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Concert Review - The Tragically Hip and Friends
Concert Review
Air Canada Centre, Toronto - Jan 1, 2000
The Tragically Hip is arguably the best band in Canada today. While we're arguing, some spoilsports might want to point out that other Canadian bands may sell more records, or might be better known south of the border. True. However, the Tragically Hip seem to be a puzzle that only the Canadian record-buying and concert-going public can decipher. The announcement of their millenium stint at Toronto's Air Canada Centre was big news to Canadian music fans, and the shows sold out instantly.
The Hip like to share their success, and their festivals and tours usually include friends, neighbours, bands they like and bands they'd like to get to know. Their New Year's gigs were no exception. The New Year's Eve show featured Hayden, the Mahones, Starling, Sharkskin and perennial Canadian road-hogs the Rheostatics and the Skydiggers. The New Year's Day show spotlighted treblecharger, the Headstones, the Watchmen and the Cash Brothers, among others. The Music Insight staff, sensing a historically significant concert event, decided to cover the New Year's Day show. That way, they could spend New Year's Eve holed up in the highly-fortified Music Insight Millenial Command Bunker, watching people ring in the New Year in Denver and Djibouti.
The evening was grueling, yet rewarding. Cramming 6 bands into a 4-hour show would traditionally require 15-minute sets, but those canny Hipsters built a stage at each end of the arena, allowing bands to set up and break down their equipment while another band entertained. It worked wonders. Our evening started at 7:40, as the Music Insight staff arrived en masse at the venue. The first band that we caught was treble charger, a gang of Southern Ontario power-popsters whose show balanced material from their forthcoming album with crowd favourites like "How She Died", "Morale" and their signature song, "Red". "Red" is their masterpiece, channeling the ghost of Neil Young, and treble charger will toss it on every album they make until it becomes a world-wide hit. I'm not kidding. The band had a ball onstage, and their catchy tunes and goofy onstage behaviour won the audience over. The next band, the Headstones, feature Canada's toughest, most rock-and-roll frontman, Hugh Dillon. Hugh is one of those guys who probably gets up and has a breakfast of shoe polish and carpet nails. The band had a pile of great tunes, but technical difficulties saddled them with a ridiculously thin sound. The band bravely soldiered on through their short set, and then smashed up the stage and stormed off, looking for the sound tech's head on a platter. They also won the "most profane merchandise" award for their t-shirts (favourites with our staffers).
The same sound board that scuttled the Headstones' performance managed to muster a crystal-clear sound for the next band, the Watchmen. The Watchmen countered with a stellar show. Opening with "Stereo", from their recent release "Silent Radar", the band blazed through a set that included a magnificent rendering of "All Uncovered", "Boneyard Tree" and a new song that the band claim that they wrote a week ago. The highlight of their show was an a capella version of Tom Waits' "Heart of Saturday Night", which mesmerized the fans and earned a hearty round of applause. The next set was a short one from the Cash Brothers, whose rootsy sound proved too much for the more boneheaded of the Hip's fans, who heckled mercilessly. The band closed with a version of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", that had the less musically open fans screeching for the headliners.
Not long after the Cash Brothers left the stage, the fans got their wish. The Tragically Hip took to the stage, and delivered the kind of solid live entertainment that they've been giving since they formed in 1983. They whipped the crowd into a giant mass of crazed singing Canucks with old favourites like "New Orleans Is Sinking" and "Blow At High Dough". Not-so-oldies from "Fully, Completely" such as "50 Mission Cap", "At The Hundredth Meridian" and "Locked In The Trunk Of A Car" made appearances, as well as the Zippo song du jour, "Wheat Kings", which easily earned the title of the bic-flickingest tune of the evening. Vocalist Gordon Downie provided mid- and between-song stream-of-weirdness rants, and generally strode around the stage switching personas by the minute. First the singer was a baboon, then a prizefighter, then a majorette. He can get away with this because the rants and the on-stage plays are usually entertaining, and are often the place where the band fits pieces of potential songs together like building blocks. Some fully-formed new tunes were also debuted, so Hipophiles will be expecting to hear "Lake Fever" and "Music At Work" when the new album's released. The band wrapped up the show with one of the traditional closers, "New Orleans Is Sinking", and the crowd roared approval and left happy. The verdict? Yet another transcendant show by Canada's top live band. If you live in the U.S., and get a chance to see the Hip, go. If you live in Canada, you most likely already have.
