I Followed The Tragically Hip for Their Final Tour and Rediscovered Nostalgia

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This article originally appeared on Noisey Canada.

I don’t want this tour to end. I’ve been following The Tragically Hip around since I was 14, and have seen them about 75 times. I’m now 35 years old. I have seen six shows on this tour; the second show in Calgary, the Winnipeg show, the second and third shows in Toronto, plus the concerts in Hamilton and Ottawa. Tonight, I’ll be at my seventh at the K-Rock Centre, watching the last show of the Man Machine Poem tour in the Hip’s hometown of Kingston. I had to be at these shows. There was no question, no other option. Gord Downie’s announcement that he had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer shocked the nation. But it has brought about a living tribute to the man and the band who have created so much happiness and belonging for so many from coast to coast. This has been the summer of The Tragically Hip: a time to celebrate our band, our music, a uniting bond in our country, and ourselves.

The Hip have been the soundtrack to my life. Theirs were the songs that blasted from the boombox in my teenage bedroom, on road trips down dark Canadian highways, on a yellow Sony Walkman and a Discman and all generations of iPods and iPhones; sung and strummed in bars, beaches and campfire sing-a-longs with friends and strangers. I’m nervous, anxious, and excited. Each one of these shows has been incredibly special, an emotional roller coaster of tears, laughter, and nostalgia for days gone by. I am overwhelmed by the camaraderie and kindness exhibited by Hip fans, of whom so many have traveled far and wide to see the Hip on this tour.

The Kingston concert always seemed like it was such a far away date on the calendar. The commercials for the “national celebration” that aired Saturday on the CBC made this all seem surreal. Never have I been so excited to go to a show, and never with such dread at the same time. “This campfire won’t last forever,” Canadian band The Arkells prophetically sang in their 2012 song “Kiss Cam,” “The Hip have only [written] so many songs.” With this in mind, it was time to head out on the road and catch every last glow of the embers from the campfire that I could.

My pilgrimage started in Calgary on August 3, for the Hip’s second show at the Saddledome. More than any other show, walking into the Saddledome was the toughest. Fans loitered outside of the venue for hours, signing Thank You banners set up by local rock radio stations. Hip music blared from outdoor speakers and people lined up at outdoor merchandise booths. Emotionally preparing myself by watching the tour on Periscope didn’t ease the anxiety. I was still very nervous, not knowing what to expect from the band, or how I would react when I saw them take the stage. The Calgary show proved to be most emotional I’ve been on this tour. I was in the fifth row with fans all around who, like me, had tears in their eyes. The father and son beside me danced and sang for two hours straight; the couple in front kept turning around and taking selfies with the band in the background, the grandmother to my right knew every word to every song and danced as much as I did, which is a hell of a lot. Downie basked in the glow of a beautiful ovation at the end of the night, telling the crowd how appreciative the band has been of the fans.

When the band made the announcement both of Downie’s illness and the summer tour, one of the lines that struck me in the press release was that they would “dig deep” and do their “best tour yet.” Like many fans, I was highly skeptical. With all that is going on, all of the uncertainty surrounding Downie’s health, how could these shows really be the best we’ve seen? Would Downie be able to move at the frenetic pace he always had? Amazingly, Downie, drummer Johnny Fay, guitarists Paul Langlois and Rob Baker, and bass player Gord Sinclair dug deep as promised. The set lists were brilliant, comprising of mini sets four to five songs in length from each of their studio albums. Every night, each show was new. For example, over the three Toronto shows, the band played a total of 76 songs; 53 of them were different.

Watching The Tragically Hip remains a purely joyful experience. While a huge part of a Hip show has always been the ‘I was there when’ moment shared with siblings, friends, and lovers, Downie’s illness has now given seeing The Hip live a massive sense of urgency. The band, Downie in particular, relished the love of the audience like never before. Most shows have featured several minute long ovations where Downie is visibly touched. As he soaks it up, the crowd plays to him, almost willing him to be alright through cheering and singing and dancing. Never in the 21 years I’ve been going to Hip shows have the crowds been so involved and energetic.

