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THE TRAGICALLY HIP
 “There’s this fuckin’ band you’ve gotta see, They used to scare the livin’ shit outta me!” An Inch An Hour
In March 1988, The Tragically Hip was a band you had to see. The Kingston
quintet's reputation had preceded it to Winnipeg, first stop on its
inaugural cross-Canada tour. Having spent the previous two years
barnstorming the pubs, clubs and beer halls of Ontario, the group had
released an eight-song, eponymous mini-album. Smalltown Bringdown and Last
American Exit were being played at local radio and a feature on The New
Music had prepped Prairie audiences for a young band that played no-frills
rock 'n' roll. Rob Baker, Gordon Downie, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois and
Gord Sinclair looked like a gang -- a T-shirts and jeans group in an age
of teased hair and spandex. Their sound was an improbable, riffing roar
that left mouths agape. Downie's lithe, sweat-soaked performances
transfixed audiences.
When The Hip were booked into Winnipeg's Diamond Club, a nightspot which
usually showcased Top 40 bands, I called the local agent to ask if he knew
what he'd done. He said the Diamond's owners, an ambitious family of
hoteliers, didn't want anyone else to `have' The Hip, the biggest buzz
band from out East.
On Monday, March 14, 1988, John Cougar Mellencamp's Lonesome Jubilee tour
played the Winnipeg Arena. The show had sold-out the old hockey rink in
record time. Just about every rock fan in Winnipeg was at the concert that
night, meaning those interested in the Hip didn't get across town to the
Diamond until 11:30 p.m. By the time they arrived, The Hip's show was
already over.
"Over? We were fired!"
Seventeen years later, Gordon Downie still rankles at the thought. The
Diamond Club's manager had been horrified by the band's first set, its
bum's eye for clothes and by the singer, who had done one song lying on
his back.
 A day later, the band was homeless, as it had lost its hotel rooms with
the firing. The Hip faced a week in Winnipeg without a gig. I hadn't been
at the show the night before but I'd heard what had happened and spoke to
Rob Baker on the phone. The band was low, he said, consulting with the
musicians' union and considering its options. Within hours, free hotel
rooms had been procured at the Osborne Village Motor Inn and gas-money
gigs were booked at Corner Boys, a rec-room/lounge co-owned by boxer
Donnie Lalonde, the WBF light heavyweight champ.
That Friday, my nightspots column in The Winnipeg Sun told The Hip's
unlucky story, with the provocative headline "Tragically gypped!"
Less than a month later, as the band worked its way back East, it played a
weekend at The Junkyard as a thank you to the hotel owners who had
provided rooms in March.
When I arrived at the club, there was a lineup out the door. The room was
heaving. The rest is a familiar tale.
* * *
From his Toronto home in the autumn of 2005, Downie recalls the days of
discovery and wonder that were the late '80s for The Tragically Hip.
"We didn't have a lot of guile, and some say we still don't," he says.
"Our needs were few. That was our first tour across the country. Like any
rock band going across the country, everything was brand new and
everything was possible. Every whiff of interest or approval distilled
itself into confidence, and anything that wasn't confidence was just
well-disguised insecurity. We also had a very self-deprecating sense of
humour, collectively, so we turned all those kinds of sad-sack stories
into tales of triumph," he says.
"I don't think you can do that if you have an ounce of ambition or
aspiration beyond just having fun. You're just blown away by the fact
you're actually doing this. You're putting another load of gas in the tank
to take you further away from home on a mission that is totally undefined
and potentially endless, perhaps resulting in death or disfigurement --
emotionally speaking, spiritually speaking and philosophically speaking,"
he says.
"Heading onto the stage then, we were grateful for every friend we had."
* * *
On Saturday, April 2, 2005, The Tragically Hip was inducted into the
Canadian Music Hall of Fame at the Winnipeg Convention Centre during Juno
Weekend celebrations.
As an acceptance speech, Downie read an impassioned poem, We Are the Next
Us, with his bandmates standing beside him. In it, he described the
preparations for an imaginary gig, invoking visions of the disparate
community that comes together to create a show by The Tragically Hip.
Accepting the Hall of Fame induction, he said, was a way of honouring the
Hip's families, friends, co-workers and their fans.
This band is still grateful to every friend it's ever had.
 Hipeponymous, The Tragically Hip's 37-song, two-CD-and-two-DVD, limited
edition boxed set is another thank you, a gift to the band's fans. It
includes two new tracks, No Threat and The New Maybe, 35 of the group's
most popular songs, a full-length concert DVD, That Night in Toronto, and
a bonus DVD featuring all 23 of the band's videos, a 50-minute backstage
film entitled Macromedia, and The Right Whale, a collection of 11 visual
vignettes featuring scores from the group.
The two audio discs are pointedly titled Yer Favourites because Hip fans,
via an on-line poll, selected the songs. It thus enabled the group to
organize and put together a boxed set without the albatross of `definitive
collection' hanging over it. It also enables The Hip to keep moving
forward, as they are in the midst of a productive period which should
yield a new studio album, the bands 11th, in 2006.
"It really is a gift to the fans because they chose the songs," Downie
says. "It's an abdication on our part which some may say is contravening
the laws of art because you're supposed to give the people what you want,
not what they want -- at least according to Bono.
"To do a real career retrospective you really need a lot of time, energy
and psychic currency and you need to have a knock-down, drag-'em-out to
decide how to tell the story. We're not avoiding it; that's an essential
thing and ultimately it will be very good for us when we go to do it --
and good for the people that are interested because there is a literal
mountain of tapes."
Downie says the band had an intimate hand in the making of That Night in
Toronto and the bonus DVD because it wanted the package to be as
representative of the band's present and future as the Yer Favourites
discs are representative of the band's past.
"Why is that? I think the reasons are obvious. It's art and in making art
you want to be of the future, of the now."
If anything, that is the message of Hipeponymous. The collection gives
fans pause to reflect and revel in the band's 18 -year recording while it
gives Baker, Downie, Fay, Langlois and Sinclair a boost as they continue
the uncharted journey they began almost 20 years ago.
For Downie, much of that journey has been an exploration of his views on
what it means to be Canadian.
"I definitely wasn't aware of it until recently -- which may just be
selective memory -- but I've just sort of watched it evolve in terms of
the lyrics. As a young writer from small-town, middle-class Canada I think
I started writing about, in my limited scope, Canada, and in a weird way,
I guess what I'm thinking about is how it all unfolded and how a lot of
people might attribute the band's popularity to a blatant nationalism.
"I think what I was trying to do (was) I didn't have a `rah-rah,'
patriotic view of Canada," he says. "In a weird way I actually started to
question that a bit... and if I've failed in that regard it's because I
didn't commit enough.
" It would be my goal to really go further and I've never even come close
to achieving it. We're still on that road that isn't even on the map and
it's difficult to go down and it's at night and there's no lights."
But they'll still be making friends along the way.
John Kendle
Winnipeg,
October 2005
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