Explore every episode of the podcast The Tragically Hip Podcast Series
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Thugs | 09 nov. 2026 | 01:00:52 | |
A Hip Head named Andrew sent jD a tip: an old dinosaur movie where a character starts reciting 'Thugs' and doesn't stop. The movie is "The People That Time Forgot," and the line lands thirty-five and a half minutes in. Greg LeGros (co-host of Fully & Completely) has seen it, because of course he has. His mind was blown anyway. So the stream opens on a movie and spends an hour on a three-minute song from "Day for Night" that gets under your fingernails and stays there. The tale of the tape comes off the redesigned Hip Handbook, where every song now has its own card. 'Thugs' was played live 122 times (setlist.fm agrees), from July 16, 1993, the first date of the first Another Roadside Attraction, to August 3, 2016, night two in Calgary on the final tour. The Tragically Hip Archive holds 44 recordings of it, and it landed at Song Forty-Seven of 169 on The Tragically Hip Top Forty Countdown. Then the stream plays the version jD heard first: the fast one, from the Kumbaya Festival in September 1993, a year before the record, on a tape a friend made off MuchMusic and played for him in a parking lot. It is not the song that ended up on "Day for Night." Not even close. From there Toots from Whitby, Tracey from LA, and Justin from Bridport take it apart: two chords, a phaser, Johnny Fay riding the rim of the snare, Gord Sinclair holding the whole thing down, a bluegrass ghost, and a theory about one word, 'rolling,' that nobody can shake. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
"I specifically came home from that show, jacked on this new song that they played, which was 'Thugs.'" - Toots from Whitby "Chris Squire is the best of all time. And I think Gord Sinclair can hang with him." - Justin from Bridport THE PANEL
Big thanks to Toots, Tracey, and Justin, to Andrew for the tip, and to a chat that did the fact-checking on the fly. Next week the wheel hands the panel 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car.' Find a live version you love in the Handbook and send it to jD. THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 THE HIP HANDBOOK The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Justin said it on the stream: buy jD a coffee. Tips keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com KEEP LISTENING It's A Good Life - Setting the Scene: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/2cb8095f-d6b5-42e2-a555-4f0319735ea9 Discovering Downie: "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5 'Poets': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/339c232a-4700-404b-a533-779a14e1cf45 Live play count via setlist.fm. First and last plays, the 44 recordings, and the Top Forty Countdown position from The Hip Handbook, as cited on the stream. The Kumbaya Festival date, the track order, and the 'Ruby' history as cited on the stream. #TheTragicallyHip #DayForNight #TTHOnShuffle #GordSinclair #TheHipHandbook #HipHeads Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: World Container | 02 nov. 2026 | 01:04:56 | |
October 15th, 2006, was the first night 'World Container' was played live. By The Hip Handbook's count, it was never once an opener. It's the last song on "World Container," the record Bob Rock produced (per Jeff on the stream), and it didn't crack the top forty of the TTHTop40 Countdown. By that same Handbook count, The Tragically Hip played it live 94 times. The poll in the Facebook group pulled over a hundred votes, with more than 80 percent on the top two answers, and the question it started with is still the right one: what is a world container? **Jeff from Newmarket**, **Adam from Tampa**, and **Glynn from Melbourne** each come at it from a different direction. Jeff says it was the last big record by The Hip he actively picked up, which makes it a goodbye of sorts. Adam has kept the record in his bottom three (only because the rest are so strong), then listened to this one fifteen times and heard a Rolling Stones song. Glynn ignored it for years, got sent back by an episode of Fully & Completely: redux, and has an elevator pitch that jD pinned to the wall. Three fans, three answers, no overlap. Then the lyric sheet comes out. One line in the first verse stops the table cold, and nobody agrees on why it's there. Glynn counts twenty-three words you could talk about for a very long time. Adam goes looking for how the song got written, and the answer starts with a piece of paper. **WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE** • The icebreaker: a song by The Hip that says Halloween. Jeff goes for 'Thugs,' Glynn for 'The Dire Wolf,' and Adam hears kids at the door in 'Gift Shop.' The chat brings 'Scared' and 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car.' • The Hip Handbook's On This Day turns up four shows for October 28th, and jD's seat at Massey Hall in 2000 comes with a pole. • Adam on the Rolling Stones song he didn't get as a kid, and the fifteen listens it took to hear it here. • Jeff on four chords, a rhythm that won't sit on the grid, and a song about a container that can't hold its own lyrics. • How it started, via This Is Our Life: a poem on a piece of paper and a guitar part Rob already had. • Glynn on a tour bus after the show, and why every night starts to blur into one. • The new closing question: would you play it for someone who doesn't know The Hip? Adam needs a sophisticated friend. Jeff needs a musical one. Glynn's answer is shorter. • Next week the wheel lands on 'Thugs,' from "Day for Night." "I build a story from those 23 words and it grows and grows inside your head." - **Glynn from Melbourne** "He very rarely will talk or explain a song, because then that's like the magician who explains how the trick works." - **Jeff from Newmarket** **THE PANEL** • **Jeff from Newmarket**. Back again, originally out of Belleville, and playing guitar, bass, and vocals in a cover band with a January 16th date at the Monarch in Toronto. Says he was the bass player in the musical David Hein wrote before "Come From Away." Hears the song differently twenty years on. • **Adam from Tampa**. Back again (by jD's count, the fourth or fifth time). Got the record around 2017, the vinyl in 2021, and found this song among his five favourites on it in his own notes. Had a kind word at the end for It's A Good Life, the five-episode series on the making of the musical. • **Glynn from Melbourne**. Back after 'Just as Well,' and joined from Melbourne, where it was still morning. Ignored the record for years until a Fully & Completely: redux episode sent him back, and it now sits in his top five. A photographer who leads photo tours around the world, he says he's the only Glynn Lavender in the world, so look him up. Big thanks to Jeff, Adam, and Glynn, and to a chat that was electric all night. Twenty years on, 'World Container' still ends the record and starts an argument, and it's a good way to hear The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie fresh. Go put it on. **THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN** A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 **THE HIP HANDBOOK** The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. Version 6.0 is on the way, with a passport that tracks your stats and a daily game, a bit like Wordle: guess the month and year of a set list in five tries. **YER LETTER** One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com **THE TIP JAR** Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 **FIND US** Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com **MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM** 'Just as Well': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/ddf96225-1bd4-468b-881a-aa091a7e6148 'Vaccination Scar': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/5fa3fc7c-f01b-4eae-a3de-5cadc658b9f9 'Poets': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/339c232a-4700-404b-a533-779a14e1cf45 #TheTragicallyHip #WorldContainer #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #TTHPods #HipHeads Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Sharks | 26 oct. 2026 | 01:06:27 | |
A few weeks before his night on the panel, Dave from Montreal texted jD one request: 'Sharks.' Then the wheel picked it on its own. He had his reasons. On December 29th, 1999, Dave heard about a last-minute show on the radio and drove straight to the Horseshoe Tavern, two days before the New Year's shows, and by setlist.fm's count that was the first night The Tragically Hip ever played 'Sharks' live. It's track nine on "Music @ Work," and it showed up in a set sixteen times in all, the last one in Chicago in October 2004. So the stream skipped the studio cut and played the Horseshoe recording Dave sent over. It changed a mind or two. The TTHTop40 Countdown had it 123rd of 169. The poll in the Facebook group was kinder: 55% love it, another 20% like it. Kirk from Chino has a theory about why a low ranking is no insult. Dave isn't nearly as forgiving of the ranking (and says so). Then Tracey from LA, Dave, and Kirk get into a song Kirk says is three chords and a jam: Gord Sinclair's bass line, Rob Baker handed a blank canvas, a firmament, the Marianas Trench, and a shark with opinions. Somebody ends up doing two hours of homework. Somebody else has a crackpot theory. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
"From the second that I heard this song at the Horseshoe Tavern in December of 1999, I was like, there's something special here." - Dave from Montreal "And I'm like, whose point of view is that? The shark?" - Tracey from LA THE PANEL
Big thanks to Tracey, Dave, and Kirk, and to a chat that stayed loud the whole hour. Kirk came in liking 'Sharks' and left loving it. Go find the Horseshoe show and hear it for yourself. THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 IT'S A GOOD LIFE Kirk's last plug: five episodes on the making of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," the musical built on the music of The Hip, told by the people who made it. Start at the start: https://www.redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/2cb8095f-d6b5-42e2-a555-4f0319735ea9 The musical runs at the Kingston Grand Theatre until November 8: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026 THE HIP HANDBOOK The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER Once a month, one email with the whole network in it: what went out across all eight shows, what's coming, and the odd thing that never makes it to a microphone. Free: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com KEEP LISTENING Discovering Downie: "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5 'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787 'The Bastard': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/11be433d-56cf-4213-8726-9fc7cec327f2 Live play count, first and last plays, and the date of the 2001 Music Without Borders benefit via setlist.fm. Track number, the countdown rank, and the poll as cited on the stream. Dave's memories of the Horseshoe and the Air Canada Centre are his own, from the stream. #TheTragicallyHip #MusicAtWork #TTHOnShuffle #GordSinclair #RobbyBaker #HipFans Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Episode Five - Curtain Up | 23 oct. 2026 | 00:33:57 | |
One question, asked of every person who built the show. On the last day, the answer goes to the people in the seats. Every conversation in this series ended the same way. Same question, same words, read off a cheat sheet so jD wouldn't botch it: if this production does what you hope it does, what do the people in the seats walk out of the theatre feeling? He asked the producer. He asked the director, both writers, and the cast. And somewhere along the way it became clear that the people who made It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken can't really answer it (not from up on the stage). They can hope. Then the lights go down, and it's out of their hands and into yours. So Day 5 of 5 hands the mic over. The company tells you what they were hoping for. Fans of The Tragically Hip tell you what they walked in with - excitement, nerves, a healthy suspicion of anybody who messes with an arrangement, and, in one case, two packs of tissues. Then opening night from the other side of the curtain, where it turns out everybody was sweating. Then the walk out. Then the whole thing heads home to Kingston. On Monday, jD promised to stay Uncool and Underqualified to the bitter end. This is the bitter end. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
