The Tragically Hip
The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, was a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker, bassist Gord Sinclair, and drummer Johnny Fay. They released 13 studio albums, two live albums, two EPs, and over 50 singles over a 33-year career. Nine of their albums have reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts. They have received numerous Canadian music awards, including 17 Juno Awards. Between 1996 and 2016, the Tragically Hip were the best-selling Canadian band in Canada and the fourth best-selling Canadian artist overall in Canada.
Following Downie's diagnosis with terminal brain cancer in 2015, the band undertook a tour of Canada in support of their thirteenth album, Man Machine Poem. The tour's final concert, which would ultimately be the band's last show, was held at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston on August 20, 2016, and broadcast globally by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a cross-platform television, radio and internet streaming special.
After Downie died on October 17, 2017, the band announced in July 2018 that they would no longer perform under the name. The surviving members have, however, continued to pursue other musical projects, and have begun releasing deluxe reissues of their albums featuring previously unreleased songs from the band's archives.
History
Formation
The Tragically Hip formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario. Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker were students at Kingston Collegiate and had performed together at the KCVI Variety Show as the Rodents. Baker and Sinclair joined with Downie and Fay in 1984 and began playing gigs around Kingston with some memorable stints at Clark Hall Pub and Alfie's, student bars on Queen's University campus. Guitarist Paul Langlois joined in 1986; saxophonist Davis Manning left that same year. They took their name from a skit in the Michael Nesmith movie Elephant Parts.1987–1991
By the mid-1980s, they performed in small music venues across Ontario until being seen by then-MCA Vice President Bruce Dickinson at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto. They were then signed to a long-term record deal with MCA, and recorded the EP The Tragically Hip, released in 1987. The album produced two singles, "Small Town Bring-Down" and "Highway Girl". They followed up with 1989's Up to Here. This album produced four singles, "Blow at High Dough", "New Orleans Is Sinking", "Boots or Hearts", and "38 Years Old". All four of these songs found extensive rotation on modern rock radio play lists in Canada.Road Apples followed in 1991, producing three singles and reaching No. 1 on Canadian record charts. During the Road Apples tour, Downie became recognized for ranting and telling fictional stories during songs such as "Highway Girl" and "New Orleans Is Sinking". Road Apples was planned to be a double album but was rejected by Universal. The 2008 Universal Studios fire resulted in the destruction of the masters for the second album. The six unreleased songs were rediscovered in another collection in 2020. In 2021 they were released as an EP titled Saskadelphia, which had been the working title for Road Apples.
The sound on these first two full-length albums is sometimes characterized as "blues-tinged", although there is definite acoustic punctuation throughout both discs. Although the band failed to achieve significant international success with these first two albums, their sales and dominance of modern rock radio in Canada gave them license to subsequently explore their sound.
1992–1997
The band released another album, Fully Completely in 1992, which produced the singles "Locked in the Trunk of a Car", "Courage", "At the Hundredth Meridian", and three others. The sound on this album displayed less of a blues influence than previous albums. The Hip created and headlined the first Another Roadside Attraction tour at this time, which also featured Midnight Oil, Crash Vegas, Hothouse Flowers and Daniel Lanois. The five artists on the tour collaborated together on the 1993 charity single "Land", which protested forest clearcutting in British Columbia.Many songs from Day For Night were first performed prior to their release during the 1993 Another Roadside Attraction Tour. "Nautical Disaster" was played frequently in the middle of "New Orleans Is Sinking", an early version of "Thugs" was tested, and Downie sang lyrics from many other Day For Night songs, such as "Grace, Too", "Scared", and "Emergency", during this tour.
Day for Night was then released in 1994, producing six singles, including "Nautical Disaster" and "Grace, Too". Trouble at the Henhouse followed in 1996, producing five singles starting with "Ahead by a Century", which reached number one on the RPM Canadian singles chart on 24 June and became their most successful single in their home country. "Butts Wigglin", the fifth single from Henhouse, also appeared on the soundtrack to the Kids in the Hall movie Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy. The live album Live Between Us was recorded on the subsequent tour at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan.
