There is no fanboy hyperbole in saying that The Tragically Hip put on the performance of a lifetime Saturday evening in Kingston, Ont. It was as if everything the band had done and accomplished had led them to this inevitable point, and they were determined to put on a show that will never be forgotten by those in attendance, and by the millions watching on the CBC.
"We are all richer for having seen them tonight." While the line originated with Gord Downie and is spoken over the opening of Grace, Too from the Live Between Us album in reference to The Rheostatics, Canadians were left repeating those words, or some variation thereof, as they filed from viewing parties across Canada Saturday evening.
Gord Downie spent the evening drenched in sweat, his customary handkerchief never out of reach. His outfits, part Max Headroom, part Tin Man shone brightly under the spotlight. His scalp, no doubt scarred from treatment and surgery for his brain tumour, kept under wraps beneath various feathered fedoras. Downie even alluded to his scarf, worn underneath his shirt collar and according to him, fashioned from two socks.
Locally, a sparse yet spirited family-friendly crowd attended an official CBC live screening at Memorial Gardens. Admission was free, and donations were split between the Gord Downie Cancer Fund and Laurentian Ski Hill. Concessions were open, but it was unclear where the profits would be directed.
In a more intimate, raucous affair, the Summit Room at the Voyager was filled to capacity on a humid summer night. Donations at the door went to the Canadian Cancer Society. Patrons sang, danced, and cheered on the Hip, especially during the band's three emotional encores. The crowd stood and applauded the band on the screen as the five members embraced at the front of the stage before their hometown crowd.
Gord Downie's lyrics are open to interpretation. Some are crystal clear, some required a trip to the library to search for references pre-internet. I've felt those personal connections to this band, and to this wordsmith who is unlike any musician I've ever witnessed. I've made those library trips. I was born in Kingston. I am 38-years-old (but I've kissed a girl). That is the majesty of the Tragically Hip. They are inclusive, and there is something for everyone.
I first heard the Hip's music without really knowing that I was hearing it. One of my nightly routines before going to bed as a teen was to watch the sports highlights on Global. Sportsline, a cutting-edge show for its time, originated in the mid-1980s with Bob McCown as host. I started watching later in the decade when Mark Hebscher and Jim Tatti had refined the show into a successful two-man team.
In 1991, Sportsline played this catchy tune in the background of their hockey highlights, and I loved the raw power and emotion of it. Without the internet, and it being 1991, no song-identifying app to figure out the artist, this song stuck in my head for days. I was 13, just beginning my musical journey, but I knew I liked what I was hearing.
Some days later, I hitched a ride with a friend to get my hair cut in downtown North Bay. He was playing a cassette (I know, I know) in his car of a band that seemed so familiar to me. I asked him what it was and he replied "Road Apples." I thanked him for the lift and headed for Ray's Hairstyling.
As I approached the door, I began to hum the music from Sportsline, realizing that I had just heard the song in the car. I pulled the ten dollars my mother had given me to get my hair cut out of my pocket and stared down at it. I knew what I must do. I ran, past Ray's, past the Old Chicago, covering a few blocks on Main Street in record time. I ran into the record shop to see Barry Green and panting, managed to say "Road Apples." He smiled and pointed to the shelf behind me.
When I got the CD home, I ripped off the plastic (no easy task) and put the disc in my stereo. After the first few notes of Little Bones, my musical mystery was solved and a love affair with the band began. Then I had to figure out how to make a self-haircut look passable to my Mom's eyes.
Hebscher, when contacted for this story, had his own Hip connection to share. "I edited a version of Little Bones as the Music Director on Sportsline. We played it under the highlights and I got a call from a friend of mine, Jake Gold. He told me he was managing The Hip and they all thought it was cool that we were playing it on TV. As time went on we played clips of other Hip songs but Little Bones was the first."
Downie is the rare superstar who is one of us. Someone we'd like to have a beer with, go fishing with, work with. Downie is often hailed as a low-maintenance everyman, with a genuine interest in those around him, who still gets a bemused look on his face when people want him to answer their questions.
Jay Kift tells of an encounter with Downie in the men's room at the Brass Taps in Toronto's Little Italy, on a Super Bowl Sunday some years ago.
"I'd recognized him as we approached urinals and said (as we stood side-by-side) 'Hey, you're Gord Downie.'
He agreed.
He asked me where I was from.
'Manitoulin Island,' I replied.
He turned, with genuine eyebrows-raised interest.
'Really. I've never been. I hear it's beautiful.'
I confirmed that it was.
'Enjoy the game,' Downie said."
