[FighterAndLover]

I have avoided this forum for awhile; it's been too painful. But now, getting drunk on a Sat. morning and blasting Hip to fight my loud neighbors in Taiwan I realize something: I need some Hip fans to console me. I keep seeing Gord's sneer during his final live performance of 'Grace, Too' and it wells my eyes with tears. I will never be in a crowd chanting 'Hip!Hip!Hip!' again.

So if admins wanna take this one down, that's fine. But I want everyone to post their fav. hip memory to fight my sadness.

Mine: Seeing The Hip at First Avenue (Minneapolis). I had seen them the previous night at Chicago's House of Blue's. I was front center both nights, and Johnny definitely recognized me from the previous show as he walked straight down and handed me the drumsticks at the conclusions of the show. Someone offered me $50 for the sticks, but I wouldn't have sold them for $1million.

I miss this band so much, please share your stories so I can heal.

[FourPistols]

I feel the same way, friend.

Blown away they’re gone but determined to keep their art alive.

Wearing a Jaws T-shirt as I write this, my absolute fave memory could be a tie. Catching the final Toronto show in 2016 was magical.

But right up there was the time that Gord came out into the audience at a Salamanca, NY 2009 show and I was able to briefly put my hand on his sweaty shoulder to say “thanks a million.”

Crank up the music. That’s the best way to keep Gord alive.

[direwolf74]

Two favorite memories that immediately come to mind:

1) Seeing them in Vancouver on the final tour. It was like being wrapped in a giant blanket of joy, nostalgia, and sadness. But mostly it was a feeling of celebration. It was by far the best live concert experience I've ever had, and probably ever will have. Both the band and crowd were amazing, and the setlist was everything I could have asked for. People were singing, crying, and hugging complete strangers. That show will stay with me forever.

2) Seeing my first ever cross-border Hip show in Novato, California in 1998, just north of San Francisco (Phantom Power tour). The Hip headlined a small outdoor festival put on by the local college radio station in a beautiful park right beside a small lake. A bunch of local bands opened the show, and then the Hip went on and blew everybody's minds. I'd guess there were maybe 600-700 people there, tops. It was like seeing them at a private event in someone's backyard, and it was incredible.

[thebends]

So many memories over the years, so many tears. One of my faves is 1998 at the Wetlands Preserve in NYC. Very small intimate venue. I was working with a colleague in Allentown NJ and managed to talk him into driving his rental to NYC to see if we could get a couple of tix for that night (I think they played 5 straight nights on that stint). It was not an easy convince on this Idaho born and raised IT geek but he eventually agreed and off we went. The show was magical and transcending, enough magic to turn my colleague into a solid Hip fan and eventually a great friend. I'll never forget the WTF was that??? smirk on his face after the show. We've attended several Hip gigs in small venues in the US since then, but that night at the Wetlands I saw an unsuspecting music lover get slapped and smacked with pure and hard live musical genius.

[edgoffin]

Too many to write down...but a few standout.

The show at Richardson Stadium in 1993. By then I'd already seem then countless times, but they hit a new level that night. It had been rotten weather, cold and rainy through Andrew Cash and Headstones, but the weather broke when The Hip hit the stage. One of those nights when you see a band really hit a new gear.

Trouble tour and a show at Irving Plaza in NYC -- explaining to a lady in line why there were so many Canadians there to see a show. She was perplexed that a band she'd never heard played arenas in Canada. Hope she enjoyed the show and became a fan.

Realizing I was eating breakfast beside Gord in Kingston after the FC anniversary show, drumming up the courage, and getting the chance to say thanks for 30 years of music and being part of my life for three decades, countless road trips, bonfire, cottages parties. He was gracious and funny, responding with "you know, I think we're maybe onto something with this band".

Any time a Hip song comes up on shuffle when driving, I get that brief rush always followed by more than a bit of sadness. I was lucky enough (or now old enough) to catch on to them in the EP days, and I find it hard to explain just how much the band meant to me.

