The End Of Saturday...Not Thinking Of Any Tomorrow

By Tony Billoni

Satuday, July 13, evening

Bush (video excerpt) 45 sec (2.22MB)

Am I dragging? No I'm still flying here on the Net at 12:36am est. The Hip just ended leaving all 50,000 plus with more, much more than we all started with, but in sequence we go. We must.

	Photo by Dax Ross

"We're Still Flying..."

A rock festival for the ages this is certainly becoming. Love and Rockets pumping the psychedellic rock they broke the egg of Bauhaus to create. They are more in their environment playing in a tight room filled with smoke, mirrors and monster lava lamps. Still, they burned through the fun faves they have continuously spun over the last seven or so years.

And what planet is Perry Farrell from this week? On stage he traded wisdom for love. The audience, finishing the dinner hour, wanted Porno for Pyros' witchy brew for dessert. Perry asks: "I see something new every day. Do you see what I see?" I don't think that is possible although what we have been pumping here over the Net the past few hours might be a neat approximation. Perry and co. including Mike Watt on bass are on to some boss groove. Equal parts of dust, funk and Perry's whinny love rap. Go man go.

The stage is set. Once again, like last night we are left with the final two. The contrast between Bush and the Cure can do nothing to match the energy and expectation of Live and The Tragically Hip. Oddly both combinations have a similar dynamic: the first band being the "rock stars" and the second being more ethereal. This is where it ends.

Can this feeling persist? Are feelings reality? Do questions matter? The Edenites, numbering more and more than the night before, knew. They knew that Bush is a flavor of the month, maybe lasting into the next few years but with Live they were standing next to their heroes. If this crowd were a thread then Live would be nimble fingers snaking it through the eye of a needle. So precise and gangly like the teen sensations they poke at so freely, does this band wrap itself around it's fans? Where Robert Smith is angst in milky white skin Live are the guys banging it out in the garage never caring who the fuck is listening. Listen, the masses did; And cheer and sing and probably shed some tears.

Love And Rockets (video excerpt) 45 sec (2.55MB)

Can Live be the next U2? Would their fans care to think about it? Yes. No. Their anthems don't have the welcome stature that the world according to Bono laid out during the fat 80s. These are lean and wobbly times and the phrase 'much love' is more a plea than a greeting. Live is in that zone. Smack in the middle. By the time they ended with lightning crashes, the lighters came out and it all seemed more like a prayer. Screw me...that's what I saw and I expected energy to shift down in front of me when The Tragically Hip took over. It shifted but increased at the same time.

Singer/Poet Gord Downie told us he liked us because "we are men and women," he has been dealing with a lot of boys and girls. I'm watching a cross between David Byrne and Garrison Kellior and I'm wondering how this very same audience can thrust forward to guitar heroes like Live and then jump frenetically to the spacy late '70s style jams that fell out of 100th Meridian. They did and I stopped questioning as the set went forward.

The answer lay in Downie's quiver. In his hand waving. In the band tirelessly jamming like a crocodile wading through hot muddy marshes waiting to take a few legs. On and on they went, well past the midnight curfiew. Encore, smoke, patterns, the Canadian flag that crept up from the crowd, hogging the spotlight until the gravity magnet pulled it back into the wavering mass, only to pop up again and again 10 feet from its last place; All this and more.

There is humanity in both bands. Live like a justified slap in the face. The Hip are like a glass of fine red wine with a simple meal. Wearing this rock, we are truly ahead by a century.