And so it goes, a web connecting Hip fans, each with a personal connection, yet all part of the same musical movement.
Gord Downie has many quirks. He is an original, so unique that to an outsider, it would almost seem to be an act that he is putting on. A performance. People have a hard time grasping his singular genius.
That is not to say that Downie is not a performer. His mannerisms and gyrations on stage while leading The Tragically Hip have spawned imitators, but none can capture the manic fury or heartfelt delivery of frontman Downie when the spotlight shines.
Downie comes by his stage persona honestly. "I go for it; I sing, I dance, I listen to this great band, I do what the music urges," said Downie in a 2009 Maclean's interview.
The band, also including guitarists Paul Langlois and Rob Baker, bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay, has produced storylines that are legendary. Kingston garage band makes good and takes the country by storm. High school buddies take to the road and carve out a niche in the Canadian consciousness. The Tragically Hip headlines Another Roadside Attraction, bringing Canadian bands together. In what was expected to be their big U.S. break, The Hip performs on Saturday Night Live.
"Singer Gord Downie diagnosed with terminal brain cancer."
It is this latest headline that brought Canadians together for one last "story on the CBC." The band's response to the shocking news was to tour this summer, to say farewell to their fans, to play together on one last tour after thirty-plus years, to honour their stricken bluesy poet laureate.
In a way, touring is Downie's way of fighting for his own life. Donations to fund brain cancer research have grown exponentially, leading advocates to believe that with Downie as a spokesman, this could be the cause's "ALS Ice Bucket" moment. Even if his own life cannot be spared, this tour has given Downie the medium to drum up support for those who will inevitably follow.
"I have no illusions of the future. Or maybe it’s all illusion. I don’t know. I’ve always been ready for it," said Downie post-diagnosis.
The tour culminated Saturday evening, as the five friends took the stage together for what could be the final time. They played the Rogers K-Rock Centre before an adoring capacity crowd, with additional millions more tuning in and streaming the CBC coverage.
"We were just happy to be together, and that's the way we've done everything," was Downie's sentiment in '96, and this was certainly true on an emotional and powerful night in Kingston and across the country.
There are so many references to Canadiana, that one can easily find something in a Hip lyric or song to relate to. But Canada's love affair with the band goes beyond that. Singing Wheat Kings around a campfire accompanied by acoustic guitar, watching numerous Tragically Hip-backed introductory musical montages before NHL or Olympic hockey games, learning for the first time that New Orleans is, indeed, sinking or that David Milgaard is innocent or that the Leafs really did not win another Cup until the year Bill Barilko's body was discovered.
For Canadians, the connections are real, and that is the band's triumph. The Hip have a way of making their music seem like it was written just for you. And, in a way, it was.
"I write every day. I walk around in silent conversation with my latest unfinished songs," explained Downie in the 2009 Maclean's piece.
This summer's tour had diehard fans up in arms, as tickets sold out in seconds. Ticket scalpers were lured by online ads to public places to be shamed. The initial brouhaha surrounding ticket purchasing companies snatching up the good seats was assuaged somewhat by the CBC's response to public outcry to air the concert.
The manner in which this tour has been conducted, with humility, thoughtfully, and with grace, too, only augments the lore of the band. Much has been made of Downie's continued energetic and frenetic performances, especially while dealing with the deadly disease.
In a 2014 interview, Downie declared, "I haven’t written too many political lyrics. Conversely, nor have I written any pro-Canada lyrics, any kind of jingoistic, nationalistic...That stuff doesn’t interest me and I don’t even know if I could write that if I tried because I don’t really feel it."
Pronouncements aside, Downie twice took interludes between songs to praise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was in attendance. He also encouraged the PM to act on the dire conditions in Indigenous communities, saying "what's going on up there ain't good. It's maybe worse than it's ever been...(but) we're going to get it fixed and we got the guy to do it, to start, to help."
As we have all learned, death often does not give a clear expiry date. Sudden losses, especially of celebrities, spawn internet tributes and platitudes for days or weeks afterwards. This was a unique opportunity. Downie's diagnosis gives him a (somewhat) finite lifespan to live his days exactly how he wants before his time comes. He chose to spend what could be his last summer touring with his buddies and thanking his fans. How many are so fortunate to say that they went out (of the public eye at least) the way they wanted — and on top?
"Courage. My word," Downie often over-enunciates the lyric while belting out the song. Downie is being hailed as such by cancer support groups, and fans alike. If anything, the Man Machine Poem tour has proven that, in Gord Downie's own words, "It's a good life if you don't weaken. And it's a pretty good one even if you do."
