As smart as the Tragically Hip is, enjoying this band is strictly a gut reaction.
Ask the 13,500 fans who packed Skyreach Centre last night what eccentric lead singer Gord Downie's mad bouts of poetry were about. Dressed in a nerdy cardigan sweater with his shirt flaps hanging out, this guy would've been a ranting street person if he didn't happen to have a rock band pounding away behind him.
I'm guessing the thought process of a typical Hip fan would go something like this: "Hmmm, there's clearly something deep and thought-provoking going on here, but gosh darn it, the band is rocking so hard and I'm having so much fun, who cares what he's saying?"
Even so, every good Hip fan knows all the words to all Hip songs, no matter how cryptic or impenetrable: "Where's my pigeon camera?" (what the heck is a pigeon camera?) "Don't tell me what the poets are thinking ... That's when the hornet stung me and I had a serious dream, with revenge and doubt tonight, we smoke them out," and so on. Last night's crowd was full of good Hip fans (plus a good deal of marijuana, by the smell of it), so they roared along to practically every word. Skyreach Centre resonated with sound and was full to the brim with Tragically Hip.
With 14 years and eight albums behind them, the band delivered a Hip hit parade. The more familiar the tune, the greater the intensity of the cheers that washed over the stage. At times, the deafening devotion from the crowd exceeded the level of the band itself.
No tricks, however. No scantily clad models cavorting about, no explosions, no showers of confetti, no drummer coming out front to enthuse how glad he was to be out of jail and encourage women to show him their breasts. None of that. And while a little more showmanship would be appreciated - aside from Downie's gyrations, the rest of the band basically just stands there and plays - their songs went a long way.
On a simple yet elegant stage with a chandelier hanging above, the band opened with Something On, from the new album, Phantom Power, and segued neatly into Fully Completely. Downie was dramatic on the latter, performing as though he was undergoing electro-shock therapy. In the low-key Gift Shop and several songs that followed, he strummed an acoustic guitar, which seemed to keep him calm. Fireworks followed, a hard-driving new song and hockey reference No. 1, and then Fifty Mission Cap and more hockey lore. Meanwhile, Downie perched on a monitor in a Karate Kid pose (be the song).
While the energy of the crowd sagged during more unfamiliar numbers, the people screamed for such favourites as Ahead By a Century, Nautical Disaster and Courage. Needless to say, it was bedlam for songs like Blow At High Dough - the music that launched this whole crazy Tragically Hip legend back in the late '80s.
This is the perfect hoser band. The members of the Hip come across like regular guys who would blend in at any bar in Canada. The only guy you might recognize right away is Downie, in any case. They're the kind of guys you'd invite over for a beer and maybe a game of "road apple" (term for street hockey). The Hip actually tries so hard not to be pretentious that it nearly backfires on them. Unlike the vast majority of rock stars, they are not larger than life on stage, nor do they want to be. Perhaps that helps explain the band's grassroots popularity. That could be you up there.
The suspicious number of Hip songs that contain hockey references completes the Canadian legacy. The Tragically Hip is our band - and whether Americans end up getting it or not, the Hip will remain our band. So there.
Opening the show was By Divine Right, a trippy West Coast quartet that revealed hints of greatness but sadly failed to put it together. What the arriving crowd got was noisy music that never really rocked, hints of Sonic Youth and the Eels, hardly any melodies and mundane shoe-gazing lyrics as rendered by precious singer-guitarist Jose Contreras. Sample lyric: "I've got five toes and that's enough."
It wasn't enough.
