by Benjy Eisen

In July of 1994 I drove with some friends of mine some twelve odd hours to Ottawa, Canada to see our favorite band, Phish, play in a small wedding and bar mitzvah room with an attendance of about eight hundred. To punctuate the intimacy, the venue was attached to a shopping mall, meaning you could trade in tailgating for window shopping. Apart from the handful of psyched American diehards that made it to the show, many local strays found themselves being initiated into a secret society that they had no idea existed.

On Wednesday August 2, 2000, I entered my own alternate universe when The Tragically Hip performed at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg, PA - my hometown. Like those curious Canadians who ended up at the Congress Center that night in '94, I felt like I had just walked into something monstrously bigger than I had previously imagined. And, before the music, there were odd familiarities everywhere in the flushed conversations happening all around me, from someone asking if anyone knew the most recent setlists, to people debating the studio albums.

To the Hip fans that traveled to the show, I'm sure the venue seemed as weird and out-of-place as the shopping mall in Ottawa seemed to me; The Whitaker Center is a conglomerate experiment, fusing science with art. The building's primary attraction is its science museum - a hands-on learning center for children of all ages - coupled with an IMAX and art exhibits. Across the hall, the theater, with a capacity of 664, is an upscale exhibit of modern art in and of itself - the type of place where the ushers never have to remind the audience that there is no smoking allowed, and where wine is sipped civilly in the lobby during intermission amidst paintings and a mural of patron saints.

This is, no doubt, an unusual venue for The Tragically Hip, "Canada's Number One Jamband"...and, perhaps that country's number one band overall. CanEHdian.com lists The Hip as second place in the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, trailing only Neil Young. The band threw a sold-out New Year's bash at Toronto's Air Canada Centre and they consistently sell-out arenas across the Great North.

Still, though near capacity, the theater at the Whitaker is not sold out. This is Amish Country, Pennsylvania, a far cry from the land of hockey and Molson Ice. As showtime approaches, the crowd breaks out in excited chants of "Hip! Hip! Hip!" Several in the audience show their allegiance by raising Canadian flags above their heads. I noticed earlier at the merch table that the band was hocking mock hockey jerseys for $80. - and they were actually selling.

As soon as one person in my section finds out that I've never even heard The Tragically Hip, let alone seen them, my whole section descends on me in amicable amazement. "You've never seen them? Oh you're in for quite a treat!"

The guy next to me, a Toronto native, had seen the fabled New Year's Eve gig and was marveling at the intimacy of tonight's show. One row in front, a fan from Chicago who has seen around twenty Hip shows, was filling me in - "They're too good for the States. People here just don't get it."

The band came on just after nine, opening with "Puttin' Down" amidst a raucous crowd eagerly awaiting their band. Throughout the night The Hip seemed to create fun radio rock infused with undeniably charming builds, impassioned mantras and airy melodic leads. The result was a concert filled with uplifting anthems and feel-good passion.

Usually a two-guitar five piece, The Hip's line-up was expanded for the show to include Kate Fenner on harmony and Chris Brown on keyboards - horrendous as the opening act, but a pleasant addition in this setting.

As they were throughout the night, The Tragically Hip's songs had a celebrational quality to them that were very much akin to the ritualistic crescendos found in the long improvisational roadways of the jamband genre. Rather than taking twenty minutes, The Hip got there fast enough to make an A&R man feel good too. This worked best on songs like "Fully Completely" and "Grace, Too" with their quick instrumental builds that kept the songs under the six minute mark, yet achieved a tension-and-release delivery.

Guitarist Bobby Baker added jam-light accents throughout, but sadly it wasn't till the last song of the 75-minute set, "My Music At Work," that his impressive soloing skills were truly revealed. He flashed them again, on-and-off, during the four song double encore, but again all too briefly. It was just enough to show why he is considered a guitar hero in his homeland of Canada, but regretfully way too fleeting to give him a chance in the jamband world at large. (Show us the money, Bobby.)

Most of the improvisation came, surprisingly, by singer/songwriter Gordon Downie. Occasionally strumming along on acoustic, it was his ad-libbed vocal mutterings that earns him accolades as a true improviser. An entertaining showman to watch, Gordon strutted around the stage from song to song frequently shaking his head to-and-fro, sputtering mumbo-jumbo in and around actual lyrics. Often incomprehensible, his ad-libs were nevertheless poetic: a fact which was not lost when Gordon sang, "Don't tell me what the poet's are doing" during the song "Poets."

The highlight of the night came in "Chagrin Falls," a tune from the group's 1998 release Phantom Power, in which all of these elements of The Tragically Hip seemed to come together just in-time for the band to launch into the only true group improvisation of the night, ending after a few minutes with Gordon quoting a lyric from The Eagles: "Take it to the limit, one more time."

Although short on actual jamming (this is Jambands.com remember), their performance at The Whitaker Center was altogether impressive, offering up an attractive remedy for post-millennial pop.