March 25, 1995: The Hip are the musical guests on Saturday Night Live, thanks to lobbying by fellow Kingstonite and super fan Dan Aykroyd.
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The Canadian band took the stage in their native Kingston, Ontario for the last stop on their Man Machine Poem farewell tour, as terminally-ill Downie battles brain cancer.
He says the performance was an historical event for Canada. The 52-year-old singer revealed in May that he had been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, which left fans devastated but inspired the band to do one last tour in Gord’s honor.
Before performing one song, Downie seemed to reference the outpouring of support from fans since his diagnosis.
The band’s lead singer Gord Downie announced his illness in May.
September 6, 1994: The dark, dreamy Day for Night becomes the first Tragically Hip album to debut at No. 1 on Billboard’s Canadian albums chart.
“Farewell to Canada’s greatest rock band”, The Toronto Star newspaper said in a headline last Friday.
That 15-show tour came to an end on Saturday, with fans across Canada hosting parties and attending public viewings to watch the broadcast of the emotional concert. The show lasted almost three hours, with many tearful moments amidst the powerful final performance Gord gave.
Downie has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and fans across Canada and overseas gathered at viewing parties to tune in and bid him farewell. “I hope Gord Downie lives long enough to write a song about Trudeau’s decision not to honour Treaty 8 by greenlighting the Site C dam. (But) we’re going to get it fixed and we got the guy to do it, to start, to help”.
Craig Smyth and Tiina Flank were dancing in the crowd Saturday night and before the show they said that they wanted to experience it as though they were there in Kingston.
Trudeau was offered tickets by the band and will pay for them, his spokesman said.
The Tragically Hip formed in the 1980s, rising to prominence with rock and blues-tinged songs that, over their multiple decades in the spotlight, contributed to 14 albums.
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At one point, Downie was overcome with emotion and teared up. But instead of mourning or quietly bowing out of music, he and the rest of the band – Rob Baker, Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay and Paul Langlois – took the chance to launch a final tour to celebrate their nearly 20-year career.
