In the music industry today, you’ll be hard pressed to find an act that can fill arenas tour after tour, regardless of the frequency. In their Canadian homeland, The Tragically Hip continue to achieve this arena filling success, with their incredible live shows, and diverse setlists that explore the group’s massive catalogue of hits and fan favourites.
Having toured across Canada promoting their latest records for the past three decades, the band decided it was time to change it up, taking the songs they have written and giving fans an evening of hits, with a top to bottom performance of the band’s classic album Fully Completely. With this strategy, the band created the “Fully and Completely” tour, and the definition runs deeper than just an album performance, It’s a full display of the incredible band that is The Hip.
Just after 9pm, the group hit the stage to loud cheers from the nearly sell out crowd, choosing classic opener “Grace, Too” from the Day For Night album to start things off. Tunes from this 1994 classic would continue to be a major theme in the “Hits” portion of the evening with the band also performing their staples “Scared” and “Nautical Disaster” during the encore as well as fan favourite “Titanic Terrarium” during the first set.
About five songs in, the lights went down for a video entry to the Fully Completely set. Starting off with “Courage”, “Looking For a Place to Happen”, and “At the Hundredth Meridian”, the music seemed to get louder, and so did the crowd.
Perhaps the highlight of the night was hearing “Pigeon Camera” live for the first time in awhile, a song rarely played on tour. The album continued with “Lionized”, “Locked in the Trunk of a Car”, fan favourite “We’ll Go Too” and the albums hit title track. Following the first half of the album, everything continued to get louder as the crowd sang along to hockey anthem “Fifty Mission Cap” as well as the band’s most Canadian song “Wheat Kings”, although more phone lights could be seen than Zippo lighters, a sign of the times.
To finish off the set, the band performed the final, high energy tracks “The Wherewithal” and “Eldorado”. The crowd stood and cheered in applause, having realized they just experienced one of the greatest displays of Canadian music we have seen in awhile.
But how could this show possibly end now? The crowd asked for more, and they sure got it!
The Hip returned to the stage to perform a stunning five song encore, opening with “At Transformation”, the lead single from their latest album Now For Plan A, released in 2012. Following the “new Hip”, the band surprised the crowd by performing “Twist My Arm” from the Road Apples album. As mentioned above, the band continued the Day For Night theme with “Scared” and “Nautical Disaster”.
The big question is, could the fans go home singing and dancing from a Hip show? The answer is a definite “YES!”. To close the evening, the group played their upbeat “Blow at High Dough” to loud, overpowering lyric belting from the crowd. Singing and cheering could be heard in the streets of Downtown Halifax as fans left another excellent Hip concert.
With this spectacular show, the band showed that they continue to be one of Canada’s greatest live bands, and fans will continue to pack the Scotiabank Centre as long as they will play. When will that be, you ask? The great news is that following the capping of the current tour, The Hip plan to enter the studio to record their next album, and will undoubtedly tour this great country in support of it.
This concludes the ACR review of a great night in the City of Halifax. The Tragically Hip also brought the tour to St. John’s on April 8th, and Moncton on the 10th. The band is set to rock their hometown, Kingston Ontario on Tuesday night.
“No dress rehearsal, this is our life.”
Full Set List:
Grace, Too
My Music at Work
Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin’ Man
Titanic Terrarium
In View
Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)
Looking for a Place to Happen
At the Hundredth Meridian
Pigeon Camera
Lionized
Locked in the Trunk of a Car
We’ll Go Too
Fully Completely
Wheat Kings
The Wherewithal
Eldorado
Encore:
At Transformation
Twist My Arm
Scared
Nautical Disaster
Blow at High Dough