Anyone is welcome to submit a Guest Blog Entry to torontomike.com. I received the following submission earlier today.
The Blues are still required.
Something that concert reviews seem to pay little attention to is the surface on which concertgoers stand. Sometimes seating is a matter of discussion, and for the record, I have sat in or on stadium seating (Springsteen 1985), arena seating (Rush, 1988), very comfy concert hall seating (The Waterboys, Massey Hall, 1989), folding chairs (U2-1988), and concrete benches (the old Concert Hall, Toronto, The Waterboys, 1989). Seating is seating, really; ideally, people are not supposed to be sitting at a concert, if you ask me; this worked OK for the Celtic-bent of the Waterboys and Van Morrison, but for a real rock concert, let me stand, please. People who brought folding chairs to the Watershed Festival (2002) ought to be thrown into the old folks home where they belong.
If I think of concerts I've enjoyed less, it seems to me that it might have had something to do with what I was standing on. Dried packed mud is depressing. The fact that I most enjoyed seeing the Hip in 1992 and 1993 might have less to do with the fact that they (and I) were younger and more energetic than with the fact that I saw them at Molson Park in Barrie, standing in lush green grass. I've seen them three times since, everytime standing on hard mud or gravel-1996: Cayuga Race Track, 2002: Ottawa Blues Fest and Walkerton Watershed (as mentioned above). Part of my memories of each of these concerts is the dirt I was standing in, the way it really made litter obvious, its hardness and, well, its dirtiness. Standing on an unyielding surface seems to me to be somehow contrary to the spirit of music (kind of like sitting, I guess).
I was thinking of this as I looked forward to seeing the Hip at The Wasaga Beach Blues Festival. The tickets from Ticketmaster promised that the concert would be "on the beach." And that was exactly the way it was, and it was awesome. One of Gord's repeated rants was, "How can you have the blues at Wasaga Beach?" He was right. The concert was fantastic, and I honestly think it's one of the best times I've ever had at a concert. The crowd was young, there was pot everywhere and about halfway through, Gord looked out at the crowd and rambled, "This is when the tits come out" (they already were).
They played a lot of new stuff and a lot of old stuff. The highlights were "New Orleans is Sinking" and "Blow at High Dough" of course, but "Springtime in Vienna" is always a live favourite for me. A neat surprise was the revival of "We'll Go Too"-- a song whose chorus is so easy to sing along to. Of the new songs, "It Can't Be Nashville Every Night", "You are Everywhere" and "One Night in Copenhagen" all kicked serious ass. In all, my love for this great Canadian band-- one of the great live bands of all time-- was renewed mightily. With the smell of pot in the air and people all around me freeing themselves; looking out over gorgeous Georgian bay, with its series of points fading into the misty air; Gord rambling, "There's only one rule here-- that you can't lie to yourself, that's what happened with that one guy there (pointing leftward, off stage), so we had to show him the door"; my bare feet digging into the cool, wonderfully soft Wasaga sand-- with all of this, I must say, I felt fine, and I'm really sure it was genuine.
Jim Huinink
Dude, I wish I was there. The Tragically Hip are my favourite band to see live. I'm glad to hear your love for them has been renewed.
I want to comment on something you wrote about standing for a concert. I have never spent a second sitting for a rock concert and I hope I never will. From the opening note through the final encore, you've got to be on your feet. This is particularly true for Hip shows. I remember attending the Hip show on New Year's Eve 1999 with My wife and another couple and being shocked to see the other couple was sitting for part of the concert. They were actually using the seat they had purchased! I was flabbergasted. Whatever the venue, if Gord is on stage doing his thing, you've got to stand and share the love.
