The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Poets

August 20th, 2016, Kingston. 'Poets' is twentieth on the set list, right behind 'Something On,' the song Craig from Langley used to skip to.

It opens "Phantom Power," it was the lead single, and it sits at number 23 on the TTHTop40 Countdown. The count on the stream, pulled from Hipbase and setlist.fm, has The Tragically Hip playing it 611 times, from July 2nd, 1998, twelve days before the record came out, to that last night in Kingston. The poll in the Facebook group drew more votes than any the show has run. And the Discovering Downie panel came back together for it. They do not agree.

Justin from Bridport bought "Phantom Power" as a kid, and this was the first thing out of the speakers. Kirk from Chino calls it his Gus (an inside joke), and he spent a day with live versions until it turned. Craig from Langley plays it in a tribute band about half the time and still hits skip on the record, so he sat down with a guitar to find out why. He found out. You'll want to hear it before you sing along again.

Then the video. A house with a reputation (and a lot of cats), a bass nobody expected Gord to be holding, Johnny Fay playing it lighter than he does on stage, and a question from jD about why the band is lined up backwards.

WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE

• The icebreaker: one song by The Hip that feels like fall, and one answer the panel would happily trade this whole episode for.

• October 7th in The Hip Handbook, from Austin to the Fillmore. Kirk was at the Fillmore, just not that night.

• A Troubadour recording from 2009 with a lot of swimming in it. Kirk was in the room.

• Super Farmer Nano Baby, the darker take on the 25th anniversary box set, and Justin's hunch about which came first.

• Woodstock, Live 8 with Dan Aykroyd on harmonica, and Gord's rants, different every night.

• The backing vocals from Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair. Nobody on the panel knows the words. Craig has Paul's own answer, more or less.

• At the last show in Kingston, the microphone becomes a flashlight. Kirk says that's when the song finally landed for him.