Downie is substantially thinner, and takes more breaks than he used to. He doesn’t play guitar on stage, something he had done consistently since the Trouble At The Henhouse tour and didn’t initially banter as much with the audience as he is usually known to do. That would change in the last few shows of the tour: Downie told a few more jokes, thanked the crowds. In Ottawa, he made a very brief statement about Native rights. His voice, now better than ever, is hauntingly beautiful. The evolution of Gord Downie’s voice over the last 30 years is a remarkable part of The Hip’s growth. He has become an exceptional singer with an extraordinary range. On August 5 in Winnipeg, a town that helped put The Hip on the map with fervent support in the mid-1980s, the band opened with the nearly geographically accurate “At The Hundredth Meridian." When Downie thanked a local rock journalist helping launch their career, the crowd erupted. When they played “Escape Is at Hand For the Traveling Man,” a song from 1998’s Phantom Power, the guy in the seat beside my girlfriend’s felt the need to sing it with me, duet style, arm around me, at the top of his lungs. I had never met him or seen him before, but we had our moment and it was beautiful. At the end of the song he gave me a hug and then ran up the stairs of the arena with tears in his eyes. He promptly returned a few minutes later with a beer for his new friend. It was a warmth that I have come to expect from fans of The Hip.

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In Toronto, I sat up in the gondola along with other fans whose limited view behind the stage seats had been relocated. Downie’s voice, already revelatory on this tour, seemingly stronger. He appeared much more confident as the tour went on: I felt like I was watching a man who was having the time of his life. At the end of the concert, he seemed to catch himself in the moment, telling the crowd that “tonight, it disappears. And that’s okay, too.” What may have been dismissed as a cryptic line on any other tour, his utterance magnified the gravity of what is already an almost unbelievable situation. The show on Sunday also in Toronto was an incredible blur. My sister and I sat in the section next to the stage about ten rows up. After what felt like 20 minutes, I looked at my watch and the band had been on stage for an hour and a half; I was completely lost in the moment. It was euphoric when they played “Three Pistols,” a song from Road Apples that I have long adored and had never heard in concert.

Hamilton’s show was the loudest concert I’ve seen on the tour. The sense of urgency was palpable at the First Ontario Centre; of fans wanting to show their love and support to Downie. “Courage” and “50 Mission Cap” were sung with near religious fervour, but that night’s performance of “Grace, Too” was like nothing I’ve ever seen at a concert. As the song built to a crescendo, it looked as if Downie was getting emotional). Whether part of his act or not, the crowd saw him lost in the moment and began to roar, channeling our love for Downie through the last two minutes of the song. Maybe it was the realization of how fleeting life is, and how we need to enjoy every second, to “use it all up and don’t save a thing for later.” It was a moment I, nor the audience, will likely ever forget.

At the end of the night after thanking the crowd, he told them, stoically: “It was a lot of fun, that’s the main idea. None of it’ll last longer than the particular phone you’re shooting it on. That’s okay, I’m not anti-phone. But it’ll be the little feelings here and there that pop up, okay?” Gord Downie with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Photo via Facebook

Ottawa was the location for the penultimate show of the tour. Costumed concertgoers tailgated in the Canadian Tire Centre parking lot for hours before the show, hardcore fans in RVs made the trek from far off points like Las Vegas and Prince Edward Island. For most, this would be their last Hip show of the tour. For some, it was also their first. It was a chance for 20,000 to gather and sing "Wheat Kings" with tears streaming down our cheeks, to remember every campfire, every road trip, every kiss. Towards the end of the night, Downie instructed the crowd to “take care of each other.” I think he knows that as Hip fans, we always will.

The Kingston show is behind us now but we can be hopeful that this is not the last we hear from The Tragically Hip. The band never explicitly stated that this was going to be the final tour when the CBC began promoting the show as the Hip’s last one ever, which they were quickly told to correct. The concert was immense, pulling in over 11 million viewers across the country. Even the journalists and athletes at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, all the way in another hemisphere, were united with their fellow Canadians in those few hours. With the grace and courage exhibited by Downie and the rest of the Hip on this Summer tour, I would rather not dwell on whether this is the last tour or not. Seeing Downie leave his heart and soul on the stage every night has inspired millions of Canadians. We know that if and when Downie is healthy to perform, that they will be back out on the road, bringing joy from town to town. We can take a cue from Downie himself. “Wheat Kings and pretty things / Wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

Dave Kaufman is a news talk radio host on CJAD AM 800 in Montreal. Follow him on Twitter.