02-17-2013, 04:47 PM
We saw a bit of a pattern in this regard on the 2009 WATS tour where the setlists were much more varied and diverse at the beginning of the tour than they were at the end...
Songs Played on 2012 Tour by album - including stats
02-21-2013, 01:28 PM
Now For Plan A - Tour Analysis
Here's a bit of what I wrote... I just did a copy/paste thing so it doesn't have all the formatting that's on the website that makes it a bit easier to read, but you'll get the gist....
Link to original post with full stats if you want it: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://tragicallyhiptour.blogspot.com/2013/02/now-for-plan-tour-stats-analysis.html">http://tragicallyhiptour.blogspot.com/2 ... lysis.html</a><!-- m -->
otherwise >>>>>>>>>>>>
The tour is complete and we have gathered our stats. Why? I'm never entirely sure, but it always creates talking points. What will they tell us? Before I get into that I can tell you what they won't tell us. They won't tell us what the band did right with regards to song selection. They also won't tell us what the band did wrong with song selection. These things do not exist. Of course I can offer an opinion on what I think they should or shouldn't have done. So can you. I'm hoping we do in fact. First though, we will look at the raw data. The stuff that is solid and unshaken by opinion. It just is what it is.
First some of the basics to give you a lay of the land. The entire tour consisted of 39 show. 22 in the United States. 17 in Canada. Do you have any opinions on those numbers? I'm sure the folks in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Ottawa, Barrie, London, Windsor, Montreal, Quebec City, Fredericton, Saint John, Sydney, Charlottetown & St. John's do. As do those in the south eastern US & Texas. But that is another matter.
39. 22. 17. That's our focus.
Song totals...
39 shows with 891 total songs played = 22.85 per show. (Total)
22 shows with 503 total songs played = 22.86 per show. (United States)
17 shows with 388 total songs played = 22.82 per show. (Canada)
Total 'Now For Plan A' songs played...
221 of 891 = 24.8% (Total)
136 of 503 = 27% (United States)
85 of 388 = 22% (Canada)
Songs played in the United States that were not played in Canada...
About This Map (2), Take Forever (3), Done & Done (1), Coffee Girl (3), The Rules (4), Daredevil (2), Yawning Or Snarling (1), So Hard Done By (4), Lionized (2), Three Pistols (1), On The Verge (2), Last Of The Unplucked Gems (3)
Songs played in Canada that were not played in the United States:
Twist My Arm (4), Titanic Terrarium (1)
Song titles played in the United States: 61
Song titles played in Canada: 51
Songs played at every single show in the United States:
(3) - At Transformation, Man Machine Poem, Streets Ahead
Songs played at every single show in Canada:
(9) - At Transformation, Man Machine Poem, We Want To Be It, Bobcaygeon, Gift Shop, Ahead By A Century, Grace Too, At The Hundredth Meridian and New Orleans Is Sinking
***These 9 songs made up 153 of the 388 total songs played in Canada (39.4%)
***Songs played in a minimum of 13/17 Canadian dates in addition to the songs listed above: Courage (16), Poets (15), Blow At High Dough (14), My Music At Work (14), Streets Ahead (14), In View (13), Nautical Disaster (13)
***These 16 songs made up 252 of the 388 songs played in Canada (65%) while the remaining 35 song titles only accounted for 35% of the music.
***By comparison, the same 16 songs made up 54.9% of the total songs played in the United States.
Noticible drop-off from United States leg to Canadian leg:
An Inch An Hour (5 times US) vs. (1 time Canada) or 5:1
Family Band (5 times US) vs. (1 time Canada) or 5:1
Eldorado (9 times US) vs. (2 times Canada) or 4.5:1
It Can't Be Nashville Every Night (7 times US) vs. (2 times Canada) or 3.5:1
Goodnight Attawapiskat (16 times US) vs. (5 times Canada) or 3:1
Fully Completely (14 times US) vs. (7 times Canada) or 2:1
Greasy Jungle (10 times US) v. (5 times Canada) or 2:1
Note: I only took into account songs played what I deemed a 'significant amount' for the above. A song like Don't Wake Daddy did have a 2:1 US:Canada ratio, but wasn't played enough to constitute a drop-off.
Overplayed or Underplayed? Or Just Right?
What songs did they play too much? Too little? Just enough?
I'm going to venture into the subjective a little bit here, but I am going to try to balance that with hard data. For the purposes of this exercise, the author's personal song preferences are not a factor. Let's define the catagories and then we'll go about placing the songs where they seem to fit. Note that the songs off the new album (Now For Plan A) are not included as they have no significant tour history. Part of the critera I will use for defining a song's place is its concert history and standing within the band's catalog. Bobcaygeon is always going to get more live action than Chagrin Falls. Therefore the "Just Right" level for each song is different.