[hurls15]

The other day I was reading some list of the top 100 television episodes as judged by some publication, and the top episode for Lost was "The Constant". If you were a fan of that show, you will undoubtedly remember this plot line. If not, it is way to complex and detailed for me to describe it here. But to me, the Hip were always (and still are) my Constant. Outside of family, I do not have anything truly important to me/a big part of 'me' in my life that stretches (in its entirety) from my introduction to them in 90/91 until today. Best friends have come and gone. First loves, serious relationships, and short flings, all come and gone. Trends, fads, favourites, all come and gone. Those people were all so important to me and a huge part of my life at their respective times, but in the end they all faded away into the past. They other thing that came and went along with all of those people was the various stages of me living my life. From the high school years in the early 90s, to the undergrad years in the late 90s, to the law school years in the early 2000s, to establishing a career and marriage in the mid to late 2000s, and finally up to fatherhood and middle age over the last almost decade. Throughout those years one changes immensely, has ups and downs, matures and grows. Through it all, the Hip rode shotgun with me. Always my favorite band, they pepper my memories of all of those different stages of life and the people in them. Whether it was road tripping to concerts, laying in bed with a gf with the band playing on the stereo, putting the cds on at the parties or at the cottage, or now introducing my children to the music and the stories behind the songs, they have been my Constant. I can put on a song and close my eyes and transport myself back to a time, place or person. I am forever grateful and thankful to have had (and still have) that experience.

In terms of memories, so many. One favourite is being in the front row centre at ARA Markham 95 and watching the interaction between Gord and Gord as they got ready to play Summer Side of Life. Friends and bandmates giving each other the are we ready to do this.

Another favourite was from Hamilton Place 2009, watching Gord walk along the front of the audience, stop at me and put his arm around me, and have me strum the outro to Bobcaygeon. A life memory made.

Another was getting to speak with each of the guys at the Kensington Market shows, to shake each of their hands, and to say thanks for the years of great music and memories. Very glad I got to do that given how everything unfolded in coming years.

Finally, the last show in Kingston. That roller coaster of emotions, from the feeling of 'give 'em f'ing hell boys' as the opening notes rang out, to the final bow. Enough said.

[loach]

Great post. Agree with the feelings regarding the Hip being my Constant too.

[Escape@Hand]

So many good memories to choose from, but I'll just post two for right now. The first was the first time I saw them, on the Henhouse tour in 96. I had nosebleed seats at the (then) Corel Centre in Ottawa, but that show blew my mind. I was already a diehard fan, but that was the first opportunity for me to see them live (I was just 16 then). They played 4 songs off of UTH, which was really surprising - I was so pumped to hear Opiated and Everytime you Go - as well as a ton of music off of TATH, including Put it Off, and The Apartment Song, which were rarely played after that tour. But the best moment for me was right at the beginning, as they opened with Grace, Too. Johnny sat down at the kit, and started into the beat, and I went nuts. They rocked it and that moment is engrained in my mind forever.

The second memory was from my first US show, in Rochester, and the wonderful Rochester Auditorium. It's a really nice theatre, big enough to have a lot of energy from the crowd, but still very intimate. That was on the IBE tour, which is one of my favourite albums. They opened with You're Everywhere, my favourite song from that album, and the only time I heard it live (a shame really, I wish they played more songs off of that album on subsequent tours). It was a blistering show, and I went with a work colleague who shared my love of the Hip. That started a good friendship with him and we went on to see many more shows together, including the final Kingston show. I remember at the Rochester show that Gord forgot the opening lines to Wheat Kings, and after about a minute intro, he had to lean over to Paul to get the words; that was a funny moment!

[kulpie]

what great reads on here and I want to share some randomness. I was born in Windsor & grew up in Mississauga. Parents got divorced when I was 17 and my mom moved to a small home in Meadowvale (yikes) and this dude from UK was painting our home, and my sisters and I were blaring the RA cassette on the boom-box and this say 28 year old English guy rings our doorbell as he was painting outside, and asks us to turn the music up and asks who this band was. I explain it was the Tragically Hip and he was "wow, they are really good". I liked them at this stage of my life but they had not grabbed me yet.