THE COMPANY
"It's a seed that we could hopefully plant inside of people, and they will have the choice to water it and to make it a tree." - Ahmed Moneka, co-writer Big thanks to the cast, the writers, and the creative team, to Theatre Aquarius and the Thousand Islands Playhouse, and to every fan who let a guy with a microphone ask how they felt (most of them weren't strangers by the end). The people on the stage can only hope. A full house in the dark tells them whether it worked, all at once. That closes the run of It's A Good Life on The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Kingston, it's yer turn. KINGSTON - OCTOBER 22 TO NOVEMBER 8 The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken to the Kingston Grand Theatre. Opening night is sold out. The cast recording is out now, if you want the songs stuck in your head on the drive home. Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026 THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN You rank the records. The show starts January 4, 8pm, on YouTube. Ballots close November 30. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 THE TIP JAR Five episodes in five days. Editing is hard. Buy jD a coffee. Support: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE IT'S A GOOD LIFE Setting the Scene, The Players, The Craft, and The Music All episodes: redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474 #ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #HipFans #TTHPods #CanadianMusic Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Episode Four - The Music | 22 oct. 2026 | 00:41:29 | |
A percussionist who couldn't swing, a chart that changes time signature every bar, and basic tracks cut at the Bathouse in Bath, Ontario. You know what these songs are supposed to feel like. jD has been carrying 'Courage' around since the fall of 1992, and he walked into this one bracing for jazz hands, a key change nobody asked for, and somebody belting 'Bobcaygeon' from the lip of the stage with their arms out like they were hailing a cab. Day four of It's A Good Life is the one every fan of The Tragically Hip walked in nervous about. The music. Trust was yesterday. Courage and hope come back today, and all three have to hold. So jD went and found the people who held the songs in their hands: the music supervisor, the musical director, the man who wrote the Middle Eastern music, and the producer who made two records with The Hip and then made the original cast recording. One of them saw the band in Calgary in the eighties, back when he was playing bars there himself. None of them came at this lightly. Gord Downie's phrasing is hard to write down. Steve Berlin says there's no such thing as swing in Arabic music. And 'Gift Shop' just goes - no verse, chorus, bridge to hang on to. This is how a theatre band learned to play them anyway. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Bob Foster (orchestrations and music supervision) on the only way to treat this catalogue, and the nights he went down to the basement with a guitar and came back up with something. • Richard Evans (music director) on notating Gord's melodies by ear, and why a singer who doesn't sound like anybody else is so hard to put on paper. • Levon Ichkhanian (music coordinator and composer of the Middle Eastern music) on horizontal versus vertical, and why nobody can explain Middle Eastern music in five minutes. • Steve Berlin on cutting the basic tracks at the Bathouse, finishing the vocals and the Arabic parts in Toronto, and the counting trick that got a percussionist swinging. • A chart for 'As I Wind Down the Pines' that Steve says he couldn't read at all, and his story of how that song came together in the first place. • Why 'Grace, Too' runs long on the record, and a session somebody was in and out of in about ten minutes. • 'Fireworks', and a little nugget lifted from the way Gord used to close it out live. • Jesse LaVercombe (co-writer) on the song he'd put up against any end-of-Act-One number in contemporary musical theatre. • Jake Gold, manager of The Tragically Hip, on what the crowd almost did at 'Ahead by a Century', and Rebecca Auerbach (Abigail) on a standing ovation nobody saw coming. • Levon at a CD table after an outdoor festival in Waterloo, and a couple who heard something through their balcony doors. • Opening night, and the producer who went back the next night knowing exactly what was coming. Also in the room: producer Michael Rubinoff, Ali Momen (Waleed), Talia Schlanger (Kate), and Sameer Cash (Fadi). IN THEIR WORDS "If you don't respect The Hip's music and want to do it for that reason, then just don't do it." - Bob Foster "Everything through the lens of gratitude." - Levon Ichkhanian Thanks to Bob, Richard, Levon, and Steve for handing over the songs and every story that came attached to them. jD came in braced for the worst and owns up, at the end, to exactly what he had wrong. Tomorrow: Curtain Up, in Kingston, in front of the people who know these songs best. IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN - KINGSTON The Thousand Islands Playhouse production, with songs by The Hip, runs at the Kingston Grand Theatre from October 22 to November 8, 2026. Opening night is sold out. Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026 THE ORIGINAL CAST RECORDING Produced by Steve Berlin, out the same day the curtain goes up in Kingston. THE TIP JAR Four days of this in one week. Editing is hard. Buy jD a coffee and help keep the battery charged. buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 MORE IT'S A GOOD LIFE Setting the Scene: LINK NEEDED The Players: LINK NEEDED The Craft: LINK NEEDED It's A Good Life is part of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Facebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com #ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHPods #CanadianRock #HipHeads Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Episode Three - The Craft | 21 oct. 2026 | 00:34:32 | |
May 3rd, Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. Mary Francis Moore walks jD right up to the wings and stops, because of a rule he didn't know about. Mary Francis directs "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," and the tour so far has been the design studio, the stage management office, and the green room where the cast can watch the stage between scenes. Then the wings. That's as far as jD goes. (Nobody wants to be the guy who breaks the magic.) That's day three of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Yesterday was the cast. The Craft is everybody you don't see - the director, the choreographer, the guy who built the world on the stage, and the guy who lights it. jD went in braced for gear talk, cues, rigging, and words he'd have to look up later (he still couldn't tell you what a fly gallery does, and Mary Francis showed him one). There's a little of that. Mostly there's one word, from almost everyone he talked to. Trust. Scott Penner had to hand in his set drawings with half a script and no ending, working from a brief for "something specifically ambiguous." Then one photograph turned up in a pile of 90s street art and photo collages, and it got two words from across the table. Jason Hand spends the first third of rehearsals not thinking about lighting at all, then goes looking for the colour of a sandstorm. Marc Kimelman films himself dancing to every song, works from one idea of Gord Downie's, and once got himself to the front row of a music video shoot for The Hip and kept thinking up questions until they called cut. Jesse LaVercombe calls himself a fountain of bad ideas, and he has the receipts: a script of about 75 pages, and a document of cuts that runs to 546. Then the room itself. A final song swapped out days before the first preview, and how the new one was ready by Sunday. A rehearsal that was one show at ten o'clock and a different show by lunch. A producer who will tell you exactly how he is during tech (not at his best, his words). And for every fan who gets nervous about The Tragically Hip in a musical at all, somebody on the team who walked in on day one feeling the same way, and what he'd say to you now. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Mary Francis Moore on more than a decade of shorthand with Bob Foster, and meeting Marc for the first time. • Michael Rubinoff and Mary Francis on saying no to each other, and why the best idea wins. • The song Marc calls his hardest to choreograph, and why it's a fever dream. • Ahmed Moneka on checking in with Ali Momen along the way, and Ali on carrying every song that came before into the one he's singing. • What's hiding in the paint once the first reveal settles, some of it in Arabic. "You'll never see in this show where my work begins or ends." - Marc Kimelman, choreographer WHO YOU HEAR • Mary Francis Moore, director, and artistic director of Theatre Aquarius. • Michael Rubinoff, producer. • Scott Penner, set designer. • Jason Hand, lighting designer. • Marc Kimelman, choreographer. • Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe, who wrote the book. • Plus Ali Momen and Talia Schlanger from the cast. Big thanks to Mary Francis, Michael, Scott, Jason, Marc, Jesse, and Ahmed for letting a fan with a microphone stand in the wings and ask questions. What jD found back there wasn't everybody agreeing. It was a room full of people willing to say no in the dark until the right idea showed up, and nobody keeping score of whose it was. He's seen the show at least six times and still can't find the seams. So there's that. Tomorrow on It's A Good Life: The Music, with Bob Foster, and what it takes to make songs by The Tragically Hip that were never written for a stage sing on one. "IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN" - KINGSTON The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings the musical to the Kingston Grand Theatre, in association with Theatre Aquarius. First preview Thursday, October 22, and it runs to November 8. Opening night, Friday, October 23, is already sold out. Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026 THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 THE TIP JAR Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE FROM THE TRAGICALLY HIP PODCAST SERIES It's A Good Life - Setting the Scene and The Players: days one and two, right before this one in the feed. Yer Hipstories - Hamilton: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/fae76ee3-738f-4007-80c8-7140729bb295 Creative team credits via the Thousand Islands Playhouse and Stage Door. Run dates via the Kingston Grand Theatre and the Thousand Islands Playhouse. #ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHPods #HipHeads #CanadianRock Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Episode Two - The Players | 20 oct. 2026 | 00:36:56 | |
