TORONTO -- Maybe determining what is quintessentially Canadian is like defining pornography -- it's hard to describe, but you know it when you see it.

So as we enter a new millennium together, we may be no closer to defining what being Canadian is, but The Tragically Hip's New Year's Eve at the Air Canada Centre party sure looked like the definitive Canadian way to greet a new era. If you know what Canada is when you see it and hear it, then this was it.

When the five members of The Hip stepped onto the stage, they were greeted with the kind of reception usually reserved for returning astronauts and political conventions. Besuited Gord Downie stepped up to the microphone but managed barely a word before he was greeted with a barrage of shrieks and flashing cameras; so they kicked into "Poets" instead and let the music do the talking.

Tangoing with his mic stand during "Grace, Too," juggling a percussion instrument during the slinky intro to "Springtime In Vienna," barking incoherently during virtually every instrumental break, Downie appeared uncommonly keyed up, even by his own manic standard.

"Music At Work," "Puttin' Down" and the low-key "Stay" (which saw guitarist Rob Baker switching to acoustic), new songs the group trotted out at their secret Horseshoe Tavern show earlier in the week, were tried out again this night and bode well for the band's forthcoming album. But it was during the more familiar material that the show took flight.

The show seemed to reach one orgasmic height after another: When the houselights came up during the "we live to survive our paradoxes" chorus to "Springtime In Vienna," or when Downie recited the millennial anxieties of "Something On," or when guitarist Paul Langlois ground out the greasy intro to "New Orleans Is Sinking," or when "Bobcaygeon's" line about constellations revealing themselves "one star at a time" was greeted with an ocean of Bic lighters, or during "Nautical Disaster," when Downie gave up on singing and brandished his mic at the crowd to let them take over. All this before midnight even rolled around.

With minutes to go before the witching hour, just when it seemed The Hip may have peaked too early, they served up a soaring take on "Ahead By A Century," which triggered a countdown on the arena scoreboard. At midnight, balloons rained down from the ceiling, confetti cannons filled the air with mock snow and the group crashed into "Save The Planet" -- and even this euphoria was tempered by the chorus: "What's to become of us?"

And they weren't through with us yet. During the encore, with the stage littered with balloons, the band played "At The Hundredth Meridian" and Downie prowled the stage, stomping balloons, before finally bellyflopping onto large clusters. "This is genocide," Downie explained as he abandoned his singing and cleared the stage of every single balloon and the group improvised an extended interlude.

In what must be a deliberate act to flummox audience expectations, The Hip did not conclude with "50 Mission Cap," even though Leaf greats Broda, Bailey, Bower and yes, Barilko, gazed down on the spectacle from their banners hanging high above the rink. The honor for The Hip's first finale of the new century went to an unlikely candidate: "Fire In The Hole." That's as close as we got to a Y2K glitch all night.

One of our national newspapers recently carried a story suggesting (with a straight face) that The Tragically Hip's day is done, and even made the laughable suggestion that their dominance of Canadian music has been usurped by those celtic frat-rock nabobs Great Big Sea. True, since The Hip rolled out of Kingston and onto the national stage, other Canadian bands have emerged to challenge their title. But it would be difficult, if not impossible, to imagine any active Canadian group that could command enough devotion from their fans to sell out two nights at the nation's premier hockey shed and leave scalpers shilling floor seats for $125 apiece, even as other big-ticket millennium events were being scaled back or cancelled.

Even less likely is the chance that any other Canadian group would be held in such esteem by their peers that they could stock two full shows with primo supporting acts willing to forgo bigger paydays at other events, just to be a part of The Hip's scene.

What no other Canadian act can claim, though, is The Hip's achievement as an entirely home-made success story. Every successful Canadian act -- from Anka to Alanis -- has ditched Canada to found fame in the U.S., before reimporting their work back into the Canadian marketplace through the good offices of an American label. The exact opposite has happened to The Hip. Although their constant touring has made inroads stateside in recent years, they've carved out a viable career touring and making records here in Canada on their own. We get it, even if no one else in the world does. I have limited patience for the dyspeptic anxiety in Canada over the group's fortunes abroad, but maybe the reason why we get what The Hip is all about while others seem to miss it is because what they do is quintessentially Canadian. What we should really treasure about this night and about this band is that they create that rarest of Canadian natural resources -- music that actually reflects the Canadian experience.

So maybe the reason why a Hip concert seems so definitively Canadian is because when we cheer them, it feels like we're cheering ourselves, too.

