2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

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Shane Kroeker
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Re: 2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Post by Shane Kroeker »

ewallman wrote:
Shane Kroeker wrote:Very nice show all in all. I was quite disappointed due to the seating arrangement, and I am sure that ticketmaster will get an absolute earfull from fans, as no one knew where there seats were, due to the split row numbers.
My highlight was certainly "The Last Spike" rant during the intro to ABAC. Gord had "the most annoying sound in the world go off in his ear piece, and quickly linked the dying battery packs' spike in volume, to the final spike on the railroad driven by Pierre Berton himself stright into Gord's skull.
I hope there is a recording of that out there!

And to follow up on that piece, the Winnipeg Sun reporter noted:

He is the only performer I’ve seen who can use the process of changing a battery pack as the basis for a poetic monologue
There was no VIP section in Winnipeg. I only saw one family with VIP stickers, which enabled them to roll around on the outfield grass and gain access behind the stage before the hip playing.
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Shane Kroeker
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Re: 2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Post by Shane Kroeker »

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-a ... 01744.html
Tragically Hip knock it out of Winnipeg ballpark
Love affair with veteran rockers still going strong
By: Melissa Martin


For 27 long years, Winnipeg and the Tragically Hip have loved each other, hard, with the kind of love that naturally blooms between Prairie people, and a band that rocks out about hockey.

And Thursday night, it was time to take that long relationship to the next level: For the very first time, Gord Downie and his crew made it to second base.

Hey, why not? They've played almost every other venue in Winnipeg, and the baseball park is a beautiful venue for a summer show -- other than the much-ballyhooed beer line bottlenecks. ("You can't even sell your kidney for a beer in this place," moaned a concert-goer, stalking out of the park between opening sets.)

Who needs a beer when the sight is this intoxicating: At about 9:20 p.m., the trees of the Red River banks loomed green behind the stage, the spire of the Esplanade Riel poked up in the distance, and the Tragically Hip marched onto a simple stage with little fanfare.

A band this veteran doesn't need bells and whistles.

No, they just dive right in. Downie, looking dapper in a button-down vest and crisp, checkered shirt, walked to the edge of the stage and pounced on the microphone.

A slash of chords cut through the gathering night and a one-two punch of old and new kicked off the show: 2006's Lonely End of the Rink, followed by classic Hip hit Grace, Too.

While beach balls flew across the jam-packed field, Downie gave a nod to the city that has always made the Hip at home.

"They don't name anything after musicians, except the Burton Cummings Theatre," he said. "That's why you're ahead of your time, Winnipeg."

As the sun set behind the stands, the Hip offered up some of their comparatively mellow songs to sink it on its way: It's A Good Life (If You Don't Weaken), for instance, and Gift Shop. And there was much more Winnipeg love: With a grin, Downie picked up a guitar and dedicated Ahead By A Century to Lloyd Axworthy and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Unfortunately, press time came only halfway through the show -- just as the growing energy of a well-lubricated crowd (congrats to whoever got the kidney) started to fuse with a set driving toward bone-rattling rockers.

But first, a little surprise. "Well, it's not just a special night. Tonight is Johnny (Fay's) birthday," Downie trilled, before leading the crowd into an unexpectedly lovely Birthday Song singalong to the drummer.

Then the band slammed into the unforgettable riff to the 100th Meridian -- and one can guess what happened next.

Sadly, the show was not quite such a smash for Broken Social Scene.

Despite frontman Brendan Canning's best attempt to woo the crowd -- a Winnipeg Jets jersey -- the acclaimed Toronto indie-rock collective received a tepid response from party-hearty Hip fans, who all but drowned out the set with beer-line buzz.

"Are you with us? Some of you?" Canning asked, wryly. "Some of you are with us. I think."

[email protected]


The Tragically Hip

July 7, 2011

Shaw Park

Attendance: 10,000

Four stars out of five
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Shane Kroeker
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Re: 2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Post by Shane Kroeker »

http://www.winnipegsun.com/2011/07/08/h ... -no-errors
Hip at Shaw Park: Plenty of hits, no errors 17
By Darryl Sterdan
Gordon Downie knows a concert when he sees one.

“There’s a girl on some shoulders,” the Tragically Hip frontman declared a few songs into the band’s gig at Shaw Park on Thursday night. “We got a rock show.”

Indeed we did. A Can-Rock show, to be exact. And a fine one to boot, as the always-dependable Hip delivered two hours of hits and highlights for a surprisingly sizable and predictably hard-partying crowd at the musically underused downtown sports venue (which provides a cozier, more comfortable concert experience than the massive stadium).

