Tragically Hip – Fully Completely Deluxe: The Full Story

Tragically Hip – Fully Completely Deluxe: The Full Story

I am writing this tale today in tandem with the wonderful Sarca at Caught Me Gaming. You should follow that link, read all her posts. Not just her post that goes along with this one. Read all of them. Go on. I’ll wait.

So.

Way back in the fall, I told you that I had been in our local Mall Wart to get some diapers or something, and I saw one lonely copy of the new Hip 2CD Fully Completely re-release for $9.99. I panicked. I thought for sure it had been priced wrong and, even though I have been told a bajillion times not to buy music for myself before Christmas (because I never know what people have bought me!), I bought it anyway. And when I got home, I looked it up online and learned that $10 was the regular price. When I told my lovely wife (and my Mom) this story, they both rolled their eyes, unsurprised at my antics.

Apologies to you all, now, that I still haven’t reviewed the damn thing yet, even though I held onto it (like a good boy) until after Christmas, and only opened it after I did not receive another copy as a gift. It is now almost June and still no review. As a Hip fan, excited about this set, that review is atrociously long overdue. Anyway. Maybe it was waiting for what happened next. You see…

Sarca, at Christmas time, used gift money to buy herself a Deluxe edition of the set, which had a bunch of extra goodies in it. I drooled.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago. I get an email from Sarca. She’d been thinking about it, and realized she was only ever gonna play the CDs and didn’t need the rest of the set cluttering up her house. Would I want to trade my 2CD set for her boxed set?

Um, what?

That was a losing proposition for her. Hers was about $50, mine was $10. Not only that, her set also had the lithographs, the beautiful book, the DVD of the Heksenketel from 1993’s Another Roadside Attraction… straight up, it wasn’t fair to her. She said she’d thought it out, and I had been most enthusiastic about the set when she posted about buying it, and she was  actually cool with the swap. I still hesitated, I mean, I wanted it of course but Sarca is a friend and a fine member of this blogging community and I sure wouldn’t take advantage of generosity and kindness in any bad or weird way.

We talked some more, and in the end, the swap was on. So I put my panic-purchased copy of the 2CD in a box with a bunch of other stuff (she’ll talk about all of that in her own post on this very subject) and mailed it off. She did the same with her Deluxe and, wouldn’t you know it, we both received our parcels on the very same day!! Couldn’t do that again if we tried!

So here was the gorgeous Deluxe of Fully Completely, and I spent a good long while just staring at it, enjoying its presence. I do love me some Hip, and this set is a thing of beauty.*

But there was also another surprise in the parcel… Sarca had been to Peterborough and, in her travels, found me a copy of the Watchmen’s McLaren Furnace Room. I love that album, too. This came about, I believe, because I must have been talking at some point about how I’ve owned that thing a bunch of times over the years and found myself (once again) without it, at the moment. It’s a stone cold classic and I was silly to not have it here! Sarca fixed that.*

Y’all should also check out her great post about this parcel swap. Go!

I hope it’s becoming clear, as you read all of this, that Sarca absolutely rocks. I cannot thank her enough, but I can try. Thank you, Sarca. Thankyouthankyouthankyou. This is truly a beautiful thing you did.

“Sarca is AWWWWWWE-SOME!!!”

Look at all the MAJESTY!

A 90s CanCon CLASSIC!

LOOK AT THE BEAUTIES!

 

* And I will review it soon. I SWEAR IT!