[Killer Whale Tank]

The only thing I disagree with in his post is that "The Hip had no mystique." As a 12 year old kid, seeing the band in a sold out arena for the first time in the mid 90s, there most certainly was a mystique.

Couldn't agree more. Seeing the Hip live in the mid-late 90s was almost a religious experience. I would argue that they were easily the most powerful live act on the planet at that time. I remember that awesome feeling of anticipation and excitement in the crowd right before they would hit the stage. It was remarkable. This was also the height of Gord's "crazy/madman/poet" stage persona, and fans were really drawn to that. There was certainly an aura of mystery about him and the band at the time, that's for sure.

100%. The peak for me was Day For Night, that period. These guys were the best live band in the world, and the debate held with my friends was not whether they stacked up with Nirvana and U2, but which of the three was supreme. What is so hard to describe was the feeling that this was a band of destiny - that they were BOUND to conquer the world and become mega-stars, that any Hip show was Ground Zero for some sort of rock and roll nova. The excitement was unreal. And Gord seemed like he came from another planet - just seething charisma in a bottle and he carried the crowd with him on this massive catharsis.

Personally, I found that aura sort of went "poof" when they deliberately dialed it down a notch with TATHH. Then they became an interesting band, but no longer the locus of that special madness. Or maybe it was I who matured and began to recognize that, really, these are just guys like anyone else (Gord included). But whatever it was, that album was the pivot into their being "just a great band" for me, rather than something historic.For a while there, they just captured some aspect of a very specific Canadian and generational zeitgeist - not unlike what Dylan or The Beatles did in the 60s, or U2 did with Achtung Baby, to far more global audiences.