Hairbird wrote:Setlist:
The Lonely End Of The Rink
New Orleans Is Sinking
Fully Completely
Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park
Luv (sic)
Bobcaygeon
In View
Poets
Fiddler’s Green
World Container
Springtime In Vienna
At The Hundredth Meridian
Ahead By A Century
The Kids Don’t Get It
Gift Shop
Wheat Kings
Yer Not The Ocean
Three Pistols
Blow At High Dough
Encore:
Train In Vain (AKA Stand By Me) - The Clash
Family Band
On The Verge
My fist time hearing Fiddler's Green in person! “For all the little boys here tonight, and the mothers too. OK, and the dads as well. And the sailors, Shakespeare freaks, for all of you…” To my amazement, a bunch of people around me figured it would be a good time to sit down and rest for a few minutes. I found it strange, but who can really blame them, they’d been standing for almost 40 minutes by that point! There was another song, Wheat Kings I believe, where the same phenomenon occurred around me. Perhaps the crowd here was a little too dopey. The big difference that I noticed between the Barrie crowd and the Sault Ste. Marie crowd was the pot! In The Soo I was shocked to go through the entire concert without smelling a whiff. In Barrie, I can’t remember I time when I didn’t smell it! I can’t explain it, nor could I care less, but I thought it was an interesting difference.
Gord put on quite a display during Meridian again. I had a better view of him tonight. He draped a white handkerchief over his face, lay back using his mic stand like a beach chair, and put his feet up on the monitors to take a nap. It was quite a feat of balance I’m sure, made only more amazing when he started waving his arms around while laying back like that. A pretty standard jam ensued. I don’t believe that it built on any of the new ideas that I seemed to perceive at the last show.
Wheat Kings was introduced: “Anyone here been in jail for a crime they didn’t commit?” That was followed by a big applause from the crowd. Gord replied with: “Whoaooo. That’s a lot of justice!” Rob plays the first half of this song lap-style slide on an acoustic guitar with a Telecaster (if I remember correctly) slung behind his back. He then hands off the acoustic, spins the Telecaster around to the front, and rips off a great electric solo.
Three Pistols has always been one of my favorites from The Hip’s entire catalogue, and I love it every time that I get to see it live. Tonight’s version didn’t seem to go off perfectly. I don’t remember if Gord has been doing this during recent history, but during every chorus he was singing “…three pistols spent” instead of the three/two “people spent” progression on the album. It may just have been my imagination, but it seemed like Paul and Sinclair were trying to sing the original lyrics in the background and Downie was singing his revised lyrics over top of them. Something sounded a little off, but despite that I still love the energy of that song, and it will always be a highlight for me.
Tonight’s cover was Train In Vain by The Clash. For me it was totally unexpected but it sounded great and went over really well. I love these covers every show. Even though it’s now pretty predictable that we’ll hear a different cover as the first or second song of a three song encore, it’s still a total unknown every night, and it seems to be just as enjoyable for the band as it is for the crowd. While driving down to Barrie before the show I had a vision that Baby Please Don’t Go would make an appearance. Apparently I’m more of a psyco than a psychic, but it also got me thinking that I’d love to here Gloria or Train Kept A Rollin’ over the next couple of nights.
On The Verge was another real treat for me. I’ll have to go back through the setlists of the shows I’ve attended to see, but it may be the first time I’ve heard that one too. It’s always been a favorite of mine on the early 90’s bootlegs, and in my mind the NOIS/Verge combo was made in heaven. The only thing that would be better than hearing Verge, or getting a break from NOIS it it’s present day form, would to be to hear NOIS followed in a raging frenzy by Verge! I wonder when the last time that combo was played back-to-back? Go listen to a boot circa ’91 or so and see if you don’t agree that the combo is greater than the sum of those two parts. Of course, NOIS was played with a different kind of passion then, but I still think it’d make a killer combo today.
Sorry, I forgot my pen and paper, so I didn’t write down Kathleen Edwards set, but as I recall it was almost identical to the one I posted in the Sault Ste. Marie review. I’m not sure if she dropped anything from The Soo, but she added a Byrds cover tonight. I wasn’t familiar with it, and couldn’t tell you the name. If it was a bit fresher in my memory I could probably have figured it out, but I can’t remember much about it now.
All in all it was an enjoyable show. I don’t believe that Gord was quite as animated, either vocally or physically, as he was in The Soo, but he still put on a great show. The rest of the band sounded great. It seemed to my untrained ears that Rob hit a couple of strange notes throughout the night, but he also played some killer licks when I wasn’t expecting them. Gord Sinclair and Johnny seemed to be working really well together, and I noticed a lot of eye contact and communication between them. Paul was Paul, rock solid as always.
It was great to meet markslog and bornalion, and to catch up with dreyfuss, chris and Trevor once again. I’m looking forward to tomorrow!
Gord has been singing "Three Pistols" that way for a while. I don't think I've heard a live version of the song where he doesn't stray from the original lyrics. Maybe in the early 90's he was singing the lyrics from the cd, but I'm not sure.
Rob always hits strange notes and they are always LOUD and NOTICEABLE. God bless Robbie but when he makes an obvious mistake, the whole arena hears it.
