This was for the hard-core fans.

The ones who showed up at midnight to buy Phantom Power last summer, pushing it to No. 1. The ones who saw the band play a surprise gig in a Kingston saloon, or cursed that they missed out. The ones whose record buying habits transformed a generic border-town bar band into Canada's own Rolling Stones.

But mostly, this was for the ones who lined up all night, or sprained their instant redial finger, to see the Tragically Hip at the Corel Centre.

While tonight's encore performance is still only half-sold, last night's tickets disappeared almost immediately and the feeling of excitement was almost palpable.

Well, it was palpable for the crowd anyway. As a music critic, I've always felt the band was over-hyped frat rock and attributed the band's enormous popularity to a phenomenally catchy debut and their subsequent national iconic status.

But I forgot another major reason for the Hip's success -- the live show. Like the Stones, another quintessential bar band, the Hip really have evolved into arena rockers -- and not in a bad way.

Downie's quirky vocals took on an added intensity with both original and improvised lyrics. (Day For Night's Grace Too began with "she said I'm tragically hip" inspiring happy howls and leaving the "fabulously rich" part unsaid since, I guess, that would be bragging.)

Now over a decade into their recorded career, a Hip show can't help but turn into a greatest hits package -- from show-opener Poets (the first single off Phantom Power) to hand clappers like Courage, Nautical Disaster and 100th Meridian.

Nevertheless, despite high sales of the last few albums, their repertoire of low-tempo abstract numbers like Escape is at Hand for the Travelling Man left fans scratching their ball caps. Too slow for air guitar, not slow enough for lighter waving. What to do?

The answer, apparently, was to politely tolerate Downie's artier side while psyching yourself up for the hits. Oh, and apparently light up a joint to get you through the boring bits (at least for the folks sitting below me).

After too many slow songs, Downie and company finally revved it up with Something's On, displaying another of the Hip's weaknesses -- a lot of their non-hit songs are bland and interchangeable.

But while it does make for a lot of filler, songs like Something's On or Save the Planet serve to accentuate the anthemic nature of their hits -- notable by the contagious crowd and band excitement emanating from the first chords of Gift Shop, Fireworks or Ahead By a Century.

In fact, Downie's hilariously pathetic dance moves on 100th Meridian's long but impressive instrumental jam was the first sign he was actually having fun.

And it was lost by the time he pumped out a relatively lacklustre New Orleans is Sinking for the encore (but made up for during a great version of Blow at High Dough during a second encore).

With the concert's minimalist lighting and stage design, it was all up to the band and the Hip couldn't maintain consistency, spending too little time being the kick-ass rock band their hard-core fans want them to be and too much time playing an unending supply of self-indulgent, mid-tempo guitar noodling.

Rock on, dudes! Please?

While Toronto's By Divine Right is no stranger to crowds -- having criss-crossed the country several times in their eight year existence playing to at least 50,000 -- their opening slot on the Hip tour threatened to expose them to 10 times that number in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, their 7:30 p.m. start time found the band playing to half-empty stands and darting flashlight beams as ushers tried to slowly seat the sold-out crowd.

What the late-comers missed was light, fuzzy indie rock -- admittedly relying on a Pavement-style mould favouring slightly off-key singing and quirky guitar jangles -- that was refreshingly up-beat and angst-free.

Of course, the mini-supergroup -- comprised of lead singer Jose Contreras, drummer Mark Goldstein, Brendan Canning (hHead, Hayden) and Leslie Fiest (Placebo, Noah's Arkweld), is bigger than a bar band but nowhere near arena stature.

Unlike Downie, Contreras doesn't have the exaggerated charismatic magnetism needed to reach out to the nose-bleed seats and their stage banter was charmingly inept.

Nonetheless, they kicked off with a great version of Good-bye Paralyzer off their new album Bless This Mess (out in stores in couple weeks) and exhibited some well-honed, arena worthy guitar chops on Old Soul and, in particular, the great AC/DC-meets-the-Eels track 5 bucks.

Considering the notoriously antagonistic reputation of Hip fans, By Divine Right seemed to have won them over, albeit in a somewhat ambivalent victory.

While the fans seemed in no rush to find their seats and the cheers were less then beer-drenched, at least there was no "Hip! Hip! Hip!" chants to drown out BDR's groovin' guitar noise. If nothing else, that is something to be proud of.