Also, if it wasn't played on this tour it's not involved in this exercise. Highway Girl, 38 Years Old, Emergency, Emperor Penguin.... of course they're under-played... They're NEVER played!!! Haw-Haw-Haw.... OK. Let's define the categories...
Overplayed: Regardless of how popular these songs are with the fans, on the charts, on the radio, etc... they are just being played too much. As a specific example of what I mean from this tour let's look at New Orleans Is Sinking. If we were to just take the US portion of the tour where it was played in 13/22 shows, I think that falls into the category of "Just Right". You are going to catch NOIS every other show on average and that's fine. However, it was played at EVERY show on the Canadian portion of the tour for a collective total of 30/39. That's over 75% and for a band with as deep a catalog as The Tragically Hip with so many great tunes that can fill any slot in the setlist, I don't care what song it is, that's too much. If this was 1992 and their catalog was significantly smaller, I would have a different position on this.
In View, My Music At Work, Poets, Bobcaygeon, Gift Shop, Ahead By A Century, Grace Too, Courage, At The Hundredth Meridian, Blow At High Dough and New Orleans Is Sinking.
***Of the above songs, only Bobcaygeon, Grace Too and Ahead By A Century would have made this list before the Canadian portion of the tour began. A glance at the 2012/11/06 Rochester, NY setlist is a great example of a powerful setlist that doesn't need to include every one of these songs in order to deliver a great show.
Just Right: These songs are being played an adequate amout of time based on their station within The Hip's repitoire. It's hard to call a song like Titanic Terrarium underplayed even though it was only played once. It was played twice on the 'We Are The Same' tour, once on the 'World Container' tour, a couple of times in 2006 and 2000 before that. In and of itself it is a rarity for sure, but in this case being played one time on this tour falls within expectations.
Love Is A First, The Kids Don't Get It, Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park, It Can't Be Nashville Every Night, Thompson Girl, The Rules, Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin' Man, Springtime In Vienna, Flamenco, Greasy Jungle, Fire In The Hole, Thugs, An Inch An Hour, Fully Completely, Fifty-Mission Cap, Wheat Kings, Eldorado, Little Bones, Long Time Running, Fiddler's Green, Boots Or Hearts, Titanic Terrarium, Scared, Lionized and Daredevil
***I think these songs were played the right amount based on the number of shows on this tour. Thugs wasn't played as much as Fire In The Hole. The former is always popular for those who catch it and it's special when they do. The latter had a job to do most nights it was played by anchoring the set.
Underplayed: These songs ended up being a treat to catch on this tour. What one could suppose is these songs from this list being substituted in for songs on the Overplayed list... say only 40 times even over the course of the whole 39 shows/800+ song tour. One substitution per show accounting for about 5% of the overall song totals. Who would have laid money on Locked In The Truck Of A Car being played only 3 times? Or It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken only being played 4 times all tour after having been trotted out at every festival show for the past 2 summers? And I have three words for you... the biggest swinging dick of underplayed songs... ON....THE....VERGE.
Morning Moon, Coffee Girl, Lonely End Of The Rink, Family Band, It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken, Lake Fever, Fireworks, Don't Wake Daddy, Yawning Or Snarling, So Hard Done By, Locked In The Trunk Of A Car, Twist My Arm, Three Pistols, On The Verge, Last Of The Unplucked Gems
***There are some monster tunes in this list. Set openers. Set closers. I think that there are a lot of Hipheads who would trade a Bobcaygeon for a Scared on any given night.... especially if they'd seen Bobcaygeon at their last 3 or 4 shows. You want to open with Gems > Family Band? OK. Sure. You say you want to close it down with a one-two of Locked > Verge... Hey, have at it Kimosabe... Do I think you could sub out Courage for Three Pistols and people would still leave satisfied? Yep. I'm getting off track here....
Well that's my categories. Feel free to add your $0.02... The catagories above are open to interpretation so you may have some different thoughts and I'd love to hear them. Other than that, the top and bottom of this post are hard data and it's fun stuff to go through. There are many different ways to look at this data and I know I haven't explored them all. Again, feel free to add you perspective.
Here's a bit of what I wrote... I just did a copy/paste thing so it doesn't have all the formatting that's on the website that makes it a bit easier to read, but you'll get the gist....
Link to original post with full stats if you want it: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://tragicallyhiptour.blogspot.com/2013/02/now-for-plan-tour-stats-analysis.html">http://tragicallyhiptour.blogspot.com/2 ... lysis.html</a><!-- m -->
otherwise >>>>>>>>>>>>
The tour is complete and we have gathered our stats. Why? I'm never entirely sure, but it always creates talking points. What will they tell us? Before I get into that I can tell you what they won't tell us. They won't tell us what the band did right with regards to song selection. They also won't tell us what the band did wrong with song selection. These things do not exist. Of course I can offer an opinion on what I think they should or shouldn't have done. So can you. I'm hoping we do in fact. First though, we will look at the raw data. The stuff that is solid and unshaken by opinion. It just is what it is.
