Skeletonpatch Posted October 18, 2017 (edited) Gord Downie, the lead vocalist for the Tragically Hip, passed away last night, October 17th, 2017, after a long battle with glioblastoma. Downie now joins the likes of David Bowie, Tom Petty and all the other significant musicians we have lost in recent years. The Tragically Hip's music is of the same caliber of such musicians as Rush, David Bowie and Boston when it comes to great instrumentation, vocal delivery and lyrical messages. The symbolic messages presented in particular are among the most meaningful and relevant in modern society, even though many of their songs focus primarily on Canadian issues. I'm not sure of how far felt his death is outside of North America, but I can assure you that in Canada this loss is probably the most significant of any musician in a long time. They have so many great songs that I can't just link one of them, so here are all the essentials: Spoiler Here is one of the Tragically Hip's final releases from their final album, and in my opinion this is probably one of their best songs: These are from Downie's last live performance in Kingston, Ontario, last year. Note that at this time the brain tumor had started affecting his memory centres, yet he was still able to give an amazing performance: Because I want to do the Tragically Hip justice, here are as many of their most iconic songs (they have way more than you think) that I could find on YouTube: Yes, there are more. We are only scratching the surface with this band! Here's a repeat of some of the songs played at Kingston, the Kingston performances don't entirely do the songs justice in spite of the great performances: There are way more songs, but I've been sitting here for almost two hours looking for videos... The songs here are all the essentials I could find at the moment. These videos are not taken from that shitty music distributor VEVO due to the cancerous existence of that business, and to avoid dramatic irony. Fellow Canadians, how are you responding to this? Are you listening to one of the many radio stations doing an all-day marathon of the Tragically Hip like I am? For those outside of Canada, do you know anything about this band? Have you heard their magical music before? It's a shame they haven't seemed to get the widespread attention Rush has had outside of Canada, they deserve it just as much... Edited October 19, 2017 by Skeletonpatch 1 Share this post Link to post
PsychoGoatee Posted October 19, 2017 (edited) Thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard this band before somehow, but I'm really digging it. "Music At Work" is a cool track. Day For Night really rocks too. Sad to hear news, but cool that he touched so many people with his music. Edited October 19, 2017 by PsychoGoatee 2 Share this post Link to post
Doom_Dude Posted October 19, 2017 I started listening to them back in 87 when they released that first EP. Over the years I bought / was gifted most of their albums. Love The Hip. Despite knowing that Gord was very sick and wouldn't live for much longer it's still a big shock. So many great songs... Bobcaygeon, At The Hundredth Meridian, Fifty-Mission Cap, New Orleans Is Sinking, Wheat Kings, Blow At High Dough, Ahead By A Century, etc.... Lots of good memories tho, blasting The Hip. Time to go and turn up the volume. 1 Share this post Link to post
Skeletonpatch Posted October 19, 2017 8 hours ago, PsychoGoatee said: Thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard this band before somehow, but I'm really digging it. "Music At Work" is a cool track. Day For Night really rocks too. Sad to hear news, but cool that he touched so many people with his music. Part of the reason I created this thread was to help spread their music a little more, so it's good to see that I've succeeded there! 5 hours ago, Doom_Dude said: I started listening to them back in 87 when they released that first EP. Over the years I bought / was gifted most of their albums. Love The Hip. Despite knowing that Gord was very sick and wouldn't live for much longer it's still a big shock. So many great songs... Bobcaygeon, At The Hundredth Meridian, Fifty-Mission Cap, New Orleans Is Sinking, Wheat Kings, Blow At High Dough, Ahead By A Century, etc.... Lots of good memories tho, blasting The Hip. Time to go and turn up the volume. My parents knew what they were doing when it came to musical exposure for their kids, something I am very proud of. 1 Share this post Link to post
Skeletonpatch Posted October 20, 2017 Rick Mercer (a very prominent political satirist in Canada) recently stated that the reason for the Tragically Hip not spreading that far out of Canada was due to the fact that all their shows were sold out by Canadians... regardless of what country the show was actually in. Naturally, this limits the number of people from whatever country the Tragically Hip were performing in who can attend their concerts by quite a bit. Their popularity in Canada quite ironically prevented them from spreading past the border... Here is an article about it: http://www.cbcmusic.ca/posts/12496/why-the-tragically-hip-aren-t-famous-in-the-us Make of that what you will. 0 Share this post Link to post
Doom_Dude Posted October 23, 2017 Bruce MacKinnon's artwork from the local paper. 2 Share this post Link to post
