Great Perspective - Printable Version

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Great Perspective - gillcash - 08-22-2016

This is a facebook post from Marah's Dave Bielanko on The Tragically Hip. I think it's a pretty awesome perspective from someone who is a musician. I've never been one to wave the Canadian flag when it comes to The Hip but these words also provide a pretty good perspective from an American on the music and what happened Saturday night.

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I had this crazy dream about a band last night so I thought I'd share it with anyone else who might be interested and wanna read something personal...

So this band in my dream plays this amazing show and the band members start kissing and hugging each other between the encores, the audience is hung out there in the twilight between crying and wearing ridiculous exaggerated smiles, never once does the crowd stop cheering, screaming. They can't. The band leaves the stage, and the lights go back down, the crowd screams and screams, so the band comes back out! Bzzzzzt. They plug their guitars back in.

And again.

And again.

The band plays rock n roll music (which is why this dream is so remarkable). The singer fights this over-simplified, knuckle-head, notion in self defense over the years. He has to. Through the years the singer goes to great lengths to throw people off the trail actually, it can't be that simple! So he pushes it, pushes himself, he is not a dumb guy and his bandmates deserve better then that, later there are kids and wives in the wheelhouse too, managers, busdrivers, accountants...a big extended family and he is standing out there holding the microphone speaking for all of 'em....so he does what he thinks is right, he does what he thinks is for the good of everyone, he works hard trying to unlock what's in his head and see the road ahead....not everyone realizes this every step of the way.

There are tough days along the way. But tonight they all understand. By the end of the show everyone understands. "thank you!" people are screaming at him. He makes funny faces back at you, he smiles, pretends to chomp an invisible cigar. No one knows exactly what he means by this, but he is right somehow. Always was.

The band is from another country and exists there in their own parallel dimension (this does not jive with the American ego and our special brand of insular ignorance so in many ways, for American's anyway, the band doesn't really exist) Donald Trump has never heard of this band. Guns N Roses re-reunion fans never heard of 'em, Brooklyn hipster music 'tastemakers'? Nope.

"fuck you" says the roaring crowd from another country, yes it does!
"fuck you" says the band with their loud guitars...grrrrr, yes we do...

Yes we did.

But anyway, this other country is super proud of "their band", so their official National Broadcast Channel streams the band's "final" concert out all over the world for free! (what the hell?) they don't even fuck it up either, there aren't even any commercials! it's a classy affair, a no-frills broadcast, good camera shots, simple, it's all about the band, the audience and the songs (in a lot of ways this is the ultimate validation, the supreme recognition) an unprecedented acknowledgement that this band really happened. And mattered.

Right here.

It's "the nod".

They were ours.

We were theirs.

The National TV channel does not just stream the first hour of the gig either...they stream the entire marathon show, it opens humbly with the band coming up the metal stage stairs from their dressing room, the crowd roaring... and it ends when it ends...
many hours later with the band arm in arm all sweaty saying "thank you" to the wild crowd. Then the singer says "have a nice life", it's a super "loaded" thing to say! everyones head is about to catch on fire. The Prime Minister is there yelling something out in the wild crowd. He is standing up shouting and clapping his hands till they hurt. He stands in awe of the band just like everybody else.

The singer of the band is real, real sick. You'd never know it watching them play their music tonight but at some point very soon the band is gonna need to wrap it up for real/for real.
Go home and be with their loved ones in the fleeting moments, hold hands, try to make sense of everything that just happened them, to all of them....they'll have to try to get their affairs in order and cruise it all in for a landing once and for all. It's all very beautiful and sad and awesome and fucked up.

It's a SuperBowl of emotions. A Stanley Cup actually I guess.

And then the dream ends when the phone rings....
I'm tired today but I can't stop thinking about it. I woke up on the couch with my boots on.
I ended up staying up most of the night last night after it was over, just kinda sitting there in front of the screen where I just saw it all go down. But now the screen was black and the show was over.

I saw something amazing last night, that's all I know... anyone who says I didn't is a liar.

I followed this band since I was a little kid, me and my bro bought the band's 1st MCA Ep on cassette the week it came out (1987?) and we never left them, Im a Ware-wolf baby. We rocked their tee-shirts in HighSchool and felt pretty good about confusing other young people to that degree. When "Road Apples" finally came out we played that album more then anyone on the planet, Canadians or not, we played that shit more then you. We were also there when they toured "Day for Night" in the USA and stopped at the TLA on South Street in Philly to play it just for us (and about 250 other traveling Canadians) that either just happened to be in Philly that night to watch a hockey game the next day, or were actually following the band around the States hitting every gig? I'll never know.

I didn't care then. The band was amazing, after the gig we stood out behind the club hoping to meet them, but they dodged us somehow, they probably had to go...

USA Today wrote about the band (for the first time) today... whatever. Your newspaper sucks.

I miss the band already. I can't stop thinking about them.

Ok, that's all I got.

You are ahead by a century.

Thank you amazing rock n roll band, we were always listening!

That's all I got.
DB

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Re: Great Perspective - thebends - 08-22-2016

Thanks gillcash for the share. Kinda made me feel like the end of every Hip show I've ever seen.

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Re: Great Perspective - scottitude - 08-22-2016

Yes, thanks for sharing.

Great perspective with great soul.

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Re: Great Perspective - edgoffin - 08-22-2016

Thanks for posting that - pretty amazing summary

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