I had never heard of The Tragically Hip when my friend Gerald proposed me to go and see the coolest Candian band. Since I hardly ever sy no to a concert, I accepted.
I listened to Gerald's CDs for a few days, and it wasn't bad. Moreover, it was in the Somerville Theatre, which is a small venue, and this band usually plays in very large venues, so it was going to be interesting.
We went there early to meet with the people of the Henhouse mailing list, a mailing list of fans of "The Hip". So we had a beer with all those Canadians (I doubt that there was another French going to this concert), and went to the concert after having tried to get rid of two extra tickets: it was impossible, too many people were selling extra tickets. I actually don't know if that is legal or not, but the aim was not to make any money, just avoid wasting them. The Tragically Hip might be very famous back in Canada, they're totally unknown in the US!
We finally got in there, and we had tickets way back in the amphitheatre.
The concerts started, and a third of the seats wer empty, so we could go in a more reasonnable spot without any problem. I love it when a plan comes together.
I had studied well, because I knew half of the songs they played. They essentially played songs from their recently released album Music @ Work and from the previous one, Phantom Power. It was pretty good. They were playing with two guests, Chris Brown and Kate Fenner. During the concert, I found that you couldn't hear Kate Fenner singing much, but I listened to the concert again and that's not true, you could hear her perfectly well on songs such as Toronto #4.
The audience was dancing and screaming. I guess that 90% of the
people there were Canadian, which you could tell when the singer sang
That night in Toronto
in Bobcaygeon.
After 1h15 and a good set, without any breaks at all (the drummer hardly stopped to change his sticks between the songs), they left the stage and came back after a few minutes for 3 more songs. They then left again 15 minutes later and came back again 5 minutes later for two more songs. The concert ended after 1h45, and it was really good.
So Canadians can do something else than playing hockey and drinking beer: they can play good music too! :-)
Here's the setlist posted by Jeff Topping in the Henhouse mailing list (I just completed the titles):