Then next September, I'm off to New Hampshire to start college and try and continue my hockey "career". I was the quintessential Canadian hockey jock right, except not only did I play hockey, drink beer, chase girls and listen to The Hip; but I also read everything I could get my hands on. Long bus rides to games were spent reading and writing poetry, diving into environmental sciences, mathematics, philosophy and the like. School, hockey, life et al continued and even though The Hip were mandated by me into the warm-up songs, I still had yet to "get it". Although, in those warm ups with NOIS blaring on the speakers, you'd always recognise a fellow Canadian or Hip lovin puck-fuck who'd be singing along while going through the motions.

Fast forward 3 years and I'm now in Montreal having put away the skates for chasing beer, girls and a higher degree of sophistication found at the Peel pub or bartending at Daniel's on Crescent Street. My american cousin from Buffalo, who finished law-school via Stanford is now living in DC, sends me a plane ticket and invites me to see the Hip, at the fucking 9:30 Club, Oct. 19 and 20th 1995 to be exact. It is our first concert together and our first Hip experience. And that was when they got me.

Holy fuckin' shiiit. I was blown away by this band that I watched from a bird's eye view of a bird eye view; the second row behind this beautiful lass from Perth that was eyeing Johnny all show. It was the music, it was the vibe, it was the poetry in motion, it was the Fuck Mike Harris and the religious right, it was Hunter S. Thompson's imagination performing live in front of me. I was so completely blown away. They transcended me to that glorious jet stream that this now infamous air balloon had found and I was a lifer and along for the ride through thick and thin. Careers begin and time goes but the "constant" was also this band. like clockwork, you knew that soon enough, you would be somewhere, in some venue ready to, hopefully, be transcended again. but 9:30 was the moment.

Fast forward to 2016, March to be exact and I'm playing poker with some pals in the beaches here in Toronto. Mike Downie lives in my neighbourhood and Gord lives a couple km's away in Riverdale. I knew the guys a bit and said hey to their management from a connection or 3. Similar minded guys doing their thing and I'm living pretty well but staying close to my core values and having a nice chat with a chap that is 'family connected' to the Hip's management. Him and I are really good pals and we stepped out to the back for a smoke, even though it is not yet quite legal, and he goes, "oh man, I have to tell you something but you have to swear to secrecy"...I oblige him and the air then goes right out of my sails. Gord Downie is dying.

A couple months later; the Friday before the memorial day weekend, I hear that the hip are going to tour, Gord wanted it, no, Gord needed it! And well, they were going to go for it. I sat on it all through that weekend knowing they were calling a presser after the weekend to announce everything...I devoted that summer to seeing our boys play for the last times in Vancouver, Toronto and then bittersweetly, brought my cousin from Buffalo, who is now in San Fran to the Hip's final act and we saw that from Front Row no less.

I heard about Gord's passing while sitting in the BMW boardroom in Munich. October 17 to be exact, 23 years less 2 days (without factoring in leap years) after the day in Washington DC that they got me. I took an early flight home and drove out to kingston to visit market square and watch LTR. I somehow wish for more moments.

Gord Edgar Downie, may he rest in peace, and the boys took me on an incredible ride; and although that live rush of das Hip grooving and transcending us to that Zen like place will never be felt again, I am so so so grateful that I found them, and that my life in some small way was weaved into small unforgettable moments with this man machine poem.

"The things we say here, stay here forever, amen."

[patiodweller]

My fav HIP moment that I experienced out of the 35 some odd times that I saw them was Woodstock '99 when Canada owned Woodstock for the duration of their set. They were first on the bill on Day 2 of the concert. 200,000 or so in front of the stage, at least 50,000 of which were Canadian, the Canadian national anthem somehow got played on a guitar before they took stage. Epic Gord quotes spoken that day including: "We've come here to study you. We crossed when the lake was frozen, like exiles from the Canadas of your souls... We shouldn't waste all this good Sahara wind" (it was indescribably sunny and hot for those 3 days. It was the most sunburned I got in my life). "It's good to be back in Rome...Somebody already use that one?" (The concert was in Rome, New York). Gord did a burrows pact mules rant before Giftshop and talked about selling snake skins to tourists before ABAC. And Nautical was surreal. Ranting at the end about lifeboats at sea "...and Aretha Franklin? What is she doing here? She's in a war picture. He struggles, then he seizes to struggle. Aw, sank down to the bottom and landed by me, there together for an eternity, the water was too dark and too cold for any sort of decomposition, absolutely cyrogenically suspended, freeze! Go to the freezer and get your daddy a raspberry freezie."

