What the Tragically Hip mean to me and to Canada
August 06, 2016
Together since 1984, The Tragically Hip are currently touring across Canada as frontman Gord Downie faces a diagnosis of terminal brain cancer. The Current's Jim McGuinn, a longtime fan of the Hip, visited Winnipeg to see the band's show at the MTS Centre on August 5, and he dedicated the August 6 episode of Teenage Kicks to the Tragically Hip. Before the show, McGuinn reached out to Canadian musician Stephen Carroll to get his thoughts about the Tragically Hip. Here's what Stephen had to say:
What do the Tragically Hip mean to Canadian rock? The music of the Hip here in Canada is now like a well-worn public statue, set at ground level, where parts of the stone are worn smooth by the touch of so many passersby. It holds emotional connections to a wide-ranging audience. This broad reach has not been replicated by any other artist in this country before.
The Hip proved that they mattered by meeting their fans with a willful and equal devotion, ranting madness and indelible cultural references night after night. Having continually sought to state their position with albums upon albums, arena tours, then multi-night stand arena tours — and then poems wrapped in solos wrapped in poems — it is now hard to imagine that space they have stood in for so long as empty.
And maybe they matter because, well, they were doing it singularly for us, for us here in Canada, not for international fame.
The Tragically Hip were formed and their identity built in the time between the emergence of Canadian rock 'n' roll of the '70s and '80s — which, early on, was often guttural and rough — and the emergence of college music and an ambitious and artful underground scene. For me, they first were a band to rebel against: occupying the airwaves, drawing out crowds of testosterone filled men to chant back at them. But then I started to listen more carefully. I laid down my angst and they wrote "Nautical Disaster," on their 1994 album, Day for Night. I joined in, singing words that were magically only ever partly understood, following twisting guitar lines that were part background melodies and part showmanship.
The clubs the Hip toured as a young band were at the end of their lifespan when I myself began touring. The band had long since moved on, but the bars remained haunted — their old battered PAs still not repaired from a seminal night with the Hip. Photos of the band in black-and-white 8x10s, pinned to fading green room walls, were displayed like trophies by the collapsing venues.
After some time, the lines between the bands that were on the radio and on "Much" (formerly MuchMusic, a music-oriented cable channel in Canada), and those of us in the underground began to be erased. Maybe this was my Western perspective as the member of a Winnipeg band; we were not embedded in the Ontario scene where the Hip had deeper connections, but I think it was Gord Downie himself who reached out to all of us working our small craft in the semi-pro circuit. Downie and the Hip started asking our friends to tour with them, and small lessons were shared through word of mouth that came from our peers playing the large venues: "Set up close together — even on the arena stage, like Hip, otherwise you will not hear each other, don't rely on the monitors rely on each other's sound."
Then they reached out to us and asked us to play with them. Our band had a few rules, most of which we broke: Don't play Arizona (broken too many times); don't eat Indian food before the gig (once broken); no shorts on stage (yes, broken); and don't play New Year's Eve parties — which one we broke only once, to open for the Hip in Hamilton, Ont. It remains a special memory and once of the largest concerts that we performed.
We were fearful of the Hamilton gig and of every show they subsequently asked us to perform with them. Their fans were blunt and demanding, and we worried we would be thrown in headlocks and dragged off to be given a good pummeling for simply not being the Hip — even though I think we were always listed on the bill. We survived the chants for the "Hip, Hip, Hip, Hip,…" and did not bend too much in the wind of the audiences' singular desire for their one and only. We remain thankful for being invited to their large private gatherings. It made us a better band for it.
When the news about Gord Downie came around, I did not really speak too much about it. It seems strange to me to think of Canada without them now. It's been even more strange to be planning to see them here in Winnipeg on Friday, Aug. 5, knowing it may be our last time hearing the voice singing the words I came to care for a great deal.
Here's to you, Gord.
Stephen Carroll is the Music Programs Manager for Manitoba Film and Music. Stephen achieved international recognition as the guitarist in the JUNO-nominated band The Weakerthans (Epitaph/ANTI- Records). After joining the Weakerthans in 1998, he managed all of the business affairs and helped steer the group to fame. In 2009, he began managing the Manitoba band Imaginary Cities and went on to form Empirical Artist Services Inc. Most recently, he served as the General Manager of the West End Cultural Centre in Winnipeg. Stephen was awarded Manager of the Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards in 2013, after garnering nominations for the award the two previous years.