May 1st, opening night in Hamilton. On jD's left, a fan of The Hip who doesn't do musicals. On his right, a woman who's never heard of them. His buddy David is the first one, and he mentions the musicals thing on the drive in (great timing, David). The second is 82, the mother of a Theatre Aquarius subscriber, and she knows nothing about The Tragically Hip. Nothing. Then intermission. Guess which one of them ends up at the merch table. Two people, same row, opposite ends of the room, and when jD told that story to the cast, Brandon McGibbon said it was the whole job in one sentence. That's day two of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Yesterday was where the idea came from. The Players is about the people who have to stand up there and carry it. Seven of them sat down with jD between April and May, and when he asked how they found The Hip, most of them didn't tell him a story about a band. They told him a story about Canada. Ali Momen came here from Iran when he was three, and The Hip were the backdrop to how he understood "the canvas of Canada." Years before there was a script, he had a very specific note for the producer. Karim Butt came over from Pakistan, heard 'Bobcaygeon' and 'Poets' on the radio and thought they were pretty cool, then got booked for the workshop and went straight to one documentary. You can guess how that went. Tahirih Vejdani's first memory of the band runs through a high school teacher in Regina with a claim to fame. Rebecca Auerbach found out she knew a lot more of the words than she thought. Talia Schlanger calls the whole thing zero burden and pure joy. And Sameer Cash grew up calling Gord Downie Uncle Gord. Then the harder part. Somebody behind the script asking if they were cool enough, rocky enough, grungy enough to touch these songs. A bar band voice on a musical theatre stage, and an apology to musical theatre for every bad thing ever said about it. The one song by The Hip a cast member could play at 18, learned on a trip to Nepal, and the day she found out where it was going. Why somebody calls The Hip the cast's emotional support animal. And a note from Gord that Sameer hadn't gone back to until now. Most of them brought their own families into the roles. A mother's convenience store in Regina. A father and a brother-in-law. A country left behind for something better. One of them was in Kingston on August 20, 2016, and carries what Gord said from that stage into this show. And one cast member shares a story about their grandfather, the show, and a lot of gratitude. It's theirs to tell, so it's in the episode. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • A cast member who met Tom Thomson by way of 'Three Pistols' and kept on reading. • The workshop audition Mary Francis Moore promised would not get them the job. • 'Little Bones' cranked in the car on the way to a first audition, and the guitar hook that said this might work. • Jesse LaVercombe on how fast they found Jonathan, and what Brandon did to the writing. • Bob Foster's arrangements, Marc Kimelman's choreography, and a song at least one of the cast had never heard before. "That's the two people that you're thinking about, and you want to do a show that's for both of them." - Brandon McGibbon, Jonathan WHO YOU HEAR • Ali Momen as Waleed. • Talia Schlanger as Kate. • Brandon McGibbon as Jonathan. • Karim Butt as Sam, the narrator. • Rebecca Auerbach as Abigail. • Tahirih Vejdani as Didi. • Sameer Cash as Fadi. • Plus Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe, who wrote the book, and producer Michael Rubinoff. Big thanks to Ali, Talia, Brandon, Karim, Rebecca, Tahirih, and Sameer for giving a fan with a microphone their time this spring in Hamilton. jD went in to ask about a band and came out with seven people talking about what it feels like to find a home. Some found it in Canada, some found it in a song by The Tragically Hip, and most of them found it in both. So there's that. Tomorrow on It's A Good Life: The Craft. "IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN" - KINGSTON The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings the musical to the Kingston Grand Theatre, in association with Theatre Aquarius, October 22 to November 8. Opening night, Friday, October 23, is already sold out. Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026 THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 THE TIP JAR Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE FROM THE TRAGICALLY HIP PODCAST SERIES Yer Hipstories - Kingston: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/c37eccb0-036d-45d0-827b-08582d3f8bba Yer Hipstories - Hamilton: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/fae76ee3-738f-4007-80c8-7140729bb295 Cast and roles via the Thousand Islands Playhouse. Run dates via the Kingston Grand Theatre and the Thousand Islands Playhouse. Kingston, August 20, 2016 via setlist.fm. #ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHPods #TTHAlbumCountdown #CanadianMusic Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Episode One - Setting the Scene | 19 oct. 2026 | 00:31:07 | |
April 19th, around four o'clock, outside Theatre Aquarius in Hamilton. jD is about to sit with the whole creative team, with no idea what's coming. The first preview is three days out. jD bought a ticket for April 22nd thinking it was the premiere. It wasn't (musicals have previews, it turns out - lesson one of about 400). That's the spirit of It's A Good Life, five episodes, one a day, all week, from The Tragically Hip Podcast Series: one fan, uncool and underqualified, let into the rooms where "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" got made. It's the first musical built from the songs of The Tragically Hip, and it's moving to Kingston. Setting the Scene starts at the start. Where the idea came from, who said yes, and how a story about a man who can't go home again ended up in Kingston, of all places. But first, the question nobody wants to ask out loud: what is a musical, anyway? Jen Towndrow, Armand, and Autumn McDonald love them, and they make the case. One fan who walked out of a jukebox show wondering what just happened makes the other one. Then the people who built it. Michael Rubinoff, the producer, knew exactly where he wanted to be if Y2K took the world down at midnight, and he knew one thing about this show before he had the rights to a single song. Jake Gold, manager of The Hip, had two conditions. A month later came a phone call, a radio story out of Afghanistan, and the song that played once the plane was in the air. Ahmed Moneka shouted his love for an Ontario town off a bridge, and somebody told him which song to go home and play. Jesse LaVercombe found The Hip somewhere "in the ether" and came aboard late, which meant sprinting. Mary Francis Moore offered up the room at Theatre Aquarius partly so she could watch. And Brett Christopher in Kingston had been dreaming about this for fifteen years before anyone else got the rights. That news landed hard, at first. Somewhere in all of it the story leaves Toronto for a smaller city with prisons on one side and universities on the other. You'll hear why that move mattered. And on April 23rd, at a talk in the theatre, somebody asks for the whole show in one word. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • What "the book" of a musical is, for anyone who assumed it was a book. • The Zoom where Michael asked the band for three minutes before getting down to business. And what he told them first. • Friends whose fathers came from Iran and Peru, and the band they learned Canada through. • Lindsay Pereira's CBC story, and why Jake told Michael he had to read it. • Kensington Market, Kingston, and why a small town makes you earn it. "If I had one kick at the can with this music and there was one way I could use this music to tell the story, I did always believe that this was the story to tell." - Michael Rubinoff, producer WHO YOU HEAR • Michael Rubinoff. Producer of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," and the originating producer of "Come From Away." A fan first. • Jake Gold. Manager of The Tragically Hip. • Ahmed Moneka and Jesse LaVercombe. Co-writers of the book, ten years making theatre together, "King Gilgamesh and the Man of the Wild" included. Jesse on moving north: "Sometimes I feel like as an American living up here, it's like living in a really low-stakes Twilight Zone." • Mary Francis Moore. Director, and artistic director at Theatre Aquarius, the National Centre for the Development of New Musicals. • Brett Christopher. Managing artistic director of the Thousand Islands Playhouse, the show's Kingston co-producer. He lives in Kingston. • Jen, Armand, and Autumn. The crash course in musicals. Big thanks to Michael, Jake, Ahmed, Jesse, Mary Francis, and Brett for letting a fan with a microphone into the room three days before the first preview, and to Jen, Armand, and Autumn for explaining it all first. A lot of new Canadians found their way in through The Tragically Hip. This is the story of how that ended up on a stage. Tomorrow on It's A Good Life: The Players. "IT'S A GOOD LIFE IF YOU DON'T WEAKEN" - KINGSTON The Thousand Islands Playhouse brings the musical to the Kingston Grand Theatre, in association with Theatre Aquarius, October 22 to November 8. Opening night is Friday, October 23. Tickets: kingstongrand.ca/events/TIP2026 THE TIP JAR Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE FROM THE TRAGICALLY HIP PODCAST SERIES Yer Hipstories - Hamilton: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/fae76ee3-738f-4007-80c8-7140729bb295 Yer Hipstories - Kingston: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/c37eccb0-036d-45d0-827b-08582d3f8bba Run dates via the Kingston Grand Theatre and the Thousand Islands Playhouse. Lindsay Pereira's story via CBC. #ItsAGoodLife #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #TTHPods #CanadianMusic #HipFans Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Take Forever | 16 oct. 2026 | 01:09:11 | |
November 30th, 2012, Minneapolis, cold enough to hurt. Brian from Buffalo was there for 'Take Forever.' The stream tried to play it three times. It's track nine of eleven on "Now for Plan A," the Gavin Brown record that came out October 2nd, 2012. By the count on the stream, The Tragically Hip played it live eight times, starting months before the record was out, and it didn't crack the 169 songs ranked for the TTHTop40 Countdown. The poll in the Facebook group was kinder: 76% love it or like it, and one brave soul has never heard it. Jeff from Belleville has a theory about why, and it starts with where the song sits on the record. Then the tale of the tape turns up a chart fact about "Now for Plan A" in the United States that nobody on the panel believes. It checks out. So Brian from Buffalo, Jeff from Belleville, and Greg from Tacoma (late, and sentenced to sing it) take apart three minutes about a man trying to be a machine, a plane hurtling through the dark, and a promise to be there for as long as it takes. And Calgary. A lot of Calgary. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
"I feel like it ends stronger than it begins." - Brian from Buffalo THE PANEL
Big thanks to Brian, Jeff, and Greg, and to a chat that kept the room going while the audio didn't. 'Take Forever' is one of the quieter corners of "Now for Plan A," and an hour with three fans who did the reading is a good way to hear The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie fresh. You won't hear it here. Go put it on. IT'S A GOOD LIFE - MONDAY, OCTOBER 19 TO FRIDAY, OCTOBER 23 Five episodes, one a day. An oral history of the making of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken," the musical built on the music of The Hip, told by the people who made it. Subscribe: home.tthpods.com GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 Saturday night at the Horseshoe Tavern, nine years since Gord passed away, Grace, 2 plays for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, so follow along on the night: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. GEDfest Buffalo, the first American chapter, is Wednesday, October 21, and more cities celebrate on Saturday, October 24. Every city and every cause: gedfest.ca How it started: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/9fc87037-23d5-4de2-8ed4-202f441bf759 THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 THE HIP HANDBOOK The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR All three panelists plugged this link instead of themselves, so here it is. Help keep the battery charged: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Poets': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/339c232a-4700-404b-a533-779a14e1cf45 'Vaccination Scar': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/5fa3fc7c-f01b-4eae-a3de-5cadc658b9f9 'Tiger The Lion': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/718fe20e-83d6-4c69-86eb-cc2b4af02834 Live play count and dates from the stream. Gord's live intros via The Tragically Hip Archive, as cited on the stream. The Calgary article via HipMuseum, as cited on the stream. Release and chart details via Wikipedia and Universal Music Canada. #TheTragicallyHip #NowForPlanA #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #ItsAGoodLife #GEDfest Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| It's A Good Life - Trailer | 15 oct. 2026 | 00:00:59 | |
