Posted by On July 11th, 2013 I took in an evening at the Ottawa Bluesfest where I saw a trio of bands in ascending order of awesomeness beginning with the rather non-explosive The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and ending with the very explosive The Tragically Hip.*
As I sat down to write this elongated anecdote I initially confused Jon Spencer (an American who is about my age) with Spencer Davis (who is Welsh and was born before either of my parents were), which made me wonder if I had walked into the Bluesfest that evening thinking I was going to see someone I wasn’t. If I was, I was disappointed. Heck, even if I wasn’t I was still disappointed, as I found the band pretty meh all-around. Meh songwriting, meh playing, meh energy.
And lest you think I was just poo-poohing the band because I had never heard of them, the next act up was similarly unknown to me and I thought they were quite awesome. As soon as JS and his Explosions fizzled off of one of the main stages a transgendered ukulele strummer who called themselves “LP” emerged on the opposite main stage and sang like a freakin’ dream. I swear, sometimes their voice sounded like a theremin, other times like a clarinet. His sound and vibe were super-cool, her band was really good and their songwriting was really interesting too. I’m actually a bit surprised at myself for not keeping up with LP’s career; at least I would be if I didn’t not do that sort of thing all the time.
But then, in an overall sense I was pretty distracted by the headlining act of the evening.
This was the fourth of five times I was blessed to witness The Tragically Hip perform at the Ottawa Bluesfest – the last three came in the space of five years – but man-o-man you wouldn’t catch me complaining about the multiple bookings. Sure, I’d grumble when the festival seemed to be booking Blue Rodeo or Zac Brown every second year or so but not The Hip. As far as I was concerned they could’ve booked them to play twice a year.
This time the band was touring what ended up being their penultimate album, Now for Plan A. Though it’s not my favourite record of theirs I love the way the album’s title is punchlined by its cover (which depicts an interrupted game of Twister). Clever bit of humour right there.
The show touched on the new album for only a couple of songs, instead leaning heavily on fan favourites like Ahead by a Century, Blow at High Dough, Bobcaygeon, and of course New Orleans is Sinking (which this time featured an awesome segue in and out of Nautical Disaster during the extendo-jam section) and kept the old-schoole fans raging right through the Hundredth Meridian/Little Bones encore. ’Twas awesome through-and-through.
If I remember correctly this was one of several Hip shows where I struggled in vain the hear Gord Downie’s incessant soloing mid-song ranting, which was a pretty frustrating ordeal. For while there is no question that the string pullers and skin pounders in the group have developed an impressive sonic momentum – one could almost refer to the musical force that emanates from the band as an “explosion” – the sizzle in the steak comes from Downie’s impromptu verbal incantations, his stream-of-consciousness poetry that punctuates, elevates, and often illustrates the music that grinds behind him. So when the opposing wind and the tall, wide sky reduced Gord’s showmanship to a few barely-heard words and snippets it was a bit like having someone talk your ear off while you do you best to listen to all the best guitar solos.
But overall it was still a great show and I’m thankful to the Bluesfest for bringing them back again and again. Oh, how I wish The Hip could come back one more time.
*My apologies for those awkward “the”’s but I’m a stickler for getting a band’s name right. It’s been my experience that bands often spend a lot of effort and argument deciding on their collective name, even (especially?) particulars like ampersand versus “and”, whether to capitalize or hyphenate, whether or not to include “Band” at the end, and yes, whether there should be a “The” at the beginning or not. In my eyes “The Phish” is just as wrong as “Tragically Hip”.
Todd Man Out 