The Tragically Hip

Simply put, The Tragically Hip is one of my all time favorite bands. The Hip, along with Iron Maiden, are two bands that I can spin any of their recordings from start to finish and thoroughly enjoy all the way through. The Hip’s latest offering, We Are The Same, represents somewhat of a different direction, but fully delivers.

In the early days, The Hip recorded and become known for some signature songs that are now definitive Canadian classic rock. Songs such as New Orleans is Sinking, Blow at High Dow and Little Bones are just a few of their hard hitting ageless classics. But over the years they have given us their share of semi-mellow to mellow tunes as well. Songs like Bobcaygeon, The Dire Wolf, The Emperor Penguin and Wheat Kings are some of my favorites. The newest disc, apart from a couple of songs, offers us a full package of mid tempo tracks and it is unquestionably one of my favorite recordings of the year.

As much as I love The Hip up until recently I have only attended one of their concerts which was about 15 years ago. And to be perfectly honest, it was far from being even close to the top of the list of my favorite shows. I have written about it in an earlier post. However, a couple of months ago I finally got around to seeing this band again and had a total opposite experience. This most recent concert experience gets placed very close to the top of my all time favorites.

The concert was billed as an Evening with The Tragically Hip. There was no opening act, the band played two complete sets and close to 30 songs in total were delivered that night. It didn’t hurt that I had great seats for this show, actually, the best seats I ever had for a concert. Much better compared to the first time around when I was in the back of an arena for a standing room only concert.

The Hip never seem to follow norms and they mix up their set list from night to night. So despite my attempts to snoop around on the Internet the evening still had plenty of surprises. The band started with my favorite track from the new CD, and what might be considered an odd choice for an opening number. The song, The Depression Suite, is actually three songs crammed into one epic 9 to 10 minute mid-tempo track. From there the band played a mixture of old classics, songs from their CDs in recent years, plenty from their new disc and a short three song acoustic set. Everything went over well with the enthusiastic crowd. They sounded great and lead singer Gordon Downie certainly captured everyone’s attention and imagination.

It certainly says a lot for a band and the affection it has garnered with its fans when it can play more than half of the contents of a brand new recording and it is embraced almost as well as the classics in a concert. Looking around the arena there were no droves of people heading to the bathroom when a new song was played as often typically happens at a concert from a band that has been around for a while. It was clear that everyone wanted to embrace every moment of this show.

To conclude with a couple of ratings, Tragically Hip’s newest CD, We Are The Same gets an A+ from me and the concert gets the same.

If you are from the U.S. or another part of the world and are not overly familiar with the Hip I’d be happy to suggestsome songs to get you started. I understand in some parts they have a great following, but in more areas they are not well known. Here in Canada they have reached legendary status over their 20 plus years in the business.

Have a good one!!