The Tragically Hip Road Apples Blu Ray CD

As a Canadian, I am very familiar with The Tragically Hip. I must admit I have mixed feelings about their music. Their songs - really Gord Downie's lyrics - tell many great stories from Canadian history and the Canadian experience. However the music can be pretty pedestrian at times, not much better than a competent bar band. Rob Baker in particular can play a lot of solos that seem to go nowhere. However, when the music comes together (and it usually does a few times per album), the result can be a great song.

Given this, the compilation Yer Favourites is really enough Hip for me, though Road Apples is probably one of their strongest albums overall. I haven't listened to the Saskadelphia material, so have no opinion on that. The package looks great overall for fans.

Live they were worth seeing, particularly for Downie's performance as a frontman. Live shows also covered their stronger songs for the most part, so I didn't half to sit through what I considered their less-interesting material. My favourite gig was seeing them in the basement of a Middle Eastern restaurant in Boston (they never caught on in the U.S., so it was easy to see them in small places while they were selling out arenas in Canada). While most of the customers were eating dinner, the band put on a great show although Downie had difficulty with the very low ceiling, whacking it with his mic stand a few times.

I'm a big fan, I have all their albums and most of Gord's solo output and Road Apples is my favourite Hip album.

But I'm never keen on repurchasing albums I already have.

I picked up Saskadelphia - a collection of unreleased tracks recorded during the Road Apples sessions - upon release this past summer.

It wasn't reported at the time, but if I had known it was going to be part of a box set coming out later in the year, I would have waited to get the whole set.

Instead, I think I'll stick with what I've got and give it a pass.