The new 5-part podcast begins this coming Monday, the 19th. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| GEDfest Past, Present, & Future - Secret Sauce | 13 oct. 2026 | 00:36:16 | |
11,300 pennies, a frame five feet by nine, about 250 pounds, and all of it Gord. Penny Gord has hung at the National Music Centre, it travels with Trickle Down now, and somewhere along the way it became the closest thing GEDfest has to a mascot. The first three episodes covered where GEDfest came from, where it stands, and where it's headed. This one is about who. Keith's word for it is the secret sauce: the ambassadors, supporters, volunteers, and tribute players who turned one Calgary night in memory of Gord Downie into twelve chapters across Canada and into the United States. Every one of them got here a different way. A pile of pennies. A cold email. A song sung at a private party. A message from an old friend nobody had heard from in twenty years. That last one belongs to Dan Murphy. Dan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in June 2023. Three years on, he and his family have a fund at Princess Margaret, the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer, and GEDfest Toronto is raising money for it. When his oncologist told him they'd be talking about quality of life, Dan and his wife made a choice: "We decided to make quality of life about quality of life." A couple hundred people he knows, some of them friends from grade school, are making the drive to the Horseshoe in October. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • The icebreaker. A song from The Tragically Hip that sounds like the end of summer. One answer arrives on a cassette carried back from Kingston to a university residence floor, and Keith is answering this question for the fourth time without repeating himself. • Luke Carruthers on how a pile of pennies turned into posters for every city, then merch, then a backlit sign he's building to hang out front of the Calgary show. • Robbie Milgaard named his band after a song by The Hip. Keith tells the story of the night Robbie first sang it with Trickle Down, and what Robbie said at the mic before he started. • Alan Cross on why a fanbase ends up doing this kind of thing, and why the answer starts with the band. • The night BCDC opened for Trickle Down at the Palace in Calgary, and what the five of them said to each other backstage before they had to follow it. • Brennan Rafferty, on the road to the Kootenays, with a tip on a young Calgary band you'll want to say you saw in a bar once. • The first email that got a reply, and why Keith credits one of the people on this panel with giving him the nerve to keep sending them. • Keith's case for what GEDfest gives people who want to do some good and don't know where to start. THE PANEL • Dan Murphy, from Toronto. First heard 'Blow at High Dough' the fall he moved into residence. Reconnected with Buddy Harold this winter, and a few months later he's part of GEDfest Toronto. • Keith Dick, co-founder of GEDfest and the drummer in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Now four for four on the icebreaker. • Luke Carruthers, the artist behind Penny Gord. Went from lending it out to volunteering at the silent auction, then posters, merch, and the sign. • Alan Cross, who co-hosts GEDfest Toronto at the Horseshoe with Fearless Fred from Q107. Called in from Victoria, a couple of hours before starting a national speaking tour. • Robbie Milgaard, from Cochrane, Alberta. Sings in The Wheat Kings, who play GEDfest Cochrane on Saturday, October 24th, and gets called up to sing with Trickle Down often enough that Keith counts him as the sixth member. • Brennan Rafferty, frontman of BCDC, 27 years in. Lives on the West Coast and already has his tickets for GEDfest Vancouver on October 24th. GEDFEST 2026 GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest: twelve chapters, each one raising money for a cause in its own community. Most play Saturday, October 17th. Vancouver, Cochrane, and Regina play October 24th, and Buffalo moved up to October 21st. Find your city at gedfest.ca. jD co-leads the Toronto chapter: the Horseshoe Tavern, Saturday, October 17th, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first. Drop him a line at jd@tthpods.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free, non-monetized archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Editing is hard and the battery needs charging. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE GEDFEST PAST, PRESENT, & FUTURE 'Past': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/9fc87037-23d5-4de2-8ed4-202f441bf759 #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #Fundraising #TributeBands #HipFans #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Poets | 12 oct. 2026 | 01:09:48 | |
August 20th, 2016, Kingston. 'Poets' is twentieth on the set list, right behind 'Something On,' the song Craig from Langley used to skip to. It opens "Phantom Power," it was the lead single, and it sits at number 23 on the TTHTop40 Countdown. The count on the stream, pulled from Hipbase and setlist.fm, has The Tragically Hip playing it 611 times, from July 2nd, 1998, twelve days before the record came out, to that last night in Kingston. The poll in the Facebook group drew more votes than any the show has run. And the Discovering Downie panel came back together for it. They do not agree. Justin from Bridport bought "Phantom Power" as a kid, and this was the first thing out of the speakers. Kirk from Chino calls it his Gus (an inside joke), and he spent a day with live versions until it turned. Craig from Langley plays it in a tribute band about half the time and still hits skip on the record, so he sat down with a guitar to find out why. He found out. You'll want to hear it before you sing along again. Then the video. A house with a reputation (and a lot of cats), a bass nobody expected Gord to be holding, Johnny Fay playing it lighter than he does on stage, and a question from jD about why the band is lined up backwards. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • The icebreaker: one song by The Hip that feels like fall, and one answer the panel would happily trade this whole episode for. • October 7th in The Hip Handbook, from Austin to the Fillmore. Kirk was at the Fillmore, just not that night. • A Troubadour recording from 2009 with a lot of swimming in it. Kirk was in the room. • Super Farmer Nano Baby, the darker take on the 25th anniversary box set, and Justin's hunch about which came first. • Woodstock, Live 8 with Dan Aykroyd on harmonica, and Gord's rants, different every night. • The backing vocals from Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair. Nobody on the panel knows the words. Craig has Paul's own answer, more or less. • At the last show in Kingston, the microphone becomes a flashlight. Kirk says that's when the song finally landed for him. • Next week the wheel lands on 'Take Forever,' from "Now for Plan A." "This is a hard question for me to answer because I'm so emotionally tied to this album." - Justin from Bridport THE PANEL • Justin from Bridport. A six-timer, by jD's count. "Phantom Power" was the first record by The Hip he ever bought. Announces for the Sprint Cars of New England, with the season finale October 24 in Claremont, New Hampshire, and helps run the Vermont Motorsports Hall of Fame, which just named its class of 2026. • Craig from Langley. Plays in Gift Shop, a tribute to The Hip on the West Coast. They're at the first GEDfest Vancouver on October 24 and in White Rock on October 17, and the full August 20, 2026 show at the Hollywood Theatre, ten years to the day, is headed for YouTube. His own band, Windows 78, is on Spotify and Apple Music. • Kirk from Chino. Finishing a solo album, with updates at Kirk Lane Music on Instagram and Facebook. Plays in The Daryls, a cover band around LA, Orange County, the Inland Empire, and San Diego, and hosts Steps To The Stage, a podcast for community theatre. Big thanks to Justin, Craig, and Kirk, together again after Discovering Downie, and to a chat that was on fire all night. Twenty-eight years on, 'Poets' is still the door a lot of fans walked through to The Tragically Hip and Gord Downie, even the ones who spent it at the bar. The same three are back for the episode closest to Gord's birthday, with a solo song pulled at random. DISCOVERING DOWNIE Where this panel met, one Gord Downie solo record at a time. "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5 THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show for 2027, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Justin's plug was this link, so here it is. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Radio Show': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/9cdeecdc-c69a-4e6a-b087-ce6effbb2fa2 'Emperor Penguin': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/a2f229b2-b5fc-41e4-8d78-632080d31a3b 'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787 Live play count via Hipbase and setlist.fm, as counted on the stream. Kingston set list via setlist.fm. Countdown rank from the show. Release details via Wikipedia. #TheTragicallyHip #PhantomPower #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #DiscoveringDownie #HipHeads Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| GEDfest Past, Present, & Future - Future | 06 oct. 2026 | 00:40:25 | |
Fifty-eight days out from GEDfest 2026, more than $750,000 already written into cheques, and a first million sitting within reach this October. That is where this one opens, and then the panel spends the rest of the episode refusing to look backwards. GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, a community celebration of the life and legacy of Gord Downie and the music of The Tragically Hip, and the people running it are not interested in what it has been. They want to talk about what it becomes. Twelve chapters in 2026, the first of them outside Canada, and a board that sat down five years ago and wrote out what this thing stands for before it got big enough to lose the plot. Keith Dyck's model for the whole enterprise is Terry Fox. Same idea, different hero, different setting - a rock show instead of a run. He is clear-eyed about the gap, too. The Terry Fox Run has raised something north of $850 million since it started. GEDfest is about to cross its first million. He would like the first one under the belt before anybody gets excited. