[Drez7]

Congrats Sean! I hope I can convert my future children as you are...

Back on topic, can't believe I missed this one. How was the sound? Any tapers noticeable??

[hipkid33]

Back on topic, can't believe I missed this one. How was the sound? Any tapers noticeable??

Saw a taper about 6 rows in front of me dead center (row P-ish?), he was doing video as well. Sound was very good, a lot of low end, but not much different from any other closed in concert. Excellent, excellent show. Easily in the top 5 attended.


Great to have you back Sean! Long-time-no-read! Congrats on #4!

[Tthip]

The music critic from the Buffalo News really "gets" The Hip:
I copied an article below previewing the show, one hell of a quote:

"every Hip show is different, every one magic in its own way, with the best of the bunch able to summon a rarefied atmosphere where song, performance and listener fuse into a surreal, shared dream state.
Seriously. I've felt it."

Jeff Miers, Buffalo News.


If you're one of the lucky fans who, a few weeks ago, snapped up tickets to the WNED Buffalo Niagara Guitar Festival's presentation this Saturday of the Tragically Hip at Artpark, be prepared to be showered with additional blessings: Odds are strongly in favor of you hearing some brand new Hip music at this very special show.
The band has been in the studio with producer Bob Rock for several months, and the limited run of dates the Hip is performing this summer and early fall - a few in Canada, a few in the States, a bunch in Europe - seems the perfect opportunity for a little road-testing of new material.

Regardless, anyone who has seen this band live - and I'm guessing you're the very folks who rabidly gobbled up all those tickets in less than an hour - knows that every Hip show is different, every one magic in its own way, with the best of the bunch able to summon a rarefied atmosphere where song, performance and listener fuse into a surreal, shared dream state.

Seriously. I've felt it.

In May, the Hip was honored by Toronto's Royal Conservatory of Music, and the group can now count as acknowledged peers such Canadian musicians as legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson and songwriter, activist and virtuoso guitarist Bruce Cockburn - company the Hip, a band that has injected so much passion, drama and mystique into rock 'n' roll, deserves to keep.

Saturday's Artpark show, where the lucky few may be hearing the new material, is sold out. But you still might have a chance to see the band this season. Last week, promoters for the Ovation Music Festival in Stratford, Ont., announced that the Hip will headline this year's festival, taking place Sept. 9. Tickets for that gig are going for $45 (Canadian funds). They can be found at (888) 388-1928 or (519) 271-3134.

To follow the band's progress on its forthcoming studio album, visit <!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.thehip.com">www.thehip.com</a><!-- w -->.

- Jeff Miers

[Problem Bear]

The same critic also wrote this review:

LEWISTON - The WNED Buffalo-Niagara Guitar festival almost became a thing of the past this year.

That changed when the team behind the festival collaborated with a local promoter and announced that the Tragically Hip would headline this year's fest with a show at the gorgeous amphitheater Artpark.

The show sold out in under an hour, not in the least surprising; Western New York has always been a great market for the Hip, the delightful, idiosyncratic band of brothers whose music is equal parts celebratory and cerebral, left-of-center and consistently compelling.

Opening with the most sinister song in its set - "Don't Wake Daddy," one of several unique rock songs from the "Trouble at the Henhouse" record - the Hip tore it up in the extreme heat, and the crowd embraced it all.

The band - led by the theatrical gesticulations, stream-of-consciousness Beat-poet improv and wonderfully warm vocal stylings of Gord Downie, bolstered by the telepathic twin-guitar interplay of Paul Langlois and Rob Baker, and driven home with machine-like grace by the rhythm section of bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay - has always excelled at melding Rolling Stones-like rhythmic drive to a more alternative aesthetic. Saturday evening offered an opportunity for the Hip to test material from its work in progress, and the new songs were among the finest, most realized of the evening. "Lonely End of the Rink" measures up to the band's strongest, most haunting songs - including "Grace, Too," "Locked In the Trunk of a Car," "Nautical Disaster," and "Bobcaygeon."In fact, both "Bobcaygeon," one of the band's two most indelible songs - the other is "Ahead by a Century" - and "Nautical Disaster" made it to this incredible set. But ". . .Rink" and another new tune, "The Dropoff" were equally brain-befuddling and intoxicating. The Hip's finest tunes are high rock-art; full-bodied riffs, delicate but muscular guitar interplay, a deep-in-the-pocket groove, and Downie's skittish genius add up to a one of a kind "thing." There might be a better word for it, but I can't grab it right now. You had your "Courage," your "Hundredth Meridian," a few of the tunes from the last record that most easily stuck to the ribs - "Summer Is Killing Us" and "It Can't Be Nashville Every Night" - and a ribald "Blow at High Dough." Enough to satisfy every Hip fan, and more than a hint of the incredible material to come.

Gordon Downie, it must be said, is one of the finest lyricists in rock. His ability to manipulate language, his unerring ear for the great line, the perfect couplet, the tension-building craftsmanship - really, they are all unequaled amongst Downie's peer group. Marry all of this to Downie's on-stage demeanor and you've got one of the most intriguing, consistently excellent front men in the history of the idiom.

The Tragically Hip gave all it had on Saturday. It was more than enough.