From there Born in Ontario occupies the same sort of role as its cousin brother Homegrown, delivering a chunk of stomp along groove that equates to a bit of light and shade after Powderfinger in the lead up to what you'd have to describe as the first real set piece on the show.
Walk Like a Giant comes across pretty strongly as one of the centre pieces on Psychedelic Pill, but on stage it reveals a sense of rage that doesn't quite come across in the studio version. That's most obvious towards the end when plastic bags and sheets of newspaper start drifting across the stage as Neil and Old Black deliver squalls of sonic assault that equate to the end of the world as we know it.
That's my take on it, anyway. Walk Like a Giant takes the inner rage Neil mentions in Ontario and turns it into an apocalyptic vision that's diametrically opposed to the old T.S. Eliot not with a bang, with a whimper. It seems, as far as Neil is concerned, we're not going quietly into the night....
The environmental apocalypse gets another airing in Hole in the Sky, one of two so far unrecorded numbers in a fairly small setlist, and it may stay unrecorded because it may only exist as a wind down from what went before leading into an acoustic mini set in the middle of proceedings. Lyrically, it's a case of There's a hole in the sky and not much more, but the Horse harmonies help it work in ways a more verbose statement mightn't.
Both nights the appearance of the acoustic guitar and the neck brace produced a fairly hearty roar, suggesting the presence of a healthy contingent of HoGTTs and a strong hint of finally, here's something we know. Predictably, something we know turned out to be Heart of Gold, which might have been something but probably didn’t equate to much if you’re coming out of HoGTT Territory.
From there we got Twisted Road, another one I could have done without but can appreciate the reasons for its existence and inclusion in that particular slot.
And it's obvious there is a certain amount of thought that has gone into the presentation for these shows. Neil obviously wants a piano song in there, and Singer Without a Song is going to be it. Seat him behind the old-fashioned upright on stage right, however, and he's out of sight of a fair section of audience. Billy Talbot's on stage to deliver some harmonies, and Poncho Sampedro has an acoustic guitar around his neck, but there's not much visual interest there. In that setting an attractive girl carrying a guitar case adds something. At least that's the way it looked from where I was sitting.
With the quiet bit out of the way the volume went back up for the second set piece, the quite magnificent Ramada Inn, like Walk Like a Giant one of the centre pieces of Psychedelic Pill, twenty minutes of thunder leavened with the harmonies on the And every morning comes the sun bit. HoGTTs can moan all they like about unfamiliar material and the lack of the likes of Down by the River, Cortez the Killer and Like a Hurricane, and, admittedly it would be nice to hear them, but when Neil can still produce something that's this good I, for one, won't be complaining.