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Keith drove a rental car from Ottawa to Buffalo to Toronto this spring, and the thing that happened at a Buffalo gas station is the reason he now believes this can go anywhere. • Buddy Herold went to his first GEDfest to carry amps and set up the water station. What he got asked to do instead is a cautionary tale about volunteering. • Ian McDonald had a venue, a band, and a charity locked for Ottawa inside about 48 hours, and every single piece of it came from a phone call to somebody he already knew. Including the hockey coach. • Sarah J. on why Buffalo was the only sensible place for the first American chapter, and what "the city of good neighbours" means when it comes to a fundraiser. • Jeff Davison on why the rubber chicken dinner is losing, and what an event like this does that a gala cannot. • Two men in Elks gear at the Labour Day Classic in Calgary who turned out not to live in Edmonton, or anywhere near it. Buddy has issued them a challenge and they have not delivered yet. • The myth that The Tragically Hip were a Canada-only band, and the tribute act in the Netherlands quietly making the case against it. • Buddy's plan involving a Blue Jays jersey with all thirty MLB parks on the back, and what he wants to put there instead. • Keith's two current songs, both of them going into this year's set list, one of them by request from a corporate sponsor. • Penny Gord. That is all anyone is getting here. THE PANEL • Keith Dyck, co-founder of GEDfest and the drummer in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Currently living inside 'Opiated' and 'Cordelia', because both are being added to the set. Would like it on the record that the first million is the hard one. • Buddy Herold, director of sales and fundraising for GEDfest, from Calgary by way of Toronto. Five years running in Calgary, plus Regina and Winnipeg last year, and Toronto this year. Went with 'Ahead by a Century', which was the last song the band ever played live. • Ian McDonald, Ottawa chapter lead, calling in from Vegas at 41 degrees. Came to this through his friend and colleague Ian Martin, had never run an event like it, and is now watching people he has not heard from in years buy tickets. • Jeff Davison, CEO of the Prostate Cancer Centre, from Calgary. One in six Alberta men will get prostate cancer. His kids are now listening to The Hip in the truck, which he considers the win. Sings along to 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car' and admits it may be the only one he can manage. • Sara Jachimiak of DATC Media, Buffalo chapter lead, from Buffalo, New York. All-time favourite is 'All Tore Up', currently deep into 'Let's Stay Engaged'. She is choosing Buffalo's charity herself, and she talks openly and without drama about the eight months of her own breast cancer treatment that shaped the choice. GEDFEST 2026 GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, and in its ninth year it runs in twelve chapters across Canada and, for the first time, in the United States. Every chapter picks a cause in its own community and raises money for it. Find your city at gedfest.ca. jD runs the Toronto chapter, playing the Horseshoe Tavern on Saturday, October 17, with Grace, 2 on stage, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets and details at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free, non-monetized archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances lives at thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. YER LETTER One email a month, no filler. Sign up at subscribe.tthpods.com. THE TIP JAR If you want to throw a couple of bucks at the shows, the jar is at buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GEDfest #GordDownie #Fundraising #podList #Diehards Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Radio Show | 05 oct. 2026 | 01:09:43 | |
April 18th, 1992. The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, nearly six months before "Fully Completely" came out, and 'Radio Show' is fifth on the set list. Twelve days later it's fifth again, at the Annandale Hotel in Sydney, Australia. Those are the only two Dave from Edmonton found on setlist.fm. Then The Tragically Hip shelved it for twenty-two years, until the 2014 deluxe reissue of "Fully Completely" put it out beside 'So Hard Done By.' It finished 123rd on the TTHTop40 Countdown. The live poll in the Facebook group didn't care: 60 percent love it, 96 percent love it or like it, and one holdout tolerates it. If you've never heard it, you're in good company. One panelist met it a few months ago. Then the lyric sheet comes out. It opens with somebody holding in a lungful while their father walks by, it stops to watch the election and the trial, and it ends on one word. We. Francois from Quebec City thinks Gord left the door open on purpose. Dave from Montreal has a radio guy's read, and it involves King of the Hill. And nobody agrees on where it belongs - a "Road Apples" leftover, or the most "Fully Completely" thing that never made "Fully Completely." WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE - The icebreaker: one song by The Hip that sounds like fall. A forest at night with no leaves left on the trees, a drive-in Dave from Montreal has never been to, and a date in September that smacks every fan in the face. - A grade nine class trip to Toronto, a bootleg shop up a flight of stairs across the street from MuchMusic, and a cassette Dave from Montreal still calls the definitive version. - Rob's guitar talking back to Gord, and Paul playing something Dave from Montreal swears he's heard on another "Fully Completely" track. - How one record ends up being somebody's best and worst at the same time. - Dave from Edmonton wishes Canada had a British singles culture, and he brings Oasis to make the case. - Massey Hall, September 27. The Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the speech Dave from Montreal thinks Gord could have given. - Next week the wheel lands on 'Poets,' the kick-off track on "Phantom Power," and the Discovering Downie panel reunites for it. "It's really nice to have these little songs between us that don't belong to everybody." - Dave from Montreal THE PANEL - Francois from Quebec City. Plays the Paul Langlois parts in The Gracefully Hip, a Quebec City tribute to The Hip, and has heard 800 people in Montreal sing 'Ahead by a Century' back at him. Next gig: Friday, November 6, Grizzly Fuzz, Quebec City. grizzlyfuzz.com - Dave from Montreal. Back again, an Anglophone Montrealer with twenty years in radio, and the only one here who has known this song since the 90s. Answered the icebreaker twice, the second en français, a first for the show. - Dave from Edmonton. Back from Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour in Edmonton. Built this year's song bracket for The Hip and ran it in the Facebook group. "Fully Completely" made him a fan at fourteen. Big thanks to Francois, Dave, and Dave, and to the chat. Thirty-four years after The Tragically Hip played it at the Horseshoe, 'Radio Show' still belongs mostly to the fans who go looking for it. Gord Downie ended it on one word. The rest is up to you. Recorded Wednesday, September 30, the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. jD marked it by re-releasing the Discovering Downie conversation on "Secret Path," Gord's record about Chanie Wenjack, the twelve-year-old Anishinaabe boy who died in October 1966 after running from the Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School in Kenora, trying to get home. "Secret Path": https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/e086ade9-373f-4bd3-9d84-513b2097cac5 THE TRAGICALLY HIP ALBUM COUNTDOWN A new show, and you set the order. Rate all fifteen records by The Hip before November 30, and the countdown starts Monday, January 4, 2027, at 8pm ET on YouTube. Ballot: forms.gle/KdMfMuApxGb4Nf5w7 GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Pigeon Camera': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/49a9167c-6f8d-4641-8306-959189b38ec8 'The Bastard': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/11be433d-56cf-4213-8726-9fc7cec327f2 'Just as Well': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/ddf96225-1bd4-468b-881a-aa091a7e6148 Live dates via setlist.fm. Countdown rank and poll numbers from the show. Reissue details via Universal Music Canada and Wikipedia, Chanie Wenjack's via Wikipedia. #FullyCompletely #TTHOnShuffle #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHAlbumCountdown #HipHeads Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Secret Path | 30 sept. 2026 | 01:24:14 | |
Today the gang gets together to discuss the fifth album in Gord's discography, the haunting, Secret Path Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| GEDfest Past, Present, & Future - Present | 29 sept. 2026 | 00:36:11 | |
From a 400-person room to a 1,000-person room to twelve chapters in two countries, in nine years, on a formula nobody wrote down. That is the middle chapter of the GEDfest story, and this is the episode about how it actually happened. GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest. It was born in Calgary shortly after Gord Downie passed away in 2017, and it is now the largest fundraiser in his memory in the country. The jump from one hometown night to a national organization did not happen because somebody drew up a plan. It happened because people kept walking up and asking how they could help. Julie Johnson was in the audience on night one while Keith was on the drum stool, which means she saw something he could not see from up there. A woman came up to her in that tiny bar and started talking about a Canadian art gallery and all the images The Tragically Hip put into people's heads, and whether there was room for that next year. That was the first sign. There have been a lot of them since. This episode is Julie, Keith, Jaime McNichol, and Darcy McLeod trying to name the exact moment the snowball stopped needing to be pushed. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Keith's confession about 'Courage'. It is not the confession you are expecting from a man who runs a Gord Downie tribute festival, and the night it changed is very specific. • Julie on the one thing you cannot do if you want to scale something like this. It is the opposite of what most organizations try. • The 2020 GEDfest. Masks, social distancing, two shows in one day, a capacity cut to the bone, and Dave Harris singing from inside a phone booth. Then the thing the host said afterward that opened the door to every chapter that followed. • Darcy on the green room at the Blind Beggar, and why beers that arrive without you asking are a bigger deal to a working band than they sound. • Jaime went to her first GEDfest in 2021 carrying something heavy, and found that a room full of people singing was the thing that helped. She says it plainly here. • Three different people give three different answers for when the tipping point was. One of them says the Palace. One says it was the moment a stranger in Kelowna described a night they had never attended, exactly. • The hip tribute band in the Netherlands who reached out, and the language barrier standing between them and a chapter. • How Neil got Edmonton, and how a guy from Manulife got Kelowna. Neither one involves a job posting. • Keith on the secret sauce, which is a two-word answer and is not the music. THE PANEL • Keith Dyck, co-founder of GEDfest and the drummer in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Reads 'the present' in "The Never Ending Present" as a double entendre, which is a level of thinking jD readily admits is above his pay grade. • Julie Johnson, founder of GEDfest, from Calgary. Keith's wife, and the one who was standing in the crowd the first night. Went way off the board with 'Fight' as her current favourite, and had a reason at the ready. • Jaime McNichol, GEDfest director, from Calgary. Julie's parents live next door, which is how she heard about a band called Trickle Down in the first place. Missed the first one because of the weather and has never quite gotten over it. Did three GEDfests last year. • Darcy McLeod of DC and The Struggle, from Calgary. Opener, after-party act, ambassador, and self-described jack of all trades. Came to The Hip through a friend in junior high who put on 'New Orleans Is Sinking' and was, in his words, the coolest cat. GEDFEST 2026 GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, and in its ninth year it runs in twelve chapters across Canada and, for the first time, in the United States. Every chapter picks a cause in its own community and raises money for it. Find your city at gedfest.ca. jD runs the Toronto chapter, playing the Horseshoe Tavern on Saturday, October 17, with Grace, 2 on stage, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets and details at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free, non-monetized archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances lives at thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. YER LETTER One email a month, no filler. Sign up at subscribe.tthpods.com. THE TIP JAR If you want to throw a couple of bucks at the shows, the jar is at buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GEDfest #GordDownie #Fundraising #podList #Completeists Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: The Bastard | 28 sept. 2026 | 01:06:03 | |
