How many bands have disbanded due to egos or just stopped caring about their fans? That is certainly not the case here.
Tragically Hip - Last Song Predictions
- Thread starter BigEvilDoer
- Start date
I get that. I also know they do a ton for charity but I was seriously surprised by tonight and also the Ottawa concert. Anyway, so as not to upset Motorcycle Mike's sensitive soul I won't comment on the voice anymore.
I understand why some people don't like the way some artists sing their songs. I'm a fan that likes live music to sound like it did on the album; The music so often does but I hate it when the singer changes the tempo, where emphasis is, changes the words/lines etc. I hate it when the singer stops and turns the mic to a crowd to let them sing lines. I'm an ol' stick in the mud that way.
But the point really is this: these are their songs and they are free to sing them any way they like. C'mon; a lot of these songs are getting on for 30 years old now. I think Gord has earned the right to vary and play them anyway he likes.
I feel bad that Gord needed so many displays showing the lyrics but understand the need. There's a lot of material here and who knows if his cancer has at all affected his memory...
I could have done without the kissing before and after the concert though
But the point really is this: these are their songs and they are free to sing them any way they like. C'mon; a lot of these songs are getting on for 30 years old now. I think Gord has earned the right to vary and play them anyway he likes.
I feel bad that Gord needed so many displays showing the lyrics but understand the need. There's a lot of material here and who knows if his cancer has at all affected his memory...
I could have done without the kissing before and after the concert though
Blackmore is an ass who could care less about his various band mates or his fans. Axel Rose showed contempt for his fans for decades. Here is a band that truly cares about and loves each other and also their fans. My wife and I have seen them a few times (including in Kingston where we met) and have been talking about tonight's performance. He is an ill man at the end of a tour in which he has probably not monitored his voice properly because he has given it all every performance. Sometimes at the end of a tour the singer is just... done...
This tour is... Well a thank you to their fans and a pretty special and amazing thing. I sincerely hope that Gord can stick around longer than we think he can and get a few more good years with his wife and family and friends and we can see a few one off performances here and there.
This tour is... Well a thank you to their fans and a pretty special and amazing thing. I sincerely hope that Gord can stick around longer than we think he can and get a few more good years with his wife and family and friends and we can see a few one off performances here and there.
Oddly enough we are at a rented cottage this week and being around nature makes me connect to the Hip more. They have been a part of my summers since 1990 or so. I wonder what Canadian act will resonate like these guys have? My first concert was April Wine and although they arguably had a more successful career commercially and internationally they do not resonate they same way the Hip does.
Leonard Cohen? Not as much of a connection with the Canadiana but still intelligent lyrics and a distinctive voice. Difference is he has a worldwide following so there's not the same Indy feel.
Motorcycle Mike
Well-known member
It's too bad The Band ended in 1976, and then Manuel offed himself in the mid 80s and Danko went in the 90's... if there is one Canadian band I like more than The Hip, it was The Band... and Manuel sure could sing.
CPIC will.
The Band... Cohen... Rush but again more international. The Hip is so Canadian. Could sell out here anytime but draw flies south of the border. I also have been a long time fan of Red Rider and Tom Cohrane (with them and on his own). Also The Guess Who... Even weird examples like Street heart. A fair number of Canadian bands who had brief periods of intense commercial success only to be gone very quickly (e.g. Lover boy, Honeymoon Suite, The Payola s, platinum Blond, Glass Tiger). Bryan Adams of course rightly deserves credit for his music and his song writing (with and without Jim Vallance). That also brings me to Prism which is another Canadian band who just played in Ottawa the other night.
The.Hip really evolved into this band with amazing lyrics and had something to say. Just a very interesting phenomenon.
The.Hip really evolved into this band with amazing lyrics and had something to say. Just a very interesting phenomenon.
Motorcycle Mike
Well-known member
I've seen The Hip many times... but the best was June 8th, 2000, at Shepherd's Bush Empire in London... a venue of around 2000 people or so. We ended up hanging around the back door after the show and met the band and Gord... I think they were all high on something... I slept that night draped over a lion in Trafalgar Square... Good times.
Last edited:
suzuki2000
Well-known member
so many great articles being written about the band and more specifically Gord. The show was fantastic.