[direwolf74]

My fav HIP moment that I experienced out of the 35 some odd times that I saw them was Woodstock '99 when Canada owned Woodstock for the duration of their set. They were first on the bill on Day 2 of the concert. 200,000 or so in front of the stage, at least 50,000 of which were Canadian, the Canadian national anthem somehow got played on a guitar before they took stage. Epic Gord quotes spoken that day including: "We've come here to study you. We crossed when the lake was frozen, like exiles from the Canadas of your souls... We shouldn't waste all this good Sahara wind" (it was indescribably sunny and hot for those 3 days. It was the most sunburned I got in my life). "It's good to be back in Rome...Somebody already use that one?" (The concert was in Rome, New York). Gord did a burrows pact mules rant before Giftshop and talked about selling snake skins to tourists before ABAC. And Nautical was surreal. Ranting at the end about lifeboats at sea "...and Aretha Franklin? What is she doing here? She's in a war picture. He struggles, then he seizes to struggle. Aw, sank down to the bottom and landed by me, there together for an eternity, the water was too dark and too cold for any sort of decomposition, absolutely cyrogenically suspended, freeze! Go to the freezer and get your daddy a raspberry freezie."

"Good morning. I feel Woodstockerrific!"

That was an amazing show. I remember a couple friends and I purchased the pay-per-view for that day just so we could watch the Hip, which we got through his dad's satellite dish. Gord was in his absolute prime during that show, ranting like crazy and jumping around the stage like an escaped mental patient. The nudity in the crowd was a nice bonus as well, haha.

Here's the full set:

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Interview with the band after they got off stage:

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[cochise]

Was watching the interview above. I remember when they were talking about recording on that train. Anyone remember whatever happened to that plan? Seemed to just disappear?

[schaggs]

Was watching the interview above. I remember when they were talking about recording on that train. Anyone remember whatever happened to that plan? Seemed to just disappear?

Dispersed in a glance,
It was a Canada of a pain.
So, they travelled by plane.

[potsie]

Was watching the interview above. I remember when they were talking about recording on that train. Anyone remember whatever happened to that plan? Seemed to just disappear?

According to Gord Sinclair:
"We started Music @ Work in September of 1999. Originally, the plan was to spend two weeks on the road, or on the rails, actually, in an old converted Pullman train car, bouncing song ideas around. We had arranged stops in New Orleans and Los Angeles to record the results. A week before we were to have left, we got the call that the generators on the car were down and that it was unlikely they'd be fixed anytime soon. Plan goes poof. After some scrambling, and through the kindness of our dear friend Karen Brady at Kingsway, we were able to extend our stay down in the Crescent City by a few more days. So we set off back to the scene of so many of our past musical adventures. "Of course we're now traveling by plane ..."

Despite the train disappointment, Kingsway was a perfect get-away for us to start the writing process. Away from home, yet in comfortable familiar surroundings, we set to work, along with our engineer Mark Vreeken and tech Billy Rae Koster. All of us had been writing at home, but this was really the first opportunity to hear each others' ideas. We approached the process in a very civilized and organized manner. Setting up in the main hallway of the studio, we sat in a semi-circle and took turns throwing out ideas. As is usually the case we were able to start moving things ahead very quickly. It seems that someone in the group always has something that will compliment someone else's idea, and before you know it, a new song starts to take shape. It's an exciting time. Another riff, rhythm pattern or melodic twist from someone's library of ideas can turn even the ordinary into something special. We've always been really fortunate that way. With five creative people working together on the music and Gord D's seemingly inexhaustible supply of lyrical ideas, it's relatively easy to move things forward. We give each song a fresh start and the attention it deserves, trying to unlock it's potential. When we hit the wall on one, we pick up and start on another."