June 6th, 2000. Track six on "Music @ Work" opens on tabla, and the album credits name the player as Mr. Hussein. That's the whole credit. 'The Bastard' sits between 'Stay' and 'The Completists' on the record The Tragically Hip made with Steve Berlin and Mark Vreeken, the one that took the 2001 Juno for Best Rock Album. It was never a single, and Chris from Seattle has a theory about why. It finished 119th of 169 on the TTHTop40 Countdown, and Hipbase and setlist.fm log it live just fourteen times (submitted set lists only, so the real number runs higher). Then the live poll in the Facebook group came back 36 percent love it, 46 percent like it, and 13 percent tolerate it, one of the highest tolerate numbers the show has seen. The panel spins a 2000 recording out of Cleveland, Gord singing his heart out, and Chris hears Godzilla in the rhythm section. Then the lyric sheet comes out. Crepuscular rays. Winged elephants. Purple Italians. A fire-and-brimstone preacher shouting about Philadelphia. One panelist thinks he's cracked it after twenty-six years of not reading the words. Another thinks Gord just liked how they sounded. Nobody's sure Gord would side with either of them. Underneath all of it sits a record the band never quite got behind. Steve came in calling "Music @ Work" his least favourite record by The Hip and walked out rediscovering it. Chris has it in his top five and has defended it on this show more than once. And jD once asked Johnny Fay about a "Music @ Work" box set. His reaction is in here, and so is Greg's reaction to his reaction. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • The icebreaker. One song by The Hip each they never got to hear live, and a pair of Calgary tickets from 2009 that Steve sold and still thinks about. • September 23rd in The Hip Handbook. A busy date, and two of the shows on it have somebody on this panel attached. • Steve's first time seeing The Hip was at a zoo. Yes, a zoo. Gord took the setting to heart. • "If this song was a car it would be a V8 with a manual transmission." Chris from Seattle, and he has the downshifts mapped. • Billy Sunday. Chris has a theory about Philadelphia, and Steve adds a layer from the ballpark. • Pell-mell, augurs, and augers (the ice fishing kind, per the chat). Greg's read on what's about to blow. • Steve hears another song of theirs hiding in this one, and it's one he doesn't care for at all. • Search for this song on YouTube and you might land on a Replacements cover at First Avenue instead. Steve did. • Next week the wheel lands on 'Radio Show,' from the "Fully Completely" sessions, the one that stayed in the vault until the 2014 deluxe reissue. THE PANEL • Chris from Seattle. Back again, and the loudest defender of "Music @ Work" this panel has had. Saw The Hip three times at the Moore Theatre, and first saw them with Greg, who he's known since they were both 18. His band is Loud Flowers: loudflowers.band • Steve from Toronto. Back again, a week ahead of schedule, and his plug this week is impending fatherhood. Originally from Thunder Bay. Heard 11 of the 14 songs on "Music @ Work" live. Not this one. • Greg from Tacoma. Back again, once his audio caught up with him. Wore this record out on a portable CD player while painting his deck in the summer of 2000, and he's the one who turned Chris on to The Hip in the first place. Makes music as Hadees Market Music. Big thanks to Chris, Steve, and Greg, and to a stacked chat. Twenty-six years in, 'The Bastard' still sounds like Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip with the pedal on the floor. GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. Twelve chapters across Canada and into the United States at gedfest.ca. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free, non-monetized archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances, and where every tale of the tape starts: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Greg dared you. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: tthpodcastseries@gmail.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Just as Well': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/ddf96225-1bd4-468b-881a-aa091a7e6148 'Putting Down': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/6cfb0a5e-5909-40ec-8559-62ca0acd580e 'Tiger The Lion': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/718fe20e-83d6-4c69-86eb-cc2b4af02834 Live play counts come from Hipbase and setlist.fm, and the countdown rank and poll numbers from the show itself, as cited on the stream. Release date and the tabla credit come from the "Music @ Work" credits as listed on Wikipedia. #TheTragicallyHip #MusicAtWork #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #HipFans #CanadianMusic Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Just as Well | 25 sept. 2026 | 01:09:36 | |
1990. The Misty Moon Cabaret in Halifax, MuchMusic cameras rolling, and Gord doesn't dress it up. It's a rock song. Two and a half minutes, and then gone. 'Just As Well' is track five on "Saskadelphia" (May 21, 2021), the six-song surprise that landed on the May long weekend. It was cut in New Orleans during the "Road Apples" sessions, with Don Smith producing and Bruce Barris engineering, and then it sat in the vault for more than thirty years. setlist.fm has ten documented live plays, every one of them in 1990, and nothing after. The live poll in the Facebook group came back 46 percent love it and 44 percent like it, plus 3 percent asking what in the hell 'Just As Well' even is. jD's gut says that 3 percent might be a single vote. The panel isn't buying the ten. Patrick from Newmarket has the 1990 tour itinerary out of the "This Is Our Life" book in his head, and Glenn from Melbourne can't see a song they were workshopping on stage stopping at ten nights. Then comes the harder question: where did this one ever belong? jD hears it as a Baby Blue EP song that missed its bus. Glenn has a timeline that says otherwise, and a theory about whose pen the opening lines came off. Ian from Maple Ridge turns up halfway through, blames the West Coast clock, and still lands the comparison nobody else had. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • The icebreaker. One song each they wish they'd heard live. Patrick's answer comes with a pair of near misses that still sting, and Glenn's pick has his own surname in it. • The Misty Moon version, spun in full. Glenn calls it the definitive take, and the line he points to is the angriest one in the song. • "Are you ready, Bruce?" Who Bruce is, and what Ian hears in the way Gord asks. • Pig heaven, "Animal Farm," and a crossroads with a certain bluesman waiting at it. Glenn's reading of the lyric is the most ambitious thing anyone has said about a two-and-a-half-minute bar song, and jD needs a second to recover. • The boots. Patrick ties one line to what Gord did to a pair of boots at Molson Park a few months later. • The 1970 hit they used to drop into the middle of it live, and what Glenn thinks that says about how seriously they were taking it. • "If the Ramones did a Lynyrd Skynyrd song." Ian, on what this actually is. • Patrick puts his NPS hat on for the poll, then admits where 'Just As Well' ranks among the six on "Saskadelphia." • The one song Patrick still skips, even though it's shorter than this one. • "I'll never skip it because it's too short to skip." Glenn from Melbourne, making the lazy man's case. • Next week the wheel lands on 'The Bastard,' from "Music @ Work." THE PANEL • Glenn from Melbourne. Met 'Just As Well' when "Saskadelphia" came out, from a corner of the world without many bootlegs, or many people to talk about the band with. He's a photographer who leads photo tours to far-off places, with India and Bangladesh on the calendar next year. He says he's the only Glenn Lavender in the world, so look him up. • Patrick from Newmarket. Freelance journalist and photographer, the tall guy at Toronto shows with the pro gear or the iPhone, and you'll see him at festivals across Simcoe County next year. Showed up in a 9:30 Club shirt from the one time he saw The Hip in DC. His ear for the pre-"Road Apples" material goes back to tape trading, long before Napster. • Ian from Maple Ridge. Sings in Gift Shop, a West Coast tribute to The Tragically Hip, with an October 17th date at Club 240 in Crescent Beach. The big one is Saturday, October 24th: Gift Shop headlines GEDfest Vancouver at the Biltmore. GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. It's sold out right now, but if a ticket shakes loose, jD will hear about it first. Drop him a line at jd@tthpods.com. Updates at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free discography, lyrics, and live-performance archive behind the tale of the tape every week: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com YER LETTER One email a month, the whole network in one place: subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR jD asked for a caribou or two in the hat on mic. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Vaccination Scar': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/5fa3fc7c-f01b-4eae-a3de-5cadc658b9f9 'Putting Down': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/6cfb0a5e-5909-40ec-8559-62ca0acd580e #TheTragicallyHip #TTHOnShuffle #RoadApples #UpToHere #HipFans #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| GEDfest Past, Present, & Future - Past | 22 sept. 2026 | 00:38:21 | |
A Thursday night in October. A narrow bar on 8th Avenue in Calgary. A pile of crumpled fives and tens that added up to $7,000. That is where GEDfest starts, and this is the episode where the people who were standing in that room tell you how it happened. GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, a celebration of the life and music of Gord Downie and The Tragically Hip, and in 2026 it runs in twelve chapters across Canada and into the United States. It began with a handful of guys in a basement in Crestmont learning "Road Apples" front to back, and one sentence from Don Martin that changed everything: the only way we could play this live is if we had a charity. Trickle Down is the band at the centre of it, and their origin is not a music story, it is a birthday story. Don picked up a Squier starter kit in his mid-forties with a $300 work bonus burning a hole in his pocket. A 50th birthday jam. Then a 60th birthday jam ten years later, with a singer who had a great voice and never once learned the words. Keith Dick sat down behind a kit and learned to play drums, more or less, that afternoon. Everything that follows - the Legion, the Palace, the Big Four, Buffalo - runs back through that room. