Then Downie came out onstage to rapturous applause. Even the announcement that the show was about to begin had a self-parodying Canadian slant: “If you’re not in your seats in five minutes I will be very disappointed,” the voice declared. ![]() The women looked like the daughters of the mothers in Alice Munro stories. The men looked like retired hockey players who had eased themselves into dad bods. There was something entirely appropriate about having the concert at a hockey temple dedicated to the religion of watching the Maple Leafs lose. I attended the band’s last show in Toronto, this past Sunday, at the Air Canada Centre. ![]() Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be in attendance. Tonight the national broadcaster CBC will air their final concert from Kingston live-a rock concert by way of a state funeral. In the fading steel town of Hamilton, on the day of their last concert there, the local rock radio station Y108 played nothing but the Tragically Hip. Cities have organized Tragically Hip Days, and spontaneous street parties have coincided with the band’s tour dates. For the band’s final show, which takes place tonight in their home town of Kingston, Ontario, Stubhub has been selling tickets for as much as twenty-five thousand dollars. But the Tragically Hip belong to the North alone, it seems. Their songs are catchy, and every other act anywhere near their size in Canada has gone on to success elsewhere. I have never heard or read a convincing explanation. Why they have never translated to the American audience is one of the great mysteries of Canadian popular culture. ![]() 1 albums here, and has spent as much time at the top of the charts as Bryan Adams. The Tragically Hip are one of the biggest bands in Canadian history. Downie is coming out on stage every night to burn out publicly. Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, is suffering from glioblastoma, a terminal tumor in his left temporal lobe. This summer, in Canada, one band is living that connection fully and completely. It’s the genre of the so-called Twenty-Seven Club, the genre of “I hope I die before I get old.” It’s Jimi Hendrix up late in London, Janis Joplin at a hotel with a needle, Keith Richards doing anything anywhere-the music is defined by its proximity to mortality. Rock and roll has always been in love with death.
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