New Yorker : http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...adas-biggest-rock-band-say-a-dramatic-goodbye
This write up was on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randy.renaud.chom?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
Tonight was always about Gord Downie. We were given a rare chance, denied to us with previous poets-in-song, like John Lennon, David Bowie and Prince: a chance to celebrate his life and career with him, before the final bow.
This national group hug began with kisses, on the lips of all his brothers and sisters in arms — bandmates and crew members. And then, “armed with will and determination,” he and the band began leading us down the trail of 28 years of memories — a flood of emotions, ideas and anthems that only a Canadian could understand. This was no dress rehearsal. This was our lives.
He is of course more frail, his voice not as fluid, and his mind not as sharp, with the evil cancer stealing from him the ability to recall some of the words he himself wrote. So much so, that the stage crew brought out a teleprompter for him to follow along with. But it didn’t matter. Even if he lost his way during a song, the band and the entire audience — nay, the entire country — was there to fill in the words.
When Gord Downie sings, he reminds me at times of a drunk in a bar whose rambling rasp only partly veils deep intelligence, insight and conscious irony. He knows that life is far too absurd to be taken too seriously. And as you listen to him slyly sing "It would be better for me if you don’t understand," you quickly realize that it would be best to listen intently.
Just as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young were to a previous generation, Gord Downie was Canada’s rock and roll poet laureate for the past two and a half decades. But it wasn’t just that he referenced in song Canadian cultural icons like Hugh MacLennan and Tom Thompson, it was the very Canadian way he did it. Not as a showy highbrow boast — “look at how well-read I am.” No, it was like Gord was merely pointing out dots of lights in the sky that represent our nation’s past, and connecting them as storytellers and mythologists do, to illustrate the patterns that form the constellation of our collective soul.
It should be noted that much of the Great Canadian Songbook was penned by songwriters with Metis roots: Joni Mitchell, Robbie Robertson, Burton Cummings, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Osbourne and many more. So it seemed especially poignant that this band who have been so representative of the Canadian spirit for the past 27 years should declare a national call to action in the presence of the Prime Minister, putting him on notice, and all of us, too, that it is long overdue for us to come to the aid of our aboriginal people. After all, Canada is at its heart a Metis nation: the mixing of the First Nations and the European settlers and the subsequent waves of immigrants. Canada is the great compromise. Unlike the violent birth of the country to our south, ours is a nation born of negotiations and treaties, many of which we have failed to honour. So how apropos that, as Gord and The Hip bid us adieu, he highlighted our failings, and passed the responsibility on to us and our political leaders to redress these wrongs
It was a bittersweet night. And when he screamed during the song “Grace, Too” as tears streamed down his face, it almost seemed like he was trying to chase cancer back into its corner. “Not yet; you can’t have me yet.”
But no words that I can compose can ever say it better than he said in the powerful anthem “Courage:”
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.
New Yorker : http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cu...adas-biggest-rock-band-say-a-dramatic-goodbye
This write up was on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/randy.renaud.chom?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
Tonight was always about Gord Downie. We were given a rare chance, denied to us with previous poets-in-song, like John Lennon, David Bowie and Prince: a chance to celebrate his life and career with him, before the final bow.
This national group hug began with kisses, on the lips of all his brothers and sisters in arms — bandmates and crew members. And then, “armed with will and determination,” he and the band began leading us down the trail of 28 years of memories — a flood of emotions, ideas and anthems that only a Canadian could understand. This was no dress rehearsal. This was our lives.
He is of course more frail, his voice not as fluid, and his mind not as sharp, with the evil cancer stealing from him the ability to recall some of the words he himself wrote. So much so, that the stage crew brought out a teleprompter for him to follow along with. But it didn’t matter. Even if he lost his way during a song, the band and the entire audience — nay, the entire country — was there to fill in the words.
When Gord Downie sings, he reminds me at times of a drunk in a bar whose rambling rasp only partly veils deep intelligence, insight and conscious irony. He knows that life is far too absurd to be taken too seriously. And as you listen to him slyly sing "It would be better for me if you don’t understand," you quickly realize that it would be best to listen intently.