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Keith on the phonetics problem. GEDfest has been pronounced just about every way a person can pronounce it, and he is quietly keeping score. • Don's version of the origin story does not match Keith's version of the origin story, and the gap between them is the best five minutes of the episode. • Jeff Hiscock could not get his own gear through the front door of the first GEDfest, because the room he was about to play in was already full. What he did about it involves reloading the car. • A tax lawyer in Toronto that nobody in the organization had ever met, one link on The Tragically Hip's website, and the donation that made Don think this thing might actually have legs. • Kevin McKay and his wife Tracy were the first two people to walk into a GEDfest that Keith had not personally invited. How they found out about it is a very Calgary answer. • Ian Martin's opening move after seeing Trickle Down play a Canada Day gig was to walk up and start hugging the band. His second move was the website contact form, and Keith still remembers opening it. • A man in his twenties sang every word from the front row of a packed room last year, then asked Jeff to sign the set list and told him why he was there. Jeff still gets goosebumps telling it. • Ken Bellis on the thing about The Hip's bass parts that you do not hear until you sit down and try to play one. THE PANEL • Keith Dyck, co-founder of GEDfest and the drummer in Trickle Down, from Calgary. He is a partner in a wealth management firm by day, which has nothing to do with any of this. His favourite song to play is 'Blow at High Dough', and he has a confession about 'Courage' that he saves for the next episode. • Don Martin, founding member of Trickle Down, from Calgary. Keith's father-in-law. Came for 'Scared', stayed for 'Nautical Disaster', and once had WestJet lose his luggage and find it again on the morning of a podcast taping. • Ian Martyn, board director of chapters, from Calgary. Twelve cities this year, and he can tell you a story from most of them. Describes his own involvement as a bromance, and he is not wrong. • Jeff Hiscock, guitar player in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Favourite to listen to is 'Fully Completely'. Favourite to play is 'Nautical Disaster', for a reason involving singer Dave Harris's shoulder that has now become a nightly ritual. • Kevin McKay, OG GEDhead, from Calgary. Works in the medical industry, which is part of why this one landed the way it did. Currently on a 'Poets' kick, and he is right to be. • Ken Bellis, bass player in Trickle Down, from Calgary. Went with 'Grace, Too' inside four seconds, as a bass player is obliged to do. Also wore the wrong shirt. GEDFEST 2026 GEDfest is Gord Edgar Downie Fest, and in its ninth year it runs in twelve chapters across Canada and, for the first time, in the United States. Every chapter raises money for a cause in its own community. Find your city at gedfest.ca. jD runs the Toronto chapter, playing the Horseshoe Tavern on Saturday, October 17, with Grace, 2 on stage, raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets and details at facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free, non-monetized archive of the discography, the lyrics, and the live performances lives at thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. YER LETTER One email a month, no filler. Sign up at subscribe.tthpods.com. THE TIP JAR If you want to throw a couple of bucks at the shows, the jar is at buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #GEDfest #podList #Fundraising #HipHeads Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Vaccination Scar | 14 sept. 2026 | 01:04:48 | |
July 16th, 2005. Grand Falls-Windsor, Newfoundland. The Tragically Hip played 'Vaccination Scar' for the fifty-ninth time, and never again. Track four on "In Between Evolution" (June 29th, 2004), the ninth studio record of thirteen, cut at Studio X in Seattle with Adam Kasper producing, and the album landed at number one in Canada in its first week. 'Vaccination Scar' was the first single off it. It finished 66th on the TTHTop40 Countdown, nowhere near the top 40. Then the live poll went up in the Facebook group and came back 64 percent love it, 33 percent like it. jD's read on the leftover one percent: that's the margin of error, not three actual humans. Which brings up the thing the panel cannot get past. Fifty-nine live plays, and forty-two of them were show openers. The band walked out and led with this song more nights than not. On the record, it sits fourth. jD calls that a missed opportunity and wants to put the question to the band directly. Jeff from Newmarket has a baseball-lineup theory. Brian from Buffalo thinks there's no way it shouldn't open the thing. Nobody defends the sequencing, and everybody agrees the band was going to do exactly what it wanted anyway. It is also a political record, made in an election year in an American studio, and Tracey from LA says the song reads different now than it did in 2004. Underneath all of it: the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a word that turns out to have nothing to do with the bridge at all, and one line in the album booklet that settles an argument the internet has been having for twenty years. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
THE PANEL
GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Every dollar goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets through facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free discography, lyrics, and live-performance archive behind the tale of the tape every week: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. Built on setlist.fm and Hipbase, with every source credited on the page. YER LETTER Once a month, one email, the whole network in one place. What went out across all eight shows, what is coming, what jD has been listening to, and the odd thing that never makes it to a microphone. It is free, it is a letter rather than a broadcast, and it goes out to the community first. subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR Editing is hard and the battery needs charging. Tips, never donations: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Putting Down': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/6cfb0a5e-5909-40ec-8559-62ca0acd580e 'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787 Live play counts and the retirement date come from setlist.fm and Hipbase by way of The Hip Handbook, as cited on the stream. Album credits and the release date come from Wikipedia and the "In Between Evolution" sleeve (see Block C). #TheTragicallyHip #InBetweenEvolution #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #TTHPods #CanadianMusic Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Putting Down | 07 sept. 2026 | 01:06:10 | |
August 20th, 2016. Kingston. Thirteen songs into the last set The Tragically Hip ever played, and 'Putting Down' made the cut. Track four on "Music @ Work" (2000), the second of two records Steve Berlin made with the boys, and the one that took home the 2001 Juno for Best Rock Album (per Wikipedia and Discogs, still owed a HipMuseum or This Is Our Life cross-check). It sits at 143 out of 169 on the TTHTop40 Countdown, a deep cut by that measure alone. Then the Facebook group poll came back and the ranking didn't survive contact with the room: like or love landing somewhere in the 80s or 90s percent, by the panel's own count. Justin's read: run the original poll again with a fan base twice the size it was when it ran, and 143 doesn't happen. It's a callback week too. This same song turned up at Historic Fort York on June 24th, 2006, four songs ahead of 'No Threat,' the track this show covered last week (per setlist.fm). The lyrics get worked over three different ways before anybody lands close to the same page. Indigenous reconciliation, read through "the documented indigenous" and "civilization flipped its desk." A career-long metaphor about writing itself, "paint and sketch" as the whole method. And a theory about the United State of Ricochet that might be about atomic particles, might be about Gord catching flack for something he said, might be neither. Nobody wins the argument. Everybody's a little bit right, which tracks for a Gord Downie lyric. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE
Next week the wheel lands on 'Vaccination Scar,' from "In Between Evolution." THE PANEL
GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Every dollar goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets through facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE HIP HANDBOOK The free discography, lyrics, and live-performance archive keeps growing: thehiphandbook.tthpods.com. YER LETTER Once a month, the whole network in one email. subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR If the shows are worth something to you, buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'No Threat': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/46c0301d-0fa0-4cb4-8154-1836552e3a66 'Tiger The Lion': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/718fe20e-83d6-4c69-86eb-cc2b4af02834 Setlist details for Kingston (August 20, 2016) and Fort York (June 24, 2006) come from setlist.fm, cited here. Album credits and the Juno Award come from Wikipedia and Discogs (see the fact-check notes in Block C). #TheTragicallyHip #MusicAtWork #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #TheHip #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: No Threat | 31 août 2026 | 00:57:42 | |
June 24th, 2006. Historic Fort York, Toronto. Twenty-two songs, and buried at number fourteen is a track The Tragically Hip only ever played nine times. That is the version we spin. Same night they pulled '38 Years Old' out of the vault for the first time since July of 1995. Nine plays for 'No Threat', per Hipbase and setlist.fm, and one of those nine got audited live on this stream. There was an entry claiming November 15th, 1991. Andrew went after it, Steve pulled the tape down to check, and the correction went in while the mics were still hot. 'No Threat' opens "Yer Favourites", the November 2005 double disc where fans voted on every track except the two nobody had heard yet. This one, and 'The New Maybe' closing disc two. Adam Kasper made both, the same man who made "In Between Evolution" the year before. Track one is the brand new song. Track two is 'Grace, Too'. Kevin has a word for that sequencing decision, and the word is bold. It landed at 85 on the TTHTop40 Countdown, between 'Daredevil' and 'Sherpa'. Then the poll came back from the Facebook group with a stack of loves, which was nobody's prediction at this table, plus eight percent who came right out and said they dislike it. Steve did not vote. Steve tells us where he would have landed, and it opens something bigger than the song: what do you do with a band you love and songs you don't? He has a list. He is not sorry about the list. Then there is the guitar. Jeff from Vaughan puts it in the chat first, that it is the guitar that doesn't work here, and Kevin has been circling the same thing all week. A chord that goes somewhere your ear refuses to follow. He can tell you which side of the mix it comes from and which of the two of them is playing it. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Yelly Gord. Andrew's name for the thing that starts here and does not stop, straight through 'Yer Not the Ocean' and into a version of 'Blow at High Dough' that is barely a word any more. Where it came from, and which album this song belonged on instead. • Kevin catches the flip. First person the whole way through, and then for one line it isn't, and there is a woman in the room. • The last thing Gord says in the song. Nobody here can explain it. Three theories, no verdict, and one line jD reads out that stops everybody cold: you die to your fans one window at a time. • Andrew went hunting the origin story. Nine or ten full shows from 1996, chasing a rant that is supposed to be the seed of this song. He did not find it. He found something else about peacekeeping that he cannot now unhear. • The Hip headlined the first two concerts ever held at the Air Canada Centre. Steve knows who opened, and who played the third night. • The anniversary weekend. jD in Kingston for Springer Market Square, murals and painted guitars all over a town that does not normally do it up. Steve stretched it over three days in Toronto and got a west end blackout two songs into the last show. Kevin was in Ireland. • The live record, and the two songs on it that are not live. Andrew has a fix. • End of summer picks. Steve's 'The Dire Wolf' and a whole summer in Kingston in 2002. Andrew's '11th Fret', a hangover song and he means that kindly. Kevin's 'Three Pistols', Tom Thomson and Algonquin Park. Steve's first answer was not one of theirs at all, and he owns it on air. Next week the wheel lands on 'Putting Down' from "Music @ Work". Which the band played at Fort York that same June night in 2006, four songs before this one. So there's that. THE PANEL • Kevin from Sarnia. First time at the table. He was buying every one of these records the week it came out and cannot remember buying this one, which tells you something. Plays in a cover band called 402 West, named for the highway between London and Sarnia. • Andrew from Winnipeg. Back again, and the closest thing this show has to a research department. Plays bass in Crooked Ice, whose record is "Dark Stars", and he cut the video too. His radio show and podcast is Soup Full of Radio. • Steve from Toronto. Fourth time on a jD show inside a month, which he points out himself. At Fort York in 2006, in the building in Kingston in 2016. He rides for the Tragically Clipped, a Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation team that began as an act of spite between two friends and has raised over $200,000 since. What happened to one of his riders at a rest stop is worth the wait. GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Every dollar goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets through facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. YER LETTER Once a month, the whole network in one email. Where the shows are headed, what got made, and what did not fit anywhere else. Free. subscribe.tthpods.com THE TIP JAR If the shows are worth something to you, buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Tiger The Lion': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/718fe20e-83d6-4c69-86eb-cc2b4af02834 'Emperor Penguin': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/a2f229b2-b5fc-41e4-8d78-632080d31a3b 'Pigeon Camera': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/49a9167c-6f8d-4641-8306-959189b38ec8 Live performance counts, dates, and the Fort York set list come from Hipbase and setlist.fm, as cited on the stream. Production credits from the "Yer Favourites" liner notes. #TheTragicallyHip #YerFavourites #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #TheHip #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Tiger The Lion | 25 août 2026 | 01:01:52 | |
