Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Edmonton Night 1

Ten years to the day. Two fans who were at Rexall Place for Edmonton night one tell the story - the presale tricks, the tight circle on stage, and the night the building went to church.

Episode Summary

Edmonton, night one. July 28th, 2016. Rexall Place - months before Rogers Place opened its doors - and The Tragically Hip's first of two nights in Oil Country on the Man Machine Poem Tour. Ten years later, Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour sits down with Britain from Wainwright and Dave from Edmonton, two fans who were in the building. Amber from Meadow Lake joins long enough to drop the ticket story of the series - her seniors' exercise class watching her land eighth row on the floor through the Tales From The Hip fan club presale, in tears - before the connection gremlins claim her. We hope to hear the rest of it someday.

The road to tickets is half the fun. Dave is the lapsed fan brought all the way back - off the bus during the Bob Rock years, pulled in by 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind', then all in the moment the news about Gord broke: two sets of four from Ticketmaster, first spin. Britain - 40 shows deep - worked the presale, then discovered Ticketmaster would upgrade seats right up to showtime, held his target ticket hostage online while he waited on the phone, and turned row 17 into row 11 centre. Then he drove the 200 kilometres from Wainwright and did it all again two nights later.

Inside the building, the panel remembers the band opening in that tight huddle at the front of the stage - a support group, buddies in the garage, there for Gord - before the intermission and the thunderstorm video interlude gave way to the full rock show. The album-by-album set list format gets called a stroke of genius, the In Between Evolution sampler delivers 'Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park' as a sleeper highlight, and 'Scared' - "pleasure doing business with you" - leaves Britain levitating somewhere above the floor. Dave's word for it: church.

There's real talk about saying goodbye - during the show, on August 20th, 2016 when CBC paused its own Olympics for 11 million of us, and not until the Long Time Running documentary made it land. The word this panel keeps coming back to: celebration.

The Panel

• Britain from Wainwright - 40 shows and counting, equidistant from everywhere and willing to drive. Video-recorded the entire night from his seat on a monopod; the footage lives on YouTube under his handle, Britstones, and the audio lives in his iTunes library.
• Dave from Edmonton - the returning fan who got to say goodbye in the same barn where he saw The Hip as a younger man. Now the commissioner of the great Hip song bracket running daily in the Facebook group - 128 songs enter, one leaves.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Welcome and panel introductions
• 02:00 - Dave: a lapsed fan hears the news and is instantly all in
• 04:44 - Amber's presale: eighth row floor, witnessed by a seniors' exercise class
• 05:58 - Britain's Ticketmaster upgrade trick: row 17 becomes row 11 centre
• 09:20 - Rexall Place over Rogers Place: one last night in the old barn
• 12:25 - The set list: album by album, a stroke of genius
• 15:30 - The In Between Evolution set and 'Gus: The Polar Bear'
• 19:14 - The vibe: celebration, church, and levitating through 'Scared'
• 23:21 - Production: the tight circle, the dark stage, the thunderstorm interlude
• 28:31 - When did you start saying goodbye?
• 33:14 - Encores: the 'Courage' singalong, and 'Flamenco' into 'Ahead by a Century'
• 38:19 - August 20th, 2016: watch parties, basements, and CBC pausing the Olympics
• 43:18 - Long Time Running and the Mansbridge interview
• 44:56 - The catalogue: Bob Rock albums, reissue wish lists, and no duds
• 49:54 - The songs that take them back: 'Gus' and 'Scared'
• 57:44 - Final thoughts: once in a lifetime, for good and sad reasons
• 59:49 - Plugs: Britstones on YouTube and the song bracket

Resources & References

• Setlist and tour-debut data: hat tip to setlist.fm - 'Flamenco' made its tour debut this night
• Audience recordings of the tour live at The Tragically Hip Archive
• Britain's five-part video of the show: search Britstones on YouTube
• The Escape Is at Hand origin story (and the Neu! 'Hallogallo' connection) comes from This Is Our Life by Michael Barclay
• The documentary discussed is Long Time Running
• Dave's 128-song Hip bracket runs daily at facebook.com/groups/tthpods - round two is going to be brutal
• Related listening: Yer Hipstories - Victoria, July 22 2016

Join In

This series is a living audio time capsule, and it only works if the community brings the goods. Were you at a stop on the Man Machine Poem Tour? Share your Hipstory and be part of the record. Want more from the network between episodes? Subscribe to Yer Letter, the monthly newsletter from jD.

Closing

Huge thanks to Britain from Wainwright and Dave from Edmonton for taking us back inside Rexall Place - and to Amber from Meadow Lake, who the bandwidth gods took from us far too soon. The takeaway this week is the word the panel refused to let go of: celebration. They did it for us. We got to be there. So there's that.

Next up, after a day off: Edmonton Night Two, July 30th, 2016, with a whole new panel. Get after it.

Connect

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