The Tragically Hip is arguably the best band in Canada today. While we're arguing, some spoilsports might want to point out that other Canadian bands may sell more records, or might be better known south of the border. True. However, the Tragically Hip seem to be a puzzle that only the Canadian record-buying and concert-going public can decipher. The announcement of their millenium stint at Toronto's Air Canada Centre was big news to Canadian music fans, and the shows sold out instantly.
The Hip like to share their success, and their festivals and tours usually include friends, neighbours, bands they like and bands they'd like to get to know. Their New Year's gigs were no exception. The New Year's Eve show featured Hayden, the Mahones, Starling, Sharkskin and perennial Canadian road-hogs the Rheostatics and the Skydiggers. The New Year's Day show spotlighted treblecharger, the Headstones, the Watchmen and the Cash Brothers, among others. The Music Insight staff, sensing a historically significant concert event, decided to cover the New Year's Day show. That way, they could spend New Year's Eve holed up in the highly-fortified Music Insight Millenial Command Bunker, watching people ring in the New Year in Denver and Djibouti.
The evening was grueling, yet rewarding. Cramming 6 bands into a 4-hour show would traditionally require 15-minute sets, but those canny Hipsters built a stage at each end of the arena, allowing bands to set up and break down their equipment while another band entertained. It worked wonders. Our evening started at 7:40, as the Music Insight staff arrived en masse at the venue. The first band that we caught was treble charger, a gang of Southern Ontario power-popsters whose show balanced material from their forthcoming album with crowd favourites like "How She Died", "Morale" and their signature song, "Red". "Red" is their masterpiece, channeling the ghost of Neil Young, and treble charger will toss it on every album they make until it becomes a world-wide hit. I'm not kidding. The band had a ball onstage, and their catchy tunes and goofy onstage behaviour won the audience over. The next band, the Headstones, feature Canada's toughest, most rock-and-roll frontman, Hugh Dillon. Hugh is one of those guys who probably gets up and has a breakfast of shoe polish and carpet nails. The band had a pile of great tunes, but technical difficulties saddled them with a ridiculously thin sound. The band bravely soldiered on through their short set, and then smashed up the stage and stormed off, looking for the sound tech's head on a platter. They also won the "most profane merchandise" award for their t-shirts (favourites with our staffers).
The same sound board that scuttled the Headstones' performance managed to muster a crystal-clear sound for the next band, the Watchmen. The Watchmen countered with a stellar show. Opening with "Stereo", from their recent release "Silent Radar", the band blazed through a set that included a magnificent rendering of "All Uncovered", "Boneyard Tree" and a new song that the band claim that they wrote a week ago. The highlight of their show was an a capella version of Tom Waits' "Heart of Saturday Night", which mesmerized the fans and earned a hearty round of applause. The next set was a short one from the Cash Brothers, whose rootsy sound proved too much for the more boneheaded of the Hip's fans, who heckled mercilessly. The band closed with a version of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline", that had the less musically open fans screeching for the headliners.
Not long after the Cash Brothers left the stage, the fans got their wish. The Tragically Hip took to the stage, and delivered the kind of solid live entertainment that they've been giving since they formed in 1983. They whipped the crowd into a giant mass of crazed singing Canucks with old favourites like "New Orleans Is Sinking" and "Blow At High Dough". Not-so-oldies from "Fully, Completely" such as "50 Mission Cap", "At The Hundredth Meridian" and "Locked In The Trunk Of A Car" made appearances, as well as the Zippo song du jour, "Wheat Kings", which easily earned the title of the bic-flickingest tune of the evening. Vocalist Gordon Downie provided mid- and between-song stream-of-weirdness rants, and generally strode around the stage switching personas by the minute. First the singer was a baboon, then a prizefighter, then a majorette. He can get away with this because the rants and the on-stage plays are usually entertaining, and are often the place where the band fits pieces of potential songs together like building blocks. Some fully-formed new tunes were also debuted, so Hipophiles will be expecting to hear "Lake Fever" and "Music At Work" when the new album's released. The band wrapped up the show with one of the traditional closers, "New Orleans Is Sinking", and the crowd roared approval and left happy. The verdict? Yet another transcendant show by Canada's top live band. If you live in the U.S., and get a chance to see the Hip, go. If you live in Canada, you most likely already have.
