The Tragically Hip
Air Canada Centre
The Good Life Fitness Hard Glow Stick Extravaganza
Toronto, ON
11/05/2009
I am obligated for work to be present (physically) until 8pm. My sister Alie & I had gone back and forth throughout the day as to whether to make the effort to attend this one. A lot was going to be up to her as she would have to be the one to go down and make headway ticket-wise. I had seen tickets posted as recently as 4:30pm on Craigslist still asking $75 per. These guys were fucking nuts, but I don't think they knew it.
Alie got down there around 7:30 pm and had an initial offer of $60 for 2 tickets. I got there at about 8:15pm and she had ended up scoring us tickets for $25 per. You ain't going to beat that price on any continent The Hip have toured this year Bubba. We smoked a joint under the bridge by the GO Station during what would have been New Orleans Is Sinking and proceeded in. The security check was a non-factor, not that it mattered. We had seats in Section 104 Row 10 and we headed that way stopping off for a couple of giant beers. The seats were just great and we had a great view of the stage.
Ticketed Seats
We settled in just as The Depression Suite was ending and were completely established in our new domain as In View started up. Meh. We got up on out feet for the next song, Ahead By A Century and stayed up throughout Gift Shop. The Century jam was fantastic as was the rise up into Gift Shop. I think it would sound so cool if they could have played that ABAC jam down and segued into Gift Shop. Regardless it was solid and these two keep proving to be another solid suite within the live shows.
We sat down for the next song, Morning Moon, but it was hard. Everyone in our section was sitting and you don't want to be that one guy...Poets came next and fuck, we weren't sitting. It looked like there was no guard at the bottom of our section where it met the floor so we said, "Fuck it", and went for the floor. Wow, that was easy! We settled into row 28 on the right hand side. We were one row back of the first cross aisle. It was beautiful. $25 and we pretty much have seats on a par with the soundboard.
The Upgrade
Courage. Forgettable Coffee Girl. Crowd pleasing Wheat Kings. That was the acoustic portion. A solid, rockin' Springtime In Vienna brought us out of that followed by by a Toronto cock stroking Bobcaygeon. Grace, Too was next I think and then we got The Speech. This might have been the single worst moment for me as a Hip fan. The band had just canceled 2 scheduled concerts in Denver and St Paul. Fans going to those shows had had their tickets in hand for weeks. I guarantee you that at least 1 group of friend was planning what in their minds was an Epic Road Trip from Winnipeg down to StP with hotels booked, etc. The band made their Corporate gig for Goodlife Fitness and Gord proceeded to chastise the crowd for throwing hard, shitty for concerts glowsticks that who gave out to everybody? GOODLIFE FITNESS. He sure couldn't blame them could he? That would be biting the hand wouldn't it? Is there any evidence, any at all, to suggest that a crowd at a large rock concert who were given tickets to a great band, alcohol+ and glowsticks to suggest that they would merely hang on to these hard glowsticks and not throw them? I mean what concert was it exactly that glowsticks were given out and they weren't thrown? Seriously. You didn't see it coming? Plus you have a huge rookie factor at these events.
Goodlife Stick
"Just play", I thought. And they did to finish the set. It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken came next and Gord made me laugh with the intro. Things were going to be alright. Fully Completely is a top 5 for me. Tonight was evidence of why. Blow at High Dough shut down the set. The encore of Love Is A First & MMAW was as obvious as tits at Hooters. There is just nothing more to get out of MMAW beyond what's on the album. Fifty Mission Cap would have been a nice touch. A treat for the die-hards that found their way in. A Queen>50MC Encore would have been sweet.
We hit up Gabby's on King St for some $2.22 10oz Coors and some wings. We ordered 28. Half Hot and half Dusted Cajun. They brought us Chipoltele at first by mistake instead of the Cajun so we ended up with everything. What a feast!
I just rolled in and had to get this down before crashing. It was a great night and an unexpected experience for us both when the day began. It really is a Good Life if you don't weaken.
-mjs
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