The band developed a unique sound and ethos, leaving behind its earlier blues influence. Downie's vocal style changed while the band experimented with song structures and chord progressions. Songs explored the themes of Canadian geography and history, water and land, all motifs that became heavily associated with the Hip. While Fully Completely began an exploration of deeper themes, many critics consider Day for Night to be the Hip's artistry most fully realized. The sound here is typically called "enigmatic" and "dark", while critic MacKenzie Wilson praises "the poignancy of Downie's minimalism."
On the follow-up tour for this album, the band made its only appearance on Saturday Night Live, on March 25, 1995, thanks in large part to the finagling of fellow Canadian and Kingston-area resident Dan Aykroyd, who appeared on the show just to introduce them. Aykroyd, who is a fan of the band, had personally lobbied SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels to book them as a musical guest. On the show, Gord Downie notably flubbed the start of the song "Grace, Too"—rather than the normal opening lyric, "He said I'm fabulously rich", Downie sang it as "He said I'm tragically hip". The band later attributed the error to their pre-show used of marijuana.
In July 1996, the Hip headlined Edenfest. The three-day concert took place at Mosport Park, in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada, just a few months after the LP Trouble at the Henhouse was released. The concert sold over 70,000 tickets total and was attended by an estimated 20,000 additional people who gained access to the concert site after the outside security broke down.
1998–2003
In 1998, the band released their sixth full-length album, Phantom Power, which produced five singles. It won the 1999 Juno Awards for Best Rock Album and Best Album Design. A single from the album, "Bobcaygeon", won the Juno Award for Single of the Year in 2000. The album has been certified platinum three times over in Canada.In February 1999, the Hip played the first concert at the brand new Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario. In July 1999, the band was part of the lineup for the Woodstock '99 festival in Rome, New York. On the second day of three, they were the first band to take the stage. They were followed by Kid Rock.
Their next album, Music @ Work, was released in 2000. It won the 2001 Juno Award for Best Rock Album. The album featured back-up vocals from Julie Doiron on a number of tracks, and reached No. 1 on the Canadian Billboard Charts.
In 2002, In Violet Light, recorded by Hugh Padgham and Terry Manning at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas was released, along with three singles from the album. It became certified platinum in Canada. Later that year, the Hip made a cameo appearance in the Paul Gross film Men with Brooms, playing a curling team from their hometown of Kingston. Three of their songs appear in the film, and they backed Sarah Harmer on a fourth, the soundtrack's lead single, "Silver Roads".
On October 10, 2002, the Tragically Hip performed two songs, "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" and "Poets", as part of a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II. In 2003, the band recorded a cover of "Black Day in July", a song about the 1967 12th Street Riot in Detroit, on Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot.
2004–2008
In Between Evolution was released in 2004 in the No. 1 position in Canada. It has since sold over 100,000 copies.At the 92nd Grey Cup held November 21, 2004, the band provided the halftime entertainment in front of a packed house at Frank Clair Stadium in Ottawa.
In 2004, in episode 15, season 2 of Canadian comedy TV series Corner Gas, the Tragically Hip gave a cameo appearance as an unnamed local band rehearsing in Brent's garage. They play a rough version of the song "It Can't Be Nashville Every Night" from their In Between Evolution album until interrupted and asked to leave by Brent, Wanda, and Hank. As they disappointedly go, Wanda demands that Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker leave behind their amplifiers.
In October 2005, several radio stations temporarily stopped playing "New Orleans Is Sinking", out of sensitivity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated the city in early September of that year. However, it received considerable pirate radio and relief site play and gained some notoriety and praise in New Orleans due to its attitudinal proximity to the city's culture.
On November 1, 2005, the Hip released a double CD, double DVD box set, Hipeponymous, including all of their singles and music videos to date, a backstage documentary called "Macroscopic", an animated Hip-scored short film entitled "The Right Whale", two brand new songs, a full-length concert from November 2004 That Night in Toronto, and a 2-CD greatest hits collection Yer Favourites. On November 8, 2005, Yer Favourites and That Night in Toronto were released individually.
In 2006, another studio album, entitled World Container, was released, being notably produced by Bob Rock. It produced four singles, and reached the No. 1 spot on the Canadian rock music charts. The band toured concert dates in major Canadian cities, and then as an opening act for the Who on several US dates. A tour of Eastern Canada, Europe, and select cities in the United States occurred late in the year.
On February 23, 2008, the Hip returned to their hometown of Kingston, Ontario, where they were the first live act to perform at the new K-Rock Centre.