...Every one in the band was immediately drawn to the quality of Mark's recording. Even as a rough board mix, things sounded great. The real acid test came when we put up the multis and listened more closely, looking for problems. The show just seemed to get better and better each time. It never lost the excitement of that first listen, which has always been our test for picking versions of songs in the studio; it's not how it sounds the first time, it's the 100th time that counts. We knew we had something special on our hands. It was then that we began to talk about releasing this as a live record. It's not like we're claiming this to be the best live Hip performance ever. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It has always been our fear that by releasing something live we'd be sanctioning it as a definitive performance. That night the band was 'on', tight, with Gord at his captivating best. But every gig is different and special, just like snowflakes.

That Saturday, November 23, was, however, a very special night. We had managed to capture a moment in time, which is all that a live recording can be. The point is that for the first time we couldn't find any reason not to do this, and sometimes for us that's reason enough. We lived with the show for a month and by mid-February had decided to go ahead with a final mix. We were in the middle of writing and recording in our studio and mixing was not something we were set up to do. We decided to send the tapes to our old friend Don Smith who, along with producing our first two records, happens to be one the world's greatest live recording and mixing engineers. He had a hole in his schedule and started to work. Mark, who has mixed the band every night for seven years now, sat in with Don to ensure that it was as close to the real thing as we could get...

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