The Tragically Hip make us proud to be Canadian

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Burnaby barista, a Red Deer rancher, a student in Saskatoon, a boy in Bobcaygeon, or a girl in Gander. If you’re from the True North, you know of The Tragically Hip.

For many people, Gord Downie isn’t just another Canadian artist, he’s a friend. He’s been there for you when you’re down, and there for you when you’re celebrating.

This tour has been a bit of both.

“It reminded me of the shows of the late nineties. You’d never know anything was wrong. Gord was paddling the stage, and riding his motorcycle and being his manic self,” Stephen Dame, the creator of the remarkably in-depth HipMuseum.com, describes the second show in Toronto. “I think it was two hours and 29 minutes of celebrations of Rock-and-Roll joy. Then there was one minute at the end, when he’s leaving the stage, where you can see him tearing up and it was pretty emotional.”

“I noticed [the band members] go over and full-on kiss Gord on the lips and hug him hard and leave him on the stage. Until that moment it was just another rock show, because they kind of sweep you up in it and at that moment, you’re reminded just how tragic this is really.”

If Dame isn’t the biggest Hip fan, he’s certainly near the top. He’s compiled a one-stop-shop for you to learn the lyrics of every Hip song, the stories behind them, and 347 lyrical references, many of which are oozing with notes from across our country.

He believes the bands success has multiple layers. Yes, they have the power cords and the listenability on the radio, but you can delve deep into the lyrics (or Downie’s poems as they often are) and find references to poets, authors, and paintings of all kind.

Prime Ministers in preference of Presidents, Bobcaygeon instead of Boston and Cape Spear contrasting Cape Cod.

Gord’s writing is riddled with familiarity allowing so many of us to identify with The Hip at a young age, and realize this band is different.

“I think we very rarely celebrate our own. I think we very rarely see our own culture reflected in our television, music, and film products,” says Dame. “It was kind of a verification Canada was ‘cool’, in a way that had never really been shown to our generation before. I’m a teacher now, and so I’m often trying to expose these 12-year-olds to the ‘Dad Rock’, the old man music I listen to, and I’m surprised how it still resonates with them and how they think it’s really cool to hear Toronto mentioned in Bobcaygeon, and they still have that connection, ‘He’s singing about us, he’s singing about me’.”

Many people believe the band is the epitome of Canadiana. Its roots woven through the forestry, the Rocky Mountains, the lakes and streams and everything in-between. To a Hip fan, the sound of a loon isn’t just our national bird saying hello, it’s the starting sound of Wheat Kings. Bobcaygeon went from a small town on the Trent to where the constellations revealed themselves. One star at a time. The 100th Meridian? If it weren’t for Gord Downie, thousands would have no idea what or where it is.

For Dame though, the writing from Downie with the most nationalism was when he echoed a fellow countryman.

“There’s a passage at the very end of Courage, where Gord quotes directly from Hugh McLennan’s novel, ‘The watch that ends the night’,” says Dame. “It starts with, ‘There’s no simple explanation’ and usually the band will fall away there, and Gord is sort of spoken-word reading this passage from the novel and the lights are down and the arena, full of people, starts to sing along – I bet a lot of times, unknowingly – with the words that were written by a great Canadian author 70 years ago.”

“There’s no simple
Explanation
For anything important
Any of us do
And, yeah, the human
Tragedy
Consists in
The necessity
Of living with
The consequences
Under pressure
Under pressure”

“It’s a song about overcoming difficulty. A song about not letting the dark times overcome you. Certainly now, it’s a little more poetic given what Gord is going through.”

Terminal brain Cancer. That’s what he’s going through. By taking time to tour the great country that Gord and The Hip have sprinkled throughout their lyrics, while knowing The Darkest One is In View, speaks to Gord’s Courage, and Grace too.

The last concert on the Man Machine Poem tour is being broadcast live on CBC. It’ll be on in reportedly over 200 venues and coast-to-coast friends and families will be gathering in living rooms.

“I think this will be a cultural moment, a very rare moment in Canada,” says Dame. “We come together for hockey, we come together for sports quite well as a country, but from East to West and North to South, we very rarely come together for cultural moments. That’s why it’s so fitting and so perfect a band that has been celebrating our culture will be the catalyst.”

Formed in 1984 on the shores of Lake Ontario in Kingston, The Hip’s Saturday concert has been highly anticipated both with nerves, anxiety, and at least some excitement, even drawing comparison to Lou Gehrig’s speech from the field of Yankee Stadium in New York, and some say the tour resembles Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope.

“I’ve heard those comparisons; both of which are sad in a way, but of course heroic as well,” says Dame. “I like to think of it more as ‘The Last Waltz’, a famous concert by a famous band as they were saying farewell. It was a moment for all their friends to come together and tell them they loved them. I think everybody is going to be watching.

“I’m reminded of that Kim Campbell quote when she lost an election and said, ‘I want you to know you should consider yourself hugged,’ and I think Gord and the boys are going to be getting one big hug from 35-million people.”

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