But back to Downie. Looking downright country gentlemanly (and vaguely Amish) in a dark vest, longsleeve shirt, glasses and straw hat, he was his usual enigmatic and oddly possessed self, shifting between shaman, madman, magician, musician, mischief-maker and marionette, his voice shapeshifting from a growling baritone to a wobbly croon to an unhinged yowl — often in the same song. As always, his bandmates — guitarists Rob Baker and Paul Langlois, backed by bassist Gord Sinclair and birthday boy Johnny Fay — were the rock to his roll, laying down a solid base for his stream-of-consciousness antics and freewheeling flights of poetic fancy. (He is the only performer I’ve seen who can use the process of changing a battery pack as the basis for a poetic monologue.)

Which is to say: It was a fairly standard Tragically Hip show. But if you’ve seen them before — and if you haven’t, let me be the first to welcome you here from whatever distant and exotic land you recently left — you already know a standard Tragically Hip concert is generally a good thing.

This one surely was, right from the start. It was also a very loud thing. They took to the canopied stage positioned just beyond the infield with no introduction or fanfare. But they made their presence known immediately, filling the space with the big chords of the U2ish Lonely End of the Rink. It was followed by the sauntering swagger of Grace, Too, complete with some serious ear-crushing screams from Downie (“I gotta work on my Howlin’ Wolf; my Muddy Waters too,” he babbled) and the decidedly unromantic Love is a First, whose 4/4 snare beat and baritone vocals were offset by the sight of a happy-face beach ball bouncing through the crowd. I believe that is known as irony.

There might also have been a little of that in Downie’s next query: “Shaw Park; is that for Jimmy Shaw?” he wondered, presumably referring to Metric’s guitarist. “They never name anything after musicians, do they? Except for the Burton Cummings Theatre. That’s why you’re ahead of your time, Winnipeg. You’ve always been ahead of your time.”

The key word in that odd little ramble was apparently ‘ahead’ — as in Streets Ahead, the song that followed. It was one of a few new numbers that were peppered throughout the 21-song set, along with the slow jangler Drip Drip and the midtempo rocker Transformation, which was distinguished by a sharply clanging bassline.

The newbies fit in seamlessly with the rest of the set, which flowed smoothly between dreamy acoustic slowburners (It’s a Good Life, Gift Shop, Ahead by a Century) and funkier, harder-edged crowdpleasers (Poets, At the Hundredth Meridian and Fully Completely, during which the vertical lighting trusses popped like fireworks). An emotional highlight of the night came when Downie opened the poignant Fiddler’s Green by eulogizing recently slain York Region Const. Garrett Styles, saying, “He was a big Hip fan. He was a family man. And as Clint Eastwood will tell you, that’s about the best a man can ever hope to be.” Another, more lighthearted moment came when he got the crowd to sing Happy Birthday to Fay.

Of course, the real audience-participation portion of the evening began a few songs later, when they played the opening notes to their golden oldie New Orleans is Sinking. The crowd went nuts, the beer flowed even faster (and that’s saying something at a Hip gig) and the fans on the field around me began to dance (or at least I assume that’s what all that clumsy lurching and leaping was about; no one is eve going to accuse Hip fans of being especially, well, hip). The momentum of New Orleans (which segued into Nautical Disaster) carried them through the rest of the set, which ended with a three-song encore of Blow at High Dough, the Milgaard-inspired Wheat Kings and the closer Music at Work.

Worked for me, anyway. I’m not the biggest Hip fan around — in fact, like a lot of local music lovers, I had to choose between this show and the second night of Folk Fest. With no disrespect to Tegan and Sara and the rest of Thursday’s Birds Hill lineup, the Hip at the ball park seemed like (and near as I can tell, turned out to be) the more novel and rewarding offering.

Hey, sometimes I know a concert when I see one too.

Set List:

The Lonely End of the Rink

Grace, Too

Love is a First

Streets Ahead

It’s a Good Life (If You Don't Weaken)

In View

Drip Drip

Gift Shop

Poets

Ahead By a Century

Transformation

At the Hundredth Meridian

Fiddler's Green

Fully Completely

Courage (For Hugh Maclennan)

Bobcaygeon

New Orleans is Sinking / Nautical Disaster

Little Bones

Encore:

Blow at High Dough

Wheat Kings

My Music at Work
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Re: 2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Post by hefner »

Here are some photos from this show:
http://chrisgrahamphoto.com/thehipwinnipeg/
07/17/95 Craven, SK
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05/27/06 Gorge Amphitheatre, George, WA
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07/18/07 Bessborough Hotel, Saskatoon, SK
07/07/11 Shaw Park, Winnipeg, MB
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Re: 2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Post by saxxer »

hefner wrote:Here are some photos from this show:
http://chrisgrahamphoto.com/thehipwinnipeg/
Awesome Photos!!
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sean.bonner
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Re: 2011-07-07 - Shaw Park - Winnipeg, Manitoba

Post by sean.bonner »

Listening to this show this evening. Sounds like a killer performance.
Hope a show from the 2011 tour makes it into a Live From The Vault... after a few PP and M@W shows of course.
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