“The Hip is a Canadian treasure and I’m really going to miss them”. “It’s really, really bad, but we’re going to figure it out, you’re going to figure it out”.
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Trudeau has put repairing the relationship at the top of his first mandate as prime minister.
On Saturday, the prime minister’s official photographer tweeted a photo of Trudeau, 44, and Downie, 52, embracing before the show.
In an emotionally charged final concert in Kingston, Ont., Tragically Hip singer Gord Down paused the show to address the audience, the country, and specifically, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Nine number one albums in Canada, 14 Juno awards (Canada’s tribute to its musicians) and this final 15-concert Man Machine Poem tour to say farewell.
The two-hour concert, which included numerous band’s hits through the years, was screened in Riverside Park at the Rotary Bandshell and at McDonald Park following Overlanders Day celebrations.
Gord Downie, who received his diagnosis past year, and The Tragically Hip rocked out for almost three hours in front of a sold-out crowd in Kingston, Ontario.
Lead singer Gord Downie was recently diagnosed with brain cancer so the show was nearly certainly the very last, opportunity for Canadians to see the group live.
In a brief interview with the CBC, Trudeau reminisced about how he used to enjoy the band’s music during his high school and university years.
Mr Trudeau was seen in the audience nodding and mouthing “thank you”.
Downie, who wore a metallic silver suit and hat with a Jaws T-shirt underneath, hugged and kissed his bandmates before they stepped on stage to open with 50 Mission Cap, followed by three other songs from the album Fully Completely.
He said he’s since heard about Downie’s glioblastoma diagnosis and the subsequent “Man Machine Poem” tour.
The community became well known following the Hip’s hit single “Bobcaygeon” from their 1998 album “Phantom Power”.
“Canada doesn’t get a lot of people representing the small towns and the home towns and everything that we love”, he said. Canadians Abroad of Southern California also had a viewing party in Los Angeles.
Many fans of the band turned up at the Capitol in downtown Regina to take in the final show on a big screen. “Sept. 11, 2007, they played on the World Container Tour at the Fredericton Aiken Centre”.
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“The whole country is here in Kingston tonight!”
