Gord Downie And The Country Of Miracles @ Le National

Fame and artistic talent are tricky things to manage. Consider the case of Gord Downie, who has both. He's the lead singer of the Tragically Hip. Maybe you've heard of them. Or maybe you're not from Canada. Gord, however, is no simple Canadian semi-alt-rock megastar. He's also a poet.

I don't just mean in the lyrical sense, though his lyrics are perhaps more poetic than your average semi-alt-rock band's leader. He's also published a volume of his poems, Coke Machine Glow (Vintage Canada, 2001), which was packaged with his similarly-named debut solo album. He's very fond of exploring things with a certain wistful, nostalgic Canadiana to them. He also likes puns like "In Violet Light" and "The Night Is for Getting"  and stuff.

Well, apparently, he also yearns for small shows again. The Hip now draw pretty sizable audiences no matter where in Canada they play. Which is well and good, but our Gord-o needs more—in this case, more in the guise of less, which is to say, Le National Saturday night was somewhat sparsely attended, and it's hardly surprising for a band called Gord Downie and The Country of Miracles and not The Tragically Hip.

The show was a strange mix of things both Tragically Hip, and not. As with Hip shows, there was no opening band. As with Hip shows, there were two full sets, plus an encore. As with Hip shows, there was an active, participatory crowd, and Gord was full value for strange musings and absurd song introductions.

The only problem there was that there were maybe 200 people in the room instead of a couple thousand, and as a result, one or two drunken assholes who wouldn't shut up managed to get everyone a little on edge. Of particular note was one guy who kept—and I mean kept, he must have pulled this shit at least a dozen times—shouting at Gord, asking him where "Scotty" was. The guy was pretty big and inebriated, so I understand why no one really took him down a peg, but it was sad to see a sweet concert semi-ruined by a single motivated asshole.

That being said, though, it was a sweet concert. Downie, though eschewing anything from his Hip repertoire, played a good selection of songs from both Coke Machine Glow and his new album, the raison d'etre of the tour, The Grand Bounce, and the crowd seemed to roar with approval at each new song it recognized, particularly if he drew out the pleasure slowly, as with the "Who here's been divorced? ... Have you ever been to Vancouver?" bit that introduced "Vancouver Divorce."

At the end of the day, Gord's still got it. The genius art installation that provided the show's visuals, comprised of a projector, a glass pan full of liquids and cut out paper shapes that he carefully placed together to form landscape scenes was honestly the coolest thing I've ever seen at a concert; a sort of visual inventiveness that made the whole evening something to remember, and the tunes, though not quite as viscerally new, were nothing to scoff at either. That being said, I can't wait until the Hip roll through town...

-Alexander Manley