First some of the basics to give you a lay of the land. The entire tour consisted of 39 show. 22 in the United States. 17 in Canada. Do you have any opinions on those numbers? I'm sure the folks in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Ottawa, Barrie, London, Windsor, Montreal, Quebec City, Fredericton, Saint John, Sydney, Charlottetown & St. John's do. As do those in the south eastern US & Texas. But that is another matter.
39. 22. 17. That's our focus.
Song totals...
39 shows with 891 total songs played = 22.85 per show. (Total)
22 shows with 503 total songs played = 22.86 per show. (United States)
17 shows with 388 total songs played = 22.82 per show. (Canada)
Total 'Now For Plan A' songs played...
221 of 891 = 24.8% (Total)
136 of 503 = 27% (United States)
85 of 388 = 22% (Canada)
Songs played in the United States that were not played in Canada...
About This Map (2), Take Forever (3), Done & Done (1), Coffee Girl (3), The Rules (4), Daredevil (2), Yawning Or Snarling (1), So Hard Done By (4), Lionized (2), Three Pistols (1), On The Verge (2), Last Of The Unplucked Gems (3)
Songs played in Canada that were not played in the United States:
Twist My Arm (4), Titanic Terrarium (1)
Song titles played in the United States: 61
Song titles played in Canada: 51
Songs played at every single show in the United States:
(3) - At Transformation, Man Machine Poem, Streets Ahead
Songs played at every single show in Canada:
(9) - At Transformation, Man Machine Poem, We Want To Be It, Bobcaygeon, Gift Shop, Ahead By A Century, Grace Too, At The Hundredth Meridian and New Orleans Is Sinking
***These 9 songs made up 153 of the 388 total songs played in Canada (39.4%)
***Songs played in a minimum of 13/17 Canadian dates in addition to the songs listed above: Courage (16), Poets (15), Blow At High Dough (14), My Music At Work (14), Streets Ahead (14), In View (13), Nautical Disaster (13)
***These 16 songs made up 252 of the 388 songs played in Canada (65%) while the remaining 35 song titles only accounted for 35% of the music.
***By comparison, the same 16 songs made up 54.9% of the total songs played in the United States.
Noticible drop-off from United States leg to Canadian leg:
An Inch An Hour (5 times US) vs. (1 time Canada) or 5:1
Family Band (5 times US) vs. (1 time Canada) or 5:1
Eldorado (9 times US) vs. (2 times Canada) or 4.5:1
It Can't Be Nashville Every Night (7 times US) vs. (2 times Canada) or 3.5:1
Goodnight Attawapiskat (16 times US) vs. (5 times Canada) or 3:1
Fully Completely (14 times US) vs. (7 times Canada) or 2:1
Greasy Jungle (10 times US) v. (5 times Canada) or 2:1
Note: I only took into account songs played what I deemed a 'significant amount' for the above. A song like Don't Wake Daddy did have a 2:1 US:Canada ratio, but wasn't played enough to constitute a drop-off.
Overplayed or Underplayed? Or Just Right?
What songs did they play too much? Too little? Just enough?
I'm going to venture into the subjective a little bit here, but I am going to try to balance that with hard data. For the purposes of this exercise, the author's personal song preferences are not a factor. Let's define the catagories and then we'll go about placing the songs where they seem to fit. Note that the songs off the new album (Now For Plan A) are not included as they have no significant tour history. Part of the critera I will use for defining a song's place is its concert history and standing within the band's catalog. Bobcaygeon is always going to get more live action than Chagrin Falls. Therefore the "Just Right" level for each song is different.
Also, if it wasn't played on this tour it's not involved in this exercise. Highway Girl, 38 Years Old, Emergency, Emperor Penguin.... of course they're under-played... They're NEVER played!!! Haw-Haw-Haw.... OK. Let's define the categories...
Overplayed: Regardless of how popular these songs are with the fans, on the charts, on the radio, etc... they are just being played too much. As a specific example of what I mean from this tour let's look at New Orleans Is Sinking. If we were to just take the US portion of the tour where it was played in 13/22 shows, I think that falls into the category of "Just Right". You are going to catch NOIS every other show on average and that's fine. However, it was played at EVERY show on the Canadian portion of the tour for a collective total of 30/39. That's over 75% and for a band with as deep a catalog as The Tragically Hip with so many great tunes that can fill any slot in the setlist, I don't care what song it is, that's too much. If this was 1992 and their catalog was significantly smaller, I would have a different position on this.
In View, My Music At Work, Poets, Bobcaygeon, Gift Shop, Ahead By A Century, Grace Too, Courage, At The Hundredth Meridian, Blow At High Dough and New Orleans Is Sinking.
