The Tragically Hip on their last-ever concert: 'It felt like the end'
· Toronto Sun
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When it aired 10 years ago, an estimated 11.7 million people watched the Tragically Hip take their final bow. To mark the 10th anniversary, CBC will rebroadcast the show in its entirety this Saturday.
Visit newssport.cv for more information.
This Friday, the Hip will also release a live album featuring recordings from the band’s unforgettable final tour.
After the band’s lead singer, Gord Downie, announced in the spring of 2016 that he had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable form of brain cancer, the Hip embarked on a 10-city, 15-date, cross-Canada tour. At each stop, Downie, who died in 2017, displayed a fiery stage presence that reminded audiences how he became one of the country’s most captivating musical artists.
Following the concert tour, Downie worked on The Secret Path , a solo album and accompanying graphic novel that was inspired by Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old Ojibway boy who died in 1966 while in the care of Canada’s controversial residential school system.
Downie’s subsequent solo LP, Away Is Mine , was released posthumously in 2020.
After a lifetime spent penning Canadiana-centric lyrics, Downie died on Oct. 18, 2017 , at the age of 53.
“Gord knew this day was coming – his response was to spend this precious time as he always had – making music, making memories and expressing deep gratitude to his family and friends for a life well lived, often sealing it with a kiss… on the lips,” the band said in a statement at the time.
‘That felt like the last show’
The Hip never officially said that the concert, which was billed as a National Celebration and took place at the then-named K-Rock Centre in the band’s hometown of Kingston, Ont., on Aug. 20, was their last.
But speaking to Postmedia at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of their career-spanning documentary, The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal , in 2024, lead guitarist Rob Baker and his bandmates — bassist Gord Sinclair, drummer Johnny Fay and rhythm guitarist Paul Langlois — knew there was an air of finality after they played the final note of their encore, Ahead By a Century .
“We just played the show … and when we got off the stage, Gord Downie said, ‘That felt like the last show.’ I think we all heard him say that and knew that was it,” Langlois said.
In the years since it aired, Langlois hadn’t watched the broadcast. “We had a long great career and it was all we could do,” he said.
Likewise, Fay said he hadn’t been able to sit through a full viewing of the concert, which took place in front of 6,700 fans.
“I haven’t been able to get through that again. I know it’s on TV every now and then, but it’s a hard one. Bringing back those memories,” Fay said.
After forming at Queen’s University more than 30 years earlier, Fay said that the concert “felt like the end.”
“The thing I remember about the last show was we came offstage and … I went to go see Gord and I saw him in his dressing room with his mom and his kids,” Fay recalled. “He was having this private moment and I remember walking away and leaving him. We had so much history and so much time together on the road … That was the end. Processing that was heavy.”
As the quintet rocked through a 30-song, career-spanning setlist, Sinclair said he was “pleasantly distracted.”
“The emotion and the poignancy of it being the final show didn’t settle in until a couple of weeks afterwards,” he said. “Had I really stopped to take the time to appreciate how far we had come, it would have been a lousy night. But we just approached it like another day at the office.”
Baker said he “packed up” his gear at the end of the night.
“At the end of that final show, my thought was it’s over,” he said. “Over the course of the next few weeks afterwards, that’s when it settled in. It was hard. I had a slow motion meltdown and I lost my way for a few years. The dream was over; the bubble popped. I wondered, ‘What am I now? What do I have left?'”
The Hip reunited with Feist for a version of It’s a Good Life If You Don’t Weaken of the 2021 Juno Awards. They also released Saskadelphia that same year, which featured songs from their 1991 Road Apples sessions.
Baker admitted that he struggled with his identity in the years after the Hip’s swan song, but the answer eventually came to him.
“I just poured myself into writing songs and painting. After several months of doing that, I realized I don’t need another act,” he said. “This is what I do. This is what makes me happy. If I write songs no one hears, that’s fine. If I paint paintings that no one sees, that’s fine. I enjoy it. I had a great public career with my friends, and I still have most of my friends.”
The Tragically Hip: A National Celebration airs Saturday on CBC. Screenings are also taking place at bars across Canada. For participating locations, visit thehipgta.com .