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Tragically Hip - Last Song Predictions
- Thread starter BigEvilDoer
- Start date
I didn't watch the concert. If I'm listening to the radio and the Hip comes on I change the station. Hopefully I can watch the news tonight with little to no exposure. Hopefully.
I'm not alone it seems. I live in Kingston and didn't go to the concert or the screening. It's a tragedy what's happening with Gord Downie but I grew up listening to REM in another country without even knowing who the Hip were until I came here. Once I heard them I thought they were a poor copy of REM and haven't heard anything since to change my mind. Bedouin Soundclash are a good Kingston band (UB40 like) and the Mahones do good Pogue covers.
That was the same thing I thought. And I agree with Gibby Haynes when it comes to Michael Stipe, so the comparison is less than favourable.
It was a strange performance to watch because they were bang on when we saw them in Toronto just a little over a week earlier. I frankly thought I was going to see the same performance. Gord's voice was super strong and he did not look at the teleprompter nearly as much when I saw them. Maybe those extra shows they booked in took a toll? At times I felt uncomfortable watching the televised concert because that was not the Gord Downie I had seen in Kingston in the early 1990s, and not even the same man I had seen just over a week earlier.
My wife and I were pretty emotional as Gord sung Grace Too and we shared some tears and conversation by a camp fire afterwards as we remembered those we have lost in the 22 years we have been together (we met in 1994 at Queens during my last year there and she had just transferred there from Waterloo). That concern was special, sad, memorable, and like the band itself, a uniquely Canadian experience.
homme de fer
Well-known member
Funny you mention "Grace, Too"; that song kind of did it for me. The gravity of the situation seemed to pour out of Gord during that song.
I think that, if I put myself in Gord's shoes, he's coming up the stage for his last hurrah. There has to be a lot of emotion running through him. He has to try to keep all that in check while remembering the lyrics and the queues from his bandmates. It has to be really difficult for him with all the emotion the crowd is putting out; as the frontman, he feeds on that. That emotion, though, was as real as it gets and it was a treat to see it laid bare. It was probably really good for Gord to really lay it out there at the end, especially during "Grace, Too".
As far as the stuff about REM, I'm afraid I don't see any comparison at all. The Hip started out as a rock n roll band, migrated to a swampier rock sound, smoothed out the edges in Fully Completely, then found their sound in Day for Night. I play guitar and have a decent feel for music, while I play some REM and the Hip, I can't say I've thought these two bands sound alike; Gord is no Micheal Stipe and the Hip guitars don't have that "chimey jangle" that REM has.
I think that, if I put myself in Gord's shoes, he's coming up the stage for his last hurrah. There has to be a lot of emotion running through him. He has to try to keep all that in check while remembering the lyrics and the queues from his bandmates. It has to be really difficult for him with all the emotion the crowd is putting out; as the frontman, he feeds on that. That emotion, though, was as real as it gets and it was a treat to see it laid bare. It was probably really good for Gord to really lay it out there at the end, especially during "Grace, Too".
As far as the stuff about REM, I'm afraid I don't see any comparison at all. The Hip started out as a rock n roll band, migrated to a swampier rock sound, smoothed out the edges in Fully Completely, then found their sound in Day for Night. I play guitar and have a decent feel for music, while I play some REM and the Hip, I can't say I've thought these two bands sound alike; Gord is no Micheal Stipe and the Hip guitars don't have that "chimey jangle" that REM has.
The hip is a bit rockier at times but it's the overall feel with clever lyrics but with the hip the music is bland and incidental and many songs just sound the same, the Hip is Downie a little more than REM is just Stipe though. I've seen REM in concert and they rank as one of the best live bands I've ever seen (Red Hot Chilli Peppers might take top spot). Stipe can sing really well live (shockingly well actually) and the musicians have talent galore, solo renditions were amazing. Stipe singing A Capella was really good. To me in comparison the Hip always sounded like what they are, a college band, rough around the edges (maybe that's part of the attraction too). I think the reason they have the cult following in Canada (and nowhere else) is the Canadiana in their songs, can you honestly say that without that they'd really register as much?
I read a bit about this too, not many other countries attach their collective souls to one band this way and it has a lot to do with the depth of the music industry in other countries. In the US you have tons of bands that could take the country's rock band title (Bruce Springsteen, etc etc) same in the UK. Putting country cultural references in songs in those countries doesn't guarantee sales, but it seems to here as people clamour to identify with geographical or people references.
