surprise when I was
woken up at 12pm by a phone call and
asked if I wanted tickets to The Hip. I
won't bore you with the details, but I
ended up with 11 tickets, which were easy
to give away, even though they were in the
nosebleed section.

The opening band was The Joel
Plaskett Emergency. Some of you might
remember Joel from the ultra~Canadian
rock revival band, Thrush Hermit. The
Emergency is rock-based, but with a fair
amount of blues influence, among other
musical genres, and they even did some-
thing with a ska flavour. All and all they
weren't bad, but then again they weren’t
great, and at the end of their 30-40
minute set I, was glad it was over.

In the ensuing 20 minutes or so before
the show, a friend and I decided to try and
filch some seats closer to the stage, as the
stadium was only about two-thirds full.

HOvember 20/2000

 

Thus, I was within spitting distance of the
band for the first song, “Vaccination
Scar,” which was from the newest album,
In Between Evolution. The song kicked off
the show nicely, as they played it about
twice as hard as they do on the recorded
version. Unfortunately for my friend and
me, halfway through the second song,
“Grace Too,” the rightful owners of the
seats we wete sitting in came to claim their
places, so we sadly obliged, looked
around, and realized that the stadium had
more or less filled to the brim.

The Hip looked very typical; Gordon
wore black plants and a short-sleeved
black dress shirt, Paul Langois was in his
usual blue jeans and untucked white shirt,
Bobby Baker had his red shirt tucked in—
they looked as if they might have just
walked in off the street. The rest of the
show didn’t look or sound as good from
the 300 level, since the band members
looked like rock-star action figures from
up there, but at least there were the thou-

sand-inch screens and a pretty decent light
set up.

They played tons of hits with a fair
number of tracks from the new disc
sprinkled throughout. The: new songs
weren't bad; in fact, some of them were
really good. Even though I hadn’t heard
them before, they managed to leave an
impression. I particularly enjoyed “It
Can’t be Nashville Every Night.”

All in all, The Hip showed Vancouver
why they are considered the greatest
Canadian rock band—the slow epics
tugged at heart-strings, and the fast-paced
rockers rocked the his-ouse so bad that
some girls even threw their shirts at
Gordon Downie (by the way, guys, the
show was a babe-fest).

Gordon, in true poetic fashion, ranted

at 1000wpm during the instrumental bits
of the songs, and at one point he com-
mented, “Why do I have this mic? This is
stupid. What would you say if you had
this mic...fuck!” I kept thinking there
should have been some sort of gigantic
dance floor for people to groove out on,
because even up in the nosebleeds, people
were boogying. They ended up playing
two encores, not that it wasn’t evident that
they would from the deafening roar that
sounded throughout the stadium when
they first stepped on stage. These guys
have been doing this forever, and it shows
in their performance; it was spot on...they
played most of my favourite songs, too!
Next time they come into town, I’m going
to buy tickets so close I can throw my
shirt at Gordon Downie.

 

 

 

We will need a new Arts & Entertainment
section editor starting January 2005.

We would be quite pleased if you sent

your resume to:

othereditor@yahoo.ca

    

GbnerPPess | 18