[direwolf74]

Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but one thing that seems fairly clear from the book is that Gord Downie was somewhat estranged from the band from M@W onward. That quote where an observer notes that, leading up to MMP, Gord admitted to the rest that he'd been a "total dick for a while now" seemed pretty striking to me, given that previous chapters discussed the band's antagonism to Gord bringing new elements to the table for the M@W tour, striking out for his solo career, and so on.

My impression is that after M@W Gord basically approached the Hip as a job, one he did with commitment, but without terrific joy or enthusiasm. His real joy was in subverting or at least dancing around the expectations created by Hipdom itself through his solo work and other ventures. This might contribute to explaining the bizarre "Screamo Gord" phase, which I always suspected had to do with some kind of frustration, either with the Hip or their fans or the crowd's preference for oldies or for the playlists - whatever. I think the clash between GD's experimental nature, his 'arty' streak, and the essential musical conservatism of the others taken as a unit - really their greatest strength in the early days - eventually became an ongoing sore-point that undercut the unity of the band. That's my impression anyhow.

I think tensions within the band reached their peak in 2000/'01 when Gord was first branching out as a solo artist. But I got the sense that they essentially patched things up by the IBE/WC era. I remember Gord doing a lot of press for WC, and to me he appeared quite excited and content at that time, and he seemed really proud of the music they were making with Bob Rock.

"Screamo Gord" didn't rear its ugly head until around 2011 and then thankfully it disappeared by the time they did the FC reissue tour in 2014. It's still a complete mystery to me why he did the screaming stuff, and the book only mentions it briefly. As evidenced by his work in the studio at the time, his singing was obviously still top notch. Another thing I noticed during the Screamo years was that he only did that stuff during Hip shows. When I saw him live on the Grand Bounce tour with the Country of Miracles and later with the Sadies, he sounded amazing.