Call it a happy accident that many of The Hips' friends make music that's likewise distinctively Canadian. The acts alternating on the main and B-stage were, if not a who's who of Can-rock, at least a primer for anyone wanting to catch up on some of the best music this country has to offer.

Rising from the smoking ruins of West Coast pop quartet The Odds is Sharkskin, a funky instrumental outfit staking their sound somewhere amid the rich southern soul tradition of Memphis' Booker T And The MGs and New Orleans' The Meters, shot through with a strong streak of modern rock muscle. They even dared a Stax-Volt reconsideration of Deep Purples's "Smoke On The Water." With their stirring Hammond organ flourishes and (true to their name) anachronistic sharkskin threads, they were a nonstop kick on the B-stage and the perfect soundtrack to get the party primed for the headliners.

The Rheostatics got into the spirit of big-hall rock early on the main stage, transforming their song "Claire" from a delicate homage to The Beach Boys into the kind of scrappy rock favored by Crazy Horse. Although some of their more adventurous, free-form numbers seemed to test the crowd's impatience, when guitarist Dave Bidini asked "are you ready to rock?" there was enough enthusiasm left to hail a rumbling reading of "Bad Time To Be Poor."

If Ottawa's Starling appeared a little shell-shocked on the B-stage at the back of the hall, it's probably because they were still recovering from their short-notice stint as opening act for The Hip's Horseshoe show under their other alias -- Danny Michel's Wedding Band. The group, which recently inked a deal with U.S.-based mini-major Timebomb Records, were effortlessly poptastic as they powered through a short, sharp set, climaxing with singer-guitarist Ian Lefevre's "Don't Deflate" -- as masterful a piece of pop songcraft as we're likely to hear in 2000, when Starling's album is due for release.

Rightly or wrongly, Toronto singer-songwriter Hayden's reputation is founded on mournful ballads and deadpan delivery, so he'd be the last guy you'd expect to storm the main stage throwing arena-rock poses -- and he didn't. In fact, the singer's half-hour set made no obvious concessions to the grandeur of the event (how about devoting a big chunk of his brief time onstage to curious instrumentals, or taking time between songs to share with his band what looked like a bag of chips). But he managed to impress, not in spite of his single-mindedness, but because of it. The highlight of Hayden's set was "Trees Lounge," the scorching booze-soaked anthem he wrote for Steve Buscemi's little-seen but much-admired film of the same title.

The New York-based duo of Chris Brown and Kate Fenner -- both formerly of Toronto's Bourbon Tabernacle Choir -- brought a touch of smoky soul to the B-stage. Aided by a versatile bass-and-drums rhythm section, singer Fenner and keyboardist Brown (without a guitar for much of the set) made a joyful noise. When Brown did switch to guitar, it was for a gorgeous ballad dedicated to The Band's recently deceased bassist Rick Danko, delivered by Fenner in a plaintive manner that would have done Danko proud.

The understated elan The Skydiggers typically display at their frequent club shows easily made the translation to the ACC's expanse. Old favorites like "Slow Burning Fire," "Radio Waves" and an anthemic rendering of "A Penny More" were expertly performed and warmly greeted, but it was two new songs in the group's canon -- The Skydiggers' own "Will You Ride Wide Open" and their cover of American singer Jesse Winchester's "Biloxi," that stole the show.

The former, sung by frontman Andy Maize, packs a potent pop punch, like some long-lost outtake from The Beatles' "Revolver." On Winchester's debut album, "Biloxi" is a mournful piano ballad, but here, delivered in guitarist Paul McLeod's astonishing voice and rearranged as a textured guitar duel between McLeod and guitarist Josh Finlayson, it becomes something altogether amazing. The group has been readying a new record in recent months, and they'd be mad not to include both songs.

There were fewer than 150 people on hand for the early-bird set by The Mahones. But give the tough-nosed celt-rock quintet credit for hurling themselves into the task of opening the festivities. The fact that their 20 minute set came and went with little impact had more to do with the mired sound mix than with the group's music, which imagines an unlikely pub-crawl with The Clash and The Chieftains.

Set List The Tragically Hip's set list (note, question marks indicate a new song, and the title is a guess, based on what could be heard of the lyrics)

Poets Grace, Too Music At Work? Gift Shop Puttin' Down? Springtime In Vienna Something On Bobcaygeon Nautical Disaster Fireworks Stay? Courage New Orleans Is Sinking Ahead By A Century Save The Planet

(encore) At The Hundredth Meridian Scared Little Bones

(encore) Fire In The Hole