How Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip became a part of our landscape, an experience in what it means to be Canadian

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By Dave Kaufman

He sings. He smiles. He sweats. He dances. A lot.

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He recites poems. Goes on epic rants. Tosses a handkerchief from his endless supply into the crowd. Feigns a sword fight with his mic stand. Pretends to smoke a cigarette. Dekes out the goalie. Skeet shoots. And farms.

He dances some more. He thanks you for coming to the show. And he calls you a music lover.

Gord Downie’s greatest talent isn’t heard in his singing voice; it’s not even read in his lyrics. His strongest ability as a frontman is found in the way he makes a connection with his audience; the way he makes any setting – no matter if it’s in a strip mall bar in Ohio or a sold out Air Canada Centre – seem intimate, as though he’s looking each member of the audience in the eye. He wills the crowd in front of him to participate; to put down their iPhones and be in the moment. His engagement with the audience is constant, from the start of the show to the finish. You don’t just go to a Tragically Hip show, you become a part of a Downie performance.

Like so many summers since The Tragically Hip started out, they’re spending July and August on the road, embarking on a cross-Canada tour that begins on Friday in Victoria.

There’s a comfort that comes from knowing that the Hip are going to be traveling across the country yet again. For generations of Canadians, they have become the soundtrack to our lives, and for those lucky enough to have seen their concerts – often in the humid summers of a land otherwise made for winter – they have become an attraction bigger than those on any roadside. They have become a part of our landscape, an experience in what it means to be Canadian.

They are gravel parking lots and behind-the-hockey-rink smoke-ups. They are old theatres in the pines and college students having arguments that don’t really matter. They are waiting in line at Tim Hortons and going to the cottage on a long weekend. But they also manage to be more than a mere Canadian stereotype. They are not flannel-clad hosers or a beer ad’s idea of what it means to be Canadian. They are first and foremost a rock band. Our rock band. A sing all night, shots-for-my-friends, kick-your-ass, rock band.

My first Tragically Hip show was in February, 1995, at the old Montreal Forum. Since then, I’ve seen them in arenas and nightclubs across North America: in Vermont’s open fields and at Montreal festivals, at the foot of a ski hill and in a decrepit CFL stadium. I have been to more than one swanky opera house, and countless auditoriums, theatres and bars. By the time their tour ends, I’ll have seen the Hip somewhere north of 75 times.

Watching them in concert has lead to an incalculable amount of road trips, oil changes, CAA calls, hotel frequent flyer miles, and a very well-developed excuse as to why “I might not make it into work today, boss (cough, cough).”

Downie has always been the star of the show, the main attraction and the reason behind the band’s live mystique. He is what Mick Jagger would be if Jagger wasn’t so pompous; what Jim Morrison could’ve been if he had controlled his addiction; what Springsteen is without the schmaltz.

Perhaps most importantly, Downie is also uniting. The Hip’s music forges a common bond that can basically be agreed upon from coast to coast. Although Downie sings of Canada, his songs are by no means patriotic, or no more than in the way that we’re all influenced by where we’re from. The band have never been so obvious as to drape themselves in a Canadian flag, but instead, they evoke that shared experience of what it’s meant for many of us to grow up in Canada.

Memories of Hip shows past have been on my mind a lot, lately. My recollections are full of the countless summer road trips with friends to almost every part of Canada and the northeastern United States. And for every place I remember visiting, there seems to be yet another memory of a friendship forged via Hip fandom. But I think most of all, I remember the anticipation; the eagerness I felt when tour dates were first announced.

However, as this tour – which will wind through B.C, Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario before wrapping up in their hometown of Kingston – approaches, it’s a cathartic feeling that sweeps over me. The band promised, in a May 24 press release that announced Downie’s terminal cancer, to “dig deep” and make this trip across the country their “best tour yet.” And that breaks my heart.

The weight of it all is crushing: the reason for this tour, the fact that it is likely to be their final tour and the way in which a group that has brought me so much pleasure over the years will go on one last time despite the emotional and physical pain it’s likely to cause them. Watching the Hip in concert has been a source of so much happiness and belonging for me. This feels like a moment in time to be cherished, an unprecedented event not just in Canadian music history, but maybe even in our country’s history.

The Tragically Hip are our band, and they’re back on the road for one more summer. Fully and completely.