The Hip bring on a brand new renaissance

Teresa Haydon
Apr 20, 2015
4 min read

Artist: The Tragically Hip

Date: Saturday, April 18, 2015

Venue: First Niagara Centre

City: Buffalo, NY

Price: $99.00 US

Seats: Floor, Row 15

Genre: Canadian Rock and Roll

Overview:

This was the last show of the North American Tour for the Tragically Hip as part of their Fully Completely reunion/reissue tour. The show was divided into three segments, the intro songs, the entire Fully Completely album and then the encore.

Vibe:

This was an amazing mix of young and old Hip fans. There were tons of Canadians in the crowd and Buffaloians know how to rock and roll. With a classic rock band with a huge following this is crowd that knows every word to every song and wants to sing along. Everyone was dancing, swaying, singing and generally enjoying a legendary Canadian band.

Highlights:

Well, one the best highlights was that it was Anita's (my bestie) birthday so we got to celebrate with drinking and dancing and singing to one of the best Canadian bands ever.

The sets and imagery portrayed during the Fully Completely sgement was a nice little touch. They showed videos of loons swimming during wheat kings and driving through prarie towns during "hundredth meridian".

Our favourite tunes were Scared, Nautical Disaster and Wheat Kings. I brought our lighters so we could sway and sing along with Wheat Kings like good old school rock and rollers.

I tried my best to impersonate some of Gord's dance moves...I was doing the fish cast and reel, the fishing snag and the firing of the shof gun...I think the people behind me thought I was zaney.

You can learn the top ten Gord Downie dance moves too...click here for a little slideshow:

http://music.cbc.ca/#!/blogs/2013/6/How-to-dance-like-Gord-Downie

Lowlights:

Gord always puts on amazingly animated performance to keep the audience entertained. I love this eclectic dancing and crazy miming while belts out yer favourites. At this show, I felt like the Fully Completely segment was a little rushed and frantic. I realize that the band has been performing the same album night after night for months and this was the last show before a month long break, but it seemed like they were a bit eager to get through it at points and were playing/singing at hyper speed.

I was surprised that there wasn't a lot of banter with the audience. Gord stuck to the set list with only a simply hello and thank you. I have seen Gord go off on some tirades but at this show he stuck to the lyrics word for word - and so did the audience. There was no introduction of the band either which was odd.

I was really looking forward to the audience reaction when he sings "I remember, I remember Buffalo" in the middle of "At the hundredth meridian" but, I was disappointed when he raced through it without the emphasis that it deserved.

Tips/Notes: For an arena show, the acoustics were pretty darn good. I haven't been to an arena show in a long time so I forgot that you don't get much room to dance between rows of collapsible chairs. I would have been just has happy if they could have marked outnumbered boxes on the floor without needing seats - more like a general admissions where you have a reserved place to stand (does that even exist). I didn't use the concessions or facilities so no comment on those, but the line ups in and out had no issues. We tried to go for dinner and pre-concert drinks at Gabriel's Gate in downtown Buffalo as we hear they have the best wings, but the wait was 45 minutes long. We ended up at Pearl Street Grill where we had Street Fighter ales and chicken wings. It was a great spot to eat as it was only a 5 minute walk to the venue and we parked across the street in a public lot for $10. We prefer going to Buffalo shows over Toronto as it is closer and we love the area downtown. The Canadian dollar is pretty shitty right now so it cost us $126 bucks to get $100 American.

Outfit: I crafted some homemade tank tops for me and Anita to wear and homemade t-shirts for Bill and Ron. I can be a little crafty at times and I think they turned out better than buying a $30 tee shirt. I also made my tank top with the words to "Wheat Kings" on the back. I will see about posting a picture since I am also working on sculpting my back and shoulders for the summer tank top season! I also got to wear my new leather-look pants with my over the knees black boots. it was a total rock and roll look capped off with my black leather jacket.