With a delirious sold-out crowd at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston, Ont., hanging on his every word – and countless more fans watching on TV at home or at public screenings – the Tragically Hip frontman delivered what many fear was his final performance. “It’s unbelievable. I’ve been to Thailand, I’ve been to Dubai, I say it and they say Bobcaygeon”. The Kingston show was the last of the 15-date tour, with thousands of Canadians tuning into a live stream of the emotional show around the country…and around the world!
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After it ended, Toronto broadcaster and writer Alan Cross tweeted: “We will talk about this show in hushed tones for years to come”.
“Passing by lots of ppl en route to Tragically Hip viewing in Assiniboine Park Winnipeg”.
Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, stunned the nation in May when he announced that he had been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer. And wish the best to Mr. Gord Downie.
This was especially the case for Flank, who has never seen the band live in concert before.
“I felt like it was just another sting”, she said. Downie has “glioblastoma”, an aggressive form of brain cancer that affects an estimated four to six in every 100,000 Canadians, is hard to treat, and has a grim prognosis. But Canada did get a band they could call its own and the one they could cherish forever.
Formed in the early 1980s, the Hip arrived at a time when Canada started to feel a little less colonial and less intimidated by its big neighbor to the south. That event included “colour throws”, which scattered multiple hues of coloured powder on the park and on numerous people there who danced and swayed to music at both ends of the field. Even as I watched it from work, the song really hit me, more than I’ve ever had.
One of the band’s most popular songs, “Wheat Kings”, is about David Milgaard, a man wrongfully imprisoned in the murder of a nursing assistant in Saskatchewan.
“Thank you very much folks”, he said.
This Saturday, the city of Kingston, Ontario will become the epicenter of a major event. He extinguished a debate that has raged between Hip fans this tour by revealing that the scarf adorning his neck for most of the evening was actually two colourful socks linked together.
Strong said that he had tickets for the Hip’s first show in Thunder Bay at Lakehead University, but didn’t end up going to the show.
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The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has dubbed Downie, 52, who is known for his profound lyrics and garish stage costumes, the nation’s “unofficial poet laureate”. “So it’s nice to hear things that we are familiar with sung about and talked about”.
