![]() That’s what even newcomers discovered during the CBC broadcast of the Tragically Hip’s final show on Aug. ![]() Video clips don’t do justice to the energy in the room generated by a performer who communicated more with a flick of the finger than anyone else’s high kicks. As could anyone who watched him command 40,000 people at any given outdoor appearance during the 1990s, singing songs that were summer soundtracks for an entire generation. Anyone who managed to catch him fronting the Tragically Hip in 1985, playing covers at a roadhouse in Renfrew, Ont., could tell you that. ![]() Gordon Edgar Downie was one of the most riveting and mystifying performers in rock’n’roll history. Then sit back and see what happens, because it’s not like you can control it. The poet whose metaphors had inspired generations of rock’n’roll fans had nothing more to say-with words, anyway.ĭo the work. He stoked the fire until sparks came out. Then he got up, silently, walked over to a pile of wood, picked up two logs, and returned to put them on the fire. And it seems like you get up there every single time and give it!” “Gord, I always wanted to ask you: how do you get the energy to make it so real every day? I think if I put myself out there like that, on the line, and make people emotionally connect with me, I feel like I couldn’t ever do it again, because I’d get bored or I just couldn’t summon the same amount of emotion. There were a few others there, though, most of whom knew enough to respect the privacy of the cancer-stricken man who had travelled hundreds of kilometres to disappear. Just a few close friends on a starry night in front of a campfire. It would turn out to be the last show of his band’s 30-year, multi-million-selling, award-winning career, a fate many suspected at the time.īut things were much quieter now. Where some go to get lost.ĭays earlier, this quiet man had held much of the entire nation rapt, millions watching as he summoned all his strength to tackle his terminal condition, to fend back-however briefly-the inevitability of death. In the remote north, in a land where the many not born there dare not go. Downie’s vocals were at the heart of it all.He was on a fishing trip. Minor success in other parts of the world notwithstanding, the Hip was Canadian royalty, receiving 17 Juno awards and scoring nine No. “The feeling I’m left with most is like, shit - I would love to ask him more questions about all of this,” he adds quietly, looking down at his desk.īefore he died in 2017 after a bout with brain cancer, Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip ruled Canadian airwaves with 13 popular albums and hits such as “Blow at High Dough,” “Nautical Disaster,” and “Ahead by a Century.” Those songs were not only commercially successful, but shaped Canadian identity thanks to their ubiquity in celebratory situations such as hockey games and weddings. You see a consistency and certain motifs that keep coming back and occurring in his work.”īut the process is not without its painful moments. ![]() You see what you can learn and reinforce what you already know about him. I’m very lucky to have this stuff and to go through it. “I want to savor and cherish every part of him. “It’s a labor of love,” Patrick says of his newfound archivist role during a video call from his Toronto home. “Don’t Drink the Brown Water”: Our Live Report From Woodstock ’99 The Tragically Hip’s Gord Downie’s First Posthumous Album Set for Release Rock previously worked on the Tragically Hip’s World Container and We Are the Same. Out Friday (May 5) is Lustre Parfait, Gord’s second posthumous record of big, bright songs recorded with producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith) in the early 2010s. This knowledge is certainly coming in handy, as the younger Downie has been entrusted with the responsibility of curating Gord’s vast collection of unreleased music and work. It’s been six years since Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie died at the age of 53, but his brother Patrick continues to learn new things about his older sibling.
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