***Of the above songs, only Bobcaygeon, Grace Too and Ahead By A Century would have made this list before the Canadian portion of the tour began. A glance at the 2012/11/06 Rochester, NY setlist is a great example of a powerful setlist that doesn't need to include every one of these songs in order to deliver a great show.
Just Right: These songs are being played an adequate amout of time based on their station within The Hip's repitoire. It's hard to call a song like Titanic Terrarium underplayed even though it was only played once. It was played twice on the 'We Are The Same' tour, once on the 'World Container' tour, a couple of times in 2006 and 2000 before that. In and of itself it is a rarity for sure, but in this case being played one time on this tour falls within expectations.
Love Is A First, The Kids Don't Get It, Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park, It Can't Be Nashville Every Night, Thompson Girl, The Rules, Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin' Man, Springtime In Vienna, Flamenco, Greasy Jungle, Fire In The Hole, Thugs, An Inch An Hour, Fully Completely, Fifty-Mission Cap, Wheat Kings, Eldorado, Little Bones, Long Time Running, Fiddler's Green, Boots Or Hearts, Titanic Terrarium, Scared, Lionized and Daredevil
***I think these songs were played the right amount based on the number of shows on this tour. Thugs wasn't played as much as Fire In The Hole. The former is always popular for those who catch it and it's special when they do. The latter had a job to do most nights it was played by anchoring the set.
Underplayed: These songs ended up being a treat to catch on this tour. What one could suppose is these songs from this list being substituted in for songs on the Overplayed list... say only 40 times even over the course of the whole 39 shows/800+ song tour. One substitution per show accounting for about 5% of the overall song totals. Who would have laid money on Locked In The Truck Of A Car being played only 3 times? Or It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken only being played 4 times all tour after having been trotted out at every festival show for the past 2 summers? And I have three words for you... the biggest swinging dick of underplayed songs... ON....THE....VERGE.
Morning Moon, Coffee Girl, Lonely End Of The Rink, Family Band, It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken, Lake Fever, Fireworks, Don't Wake Daddy, Yawning Or Snarling, So Hard Done By, Locked In The Trunk Of A Car, Twist My Arm, Three Pistols, On The Verge, Last Of The Unplucked Gems
***There are some monster tunes in this list. Set openers. Set closers. I think that there are a lot of Hipheads who would trade a Bobcaygeon for a Scared on any given night.... especially if they'd seen Bobcaygeon at their last 3 or 4 shows. You want to open with Gems > Family Band? OK. Sure. You say you want to close it down with a one-two of Locked > Verge... Hey, have at it Kimosabe... Do I think you could sub out Courage for Three Pistols and people would still leave satisfied? Yep. I'm getting off track here....
Well that's my categories. Feel free to add your $0.02... The catagories above are open to interpretation so you may have some different thoughts and I'd love to hear them. Other than that, the top and bottom of this post are hard data and it's fun stuff to go through. There are many different ways to look at this data and I know I haven't explored them all. Again, feel free to add you perspective.
02-21-2013, 03:16 PM
Amazingly put together thank you!
So
I just don't understand why this happened. The tour became a greatest hits show once it turned north of the border with the pinnacle being the last date in Toronto.
I'm going to guess that the "big stadium" tour demands a greatest hit show whereas in the USA , the smaller venue allows the band more freedom to reach their more hardcore fan. Majority rules i suppose. Long live the 2009 Massey Hall performances.
11/06/12 was the best "hardcore" set in my opinion, and a show i'm sad I missed.
So
Quote:Noticible drop-off from United States leg to Canadian leg:
An Inch An Hour (5 times US) vs. (1 time Canada) or 5:1
Family Band (5 times US) vs. (1 time Canada) or 5:1
Eldorado (9 times US) vs. (2 times Canada) or 4.5:1
It Can't Be Nashville Every Night (7 times US) vs. (2 times Canada) or 3.5:1
Goodnight Attawapiskat (16 times US) vs. (5 times Canada) or 3:1
Fully Completely (14 times US) vs. (7 times Canada) or 2:1
Greasy Jungle (10 times US) v. (5 times Canada) or 2:1
I just don't understand why this happened. The tour became a greatest hits show once it turned north of the border with the pinnacle being the last date in Toronto.
I'm going to guess that the "big stadium" tour demands a greatest hit show whereas in the USA , the smaller venue allows the band more freedom to reach their more hardcore fan. Majority rules i suppose. Long live the 2009 Massey Hall performances.
11/06/12 was the best "hardcore" set in my opinion, and a show i'm sad I missed.
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thehip.com/MyConcertStats.html?LinkID=12360571443252482_733834_744">http://www.thehip.com/MyConcertStats.ht ... 733834_744</a><!-- m -->
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