Just as Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young were to a previous generation, Gord Downie was Canada’s rock and roll poet laureate for the past two and a half decades. But it wasn’t just that he referenced in song Canadian cultural icons like Hugh MacLennan and Tom Thompson, it was the very Canadian way he did it. Not as a showy highbrow boast — “look at how well-read I am.” No, it was like Gord was merely pointing out dots of lights in the sky that represent our nation’s past, and connecting them as storytellers and mythologists do, to illustrate the patterns that form the constellation of our collective soul.
It should be noted that much of the Great Canadian Songbook was penned by songwriters with Metis roots: Joni Mitchell, Robbie Robertson, Burton Cummings, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Osbourne and many more. So it seemed especially poignant that this band who have been so representative of the Canadian spirit for the past 27 years should declare a national call to action in the presence of the Prime Minister, putting him on notice, and all of us, too, that it is long overdue for us to come to the aid of our aboriginal people. After all, Canada is at its heart a Metis nation: the mixing of the First Nations and the European settlers and the subsequent waves of immigrants. Canada is the great compromise. Unlike the violent birth of the country to our south, ours is a nation born of negotiations and treaties, many of which we have failed to honour. So how apropos that, as Gord and The Hip bid us adieu, he highlighted our failings, and passed the responsibility on to us and our political leaders to redress these wrongs
It was a bittersweet night. And when he screamed during the song “Grace, Too” as tears streamed down his face, it almost seemed like he was trying to chase cancer back into its corner. “Not yet; you can’t have me yet.”
But no words that I can compose can ever say it better than he said in the powerful anthem “Courage:”
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.
Spent the afternoon with a bottle of wine, in Victoria and watching YouTube vids of The Hip concerts. Some trips down memory lane.
Woodstock was great.
An old vid from Harris Park in London On during Canada day was priceless.
And many more.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Woodstock was great.
An old vid from Harris Park in London On during Canada day was priceless.
And many more.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I watched part, then came back for the end. That s not the way I want to remember the band. Like that old uncle who was always on about something and really colorful, then you see him in a lessened state, its not the last memory I really wanted. Maybe I'm the selfish one.
I'm not a Tragically fanatical Hip fan, so trying to win the concert ticket lottery or buying over-priced scalper tickets wasn't high on my list of priorities.
That said, the free outdoor concert screening in Kingston's Market Square was an experience well worth attending. Twenty to twenty-five thousand people packed into the Square and closed streets leading to the Square to watch the concert on big screen. Virtually no crowd problems, no fighting, minimal obvious impairment of any kind among the crowd. A hell of a thunder and lightning show in the first part of the concert (fortunately, with barely a drop of rain) just added to the drama and the spectacle.
I like some of their songs and I saw I enjoyed them at Edenfest back in 1996. But compared to Edenfest when he was younger and healthier, you could tell that Downie was struggling through the set and that gave it a much more human touch than one would ordinarily expect in such a hugely-attended event.
That said, the free outdoor concert screening in Kingston's Market Square was an experience well worth attending. Twenty to twenty-five thousand people packed into the Square and closed streets leading to the Square to watch the concert on big screen. Virtually no crowd problems, no fighting, minimal obvious impairment of any kind among the crowd. A hell of a thunder and lightning show in the first part of the concert (fortunately, with barely a drop of rain) just added to the drama and the spectacle.
I like some of their songs and I saw I enjoyed them at Edenfest back in 1996. But compared to Edenfest when he was younger and healthier, you could tell that Downie was struggling through the set and that gave it a much more human touch than one would ordinarily expect in such a hugely-attended event.
homme de fer
Well-known member
The concert started out pretty rough and I was a bit worried that maybe his illness was more advanced than the band was letting on. Having watched cancer ravage many in my family, I can say the chemo and surgeries really impact the person physically depending on where in the protocol they are.
It seems that Gord was able to pull it together by half way through and the encores were great. The whole point of the tour, though, wasn't to put on a classic performance; when you're on the cancer protocol, there is no normal. It was a chance for the band to say goodbye to the people who put them on the map. In the end, the concert in Kingston was a chance for Hip fans to return that love.
It seems that Gord was able to pull it together by half way through and the encores were great. The whole point of the tour, though, wasn't to put on a classic performance; when you're on the cancer protocol, there is no normal. It was a chance for the band to say goodbye to the people who put them on the map. In the end, the concert in Kingston was a chance for Hip fans to return that love.
