Anyone tired of the Hip yet?

If you said yes, I'm going to personally come over there and kick your ass.

The Tragically Hip, Canada's legendary, nation-defining rock band. And you know what? Just about every walk of life digs them. Even if it's in secret. One of four sold out nights in a row at the Commodore, I must say, watching this veteran band play in a relatively small room was a great treat. I'd seen them before at Queen Elizabeth Theatre (very grand), and at the Sasquatch! Festival, which is of course thouuuuusands of people and the sets are all pretty wee.







Front man Gord Downie as stunning as always. His microphone anticry was insatiable. He even managed to completely lose the mic at one point in all his swift tossing and hurling. He easily played up the 'missing' microphone... seriously, the guy goes into unbalanced crazy-guy mode when he's on stage. He shows up even the most theatrical of punk/emo bands these days for sure. Think of Jack Nicholson's over-the-top performance in One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and you have an idea of the possessed nature that drapes over Downie onstage.







Not discounting anyone else in the band - they're making the music after all - but it's hard to take your eyes off of Downie. Two songs in, he looks like he's wearing a vinyl shirt, he's sweating so much. The range of people in the crowd is interesting too. Amongst people who are completely on the scene, the vast majority of the crowd strike me as the sort of folks who generally aren't considered (even by themselves!) to be music fans, and yet, even they are moved to dance by The Hip. All the beer-swilling, hockey-playing, Trailer Park Boys-watching flannel-wearers, dancing badly, but it doesn't matter - they're having fun. And remaining remarkably well-behaved. That's impressive and powerful. Media-pit-mate Chris Nelson (yes, that Chris Nelson) remarks that the people standing directly behind us beyon the barricade look like the kind of people who would have beaten someone like Gord Downie up in high school. So the scrawy, bald, insane guy can be popular with the hunky quarterback after all.







Screw the hunky quarterback - something animalistic in Downie makes him an extremely sexy creature on stage. And I know a lot of girls are reading this now and going "Whaaaat? Andy, you're on crack." But no really, I'm not! A couple glasses of wine maybe, but definitely no crack. The way that guy can gyrate his body, and his wild abandon? The sweat making his shirt stick to his narrow frame... oh tell me that's not hot!





Music, right... Well everyone knows what they sound like. After playing together for years, the live set is nearly flawless. The selections ranged from classics to new stuff. They can't NOT play the classics. If memory serves, they do different sets each night. Had I been there the following day, I may have, perhaps, heard my personal favourite, "Nautical Disaster."





Anyways... Astounding show. Over too soon, even though it was a couple hours. How they don't completely collapse from exhaustion, I will never know. But I will also never tire of seeing The Hip play shows. Ever.

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : January, 2007.