Tonight we smoke them out

At the San Jose Sharks game last week I tried to explain to épanouie and LBF that The Tragically Hip are to Canada what Bruce Springsteen is to America, and I think they believed me, in the way that people who have never seen Mount Everest or the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls believe they exist.

The Hip are my second favourite band; have been since 1989, and I've seen them in concert many times, but when they play in Canada they sell out cavernous stadiums, and even when you have Friends In High Places who let you watch from the Air Canada Club, it's not the same as watching them perform in a small club, the way they're meant to be seen.

When The Hip play in America, they play in small clubs. I've known this for years. It's one of the facts that was in the "pros" column when I was deciding whether to move to California. But I forgot to pay attention, and so I won't be going to see them at the Fillmore in San Francisco tonight, because the show sold out before I knew about it.

For those of you not familiar with The Tragically Hip, I present their signature song, "New Orleans is Sinking," as beautifully rendered with photos from the Hurricane Katrina tragedy of 2005:

Next, it's Postmodern Sass's father's birthday.