June 16th, 2000. The first of only 89 times The Tragically Hip ever played 'Tiger The Lion' live, and the last one is a long way off from there. Eighty-nine, per Hipbase and setlist.fm. That's the whole run, first to last, June 2000 to a night in November 2009. Fifteen of those as an opener, which makes sense to everybody at the table. Fifteen as an encore, which makes sense to nobody. It never went out as a single. The record it sits second on went two times platinum in Canada and took home the Juno, and it's the second of the two Steve Berlin made with the boys. 'Tiger The Lion' landed at number 65 on the TTHTop40 Countdown and not one person in this room is at peace with that. Then there's the poll. Just over half the Facebook group came back with love it, which the panel did not see coming, and close to eight in ten landed at like it or better. For a track this strange, sitting where it sits, that's a number worth chewing on. Somebody in the comments wanted an option between love it and like it. Jeff has a fix for that, and it's better than extra medium. Duxoop from Toledo dropped a question in the chat that stopped the table cold. What is that opening noise? Jeff had already gone looking earlier in the week, so we get the answer live: what the sound actually is, who made it, and the instrument buried underneath it that most of the congregation has never once picked out. Twenty-six years of listening and there it is, right in front of everybody the whole time. We spin the MuchMusic Intimate & Interactive version from that same summer, Chris Brown and Kate Fenner on stage with them, and then Jeff comes back with something none of us caught. Gord is reciting under Rob's outro. Not scatting. Reciting. From a poem, by a Canadian poet Gord loved enough to record in full for a tribute record years later. And the hotel that poem is named for is a ten minute walk from where Jeff grew up. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • John fucking Cage. Greg pulls the passage Gord was reading and puts it in a bigger frame, and it turns out to be about a whole lot more than music. Jeff, meanwhile, has listened to some John Cage and has thoughts about it that are not kind, and he says them anyway. • A song with no chorus. Not a bridge in the middle either, just a break. So how does it hook anybody? Dave takes a run at that one, and at what Rob does on the outro instead of what any other guitar player would have done with all that room. • Greg's theory that the catalogue splits into four groups, that this is where the art rock properly starts, and that this cut sits in the top five heaviest songs the band ever recorded. Bombs dropping. His words. • The sequencing. 'My Music At Work' into 'Tiger The Lion' into 'Lake Fever'. Dave would have moved it. Greg would not have moved a thing. • Where the lyrics turn. Dave on the shift that starts around this record and how much harder Gord makes you work from here on in, and Greg on the mouth shapes and the dancing and writing words that sound right before they mean anything. • First listens. A leaked MP3 that took seven hours to download. A boombox on a deck in Tacoma running the record two days straight. A Calgary apartment full of diehards filing this one under wait, what. Next week the wheel lands on 'No Threat', one of the two new tracks tucked onto "Yer Favourites". Brand new panel, brand new song. THE PANEL • Greg from Tacoma. Met the boys back around 'New Orleans Is Sinking', has seven to ten copies of every CD and gave most of them away. He makes music with AI under Hadees Market Music, spelled H-A-D-E-E-S, after his grandparents Hazel and Ira D. • Jeff from Belleville. Third time in the chair. Belleville sits on the Bay of Quinte, which is exactly why the last ten minutes of this one belong to him. • Dave from Halifax. First time at the table, and a musician, which shows the second the outro starts. GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Every dollar goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets through facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. THE TIP JAR Greg asked for this link on mic, so here it is. If the shows are worth something to you, buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Emperor Penguin': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/a2f229b2-b5fc-41e4-8d78-632080d31a3b 'Pigeon Camera': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/49a9167c-6f8d-4641-8306-959189b38ec8 'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787 Live performance counts, dates, and chart details come from Hipbase and setlist.fm, as cited on the stream. Album details from the "Music @ Work" credits. #TheTragicallyHip #MusicAtWork #TTHOnShuffle #GordDownie #TheHip #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories - Reflections From The Final Tour: August 20th Bathouse Finale | 25 août 2026 | 01:04:50 | |
Hey, it's jD here. August 20th, 2026. Bath, Ontario. A stone coach house west of Kingston that the band turned into a recording room, where "Phantom Power", "Music @ Work", "We Are The Same", and "Man Machine Poem" were all made. Ten years to the day since the last show. This is the last one. Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour ran the length of the Man Machine Poem Tour, city by city, Victoria east to Kingston, and it ends here, in the room where the last record was made. Three fans at the table, and not one of them tells August 20th the same way. One was on the floor. One was in the square with 25,000 people. One was on his couch in Brockville with a bottle of wine and a good reason. 🎸 𝗪𝗛𝗢'𝗦 𝗛𝗘𝗥𝗘 Shamus from Brockville is a teacher whose marriage is punctuated by The Hip turning up uninvited. A wedding present in 1997 from a friend running sound on Another Roadside Attraction put him somewhere he was not supposed to be, then somewhere better. A door held open at a highway rest stop in 2002 put a member of the band right in front of him and his wife, and what the two of them said in unison is the whole thing in four words. He tried for Kingston, he tried for Ottawa, and he got into the penultimate show because of one message from his wife on the afternoon of. He still has the ticket. He brought it. Eric from Ottawa went to seven shows before Kingston, most of them out west, most of them alone, on advice from his spouse that turned out to be exactly backwards. Kingston was the white whale. He got in because a Canada Post employee named Jonathan Allard refreshed a screen at the right second, ended up holding two front row tickets and nobody to bring, and posted an ad asking people to make him a proposal. What Eric offered instead of a markup, and what he handed over three months in advance on nothing but trust, is the best ticket story this series has turned up. Then he found his seat and found out what was bolted to the floor in front of it. Tiffany from Kingston got a tattoo the morning of the show. The lyrics come from a song she had never heard live, off a record she was still learning, and she was hoping against hope they would play it. They played it. She spent the night in Springer Market Square with her husband and her best friend, bused home so she would not have to think about parking, and hit play on the PVR before her coat was off. She also has the sharpest read on why a night that size, that emotional, with that much beer in it, produced no trouble at all. 💬 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗦𝗔𝗜𝗗 "You're acknowledging that you're on the way out, unfortunately, but yet you're going to park that emotion and you're going to be the undisputed best frontman ever." - Eric from Ottawa "It kind of felt like the day after a wedding. You get married and you've got all this anticipation. And then the event happens and it's over. And you're just sort of like, well, what now?" - Tiffany from Kingston "As a person who's been in bands, there's a thing where nobody's leading. It's almost like a Ouija board." - Shamus from Brockville ⚡ 𝗔𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗧 𝗧𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗡𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 Thirty songs at the Rogers K-Rock Centre. Three encores, which was not something they did. Eight songs played tight together at the front of the stage before the thunderstorm broke the set open, and the panel has a theory about why the five of them stood that close. Each of them brought one song back. Shamus picked '𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦', off the record he could not bring himself to listen to until he heard it live. Tiffany picked '𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦', which is now on her arm. Eric picked '𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘒𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴', and his reason has nothing to do with the band and everything to do with where eight thousand people were looking. Setlist confirmed via setlist.fm. ❤️ 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗣𝗔𝗡𝗘𝗟 Tiffany and her husband run a food drive for the Humane Society every December - Fill The Sleigh on Facebook, a sleigh on the front lawn, and about 150 blow molds around it. Three years in, nearly $5,000 and over 5,000 pounds of food. Shamus asks only that you share the road, use yer blinker, and be kind to each other. 🎧 𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗡 Listen: [EPISODE LINK NEEDED] 🎟️ 𝗚𝗘𝗗𝗙𝗘𝗦𝗧 𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗢𝗡𝗧𝗢 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 Saturday, October 17th, 2026. The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, with Grace 2 on the stage. GEDfest raises money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer, and this community has put nearly $40,000 toward causes like these since 2018. Tickets: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ Thank you to Shamus, Eric, and Tiffany for closing this out, and to every person who sat down over the run of this series and handed over the most specific night of their life. It was never really about the setlist. So there's that. Where were you on August 20th, 2016? Floor, square, couch, somewhere else entirely. Tell me in the comments. #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHPods #HipFans #CanadianMusic #InGordWeTrust Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Kingston | 21 août 2026 | 01:48:09 | |
August 20th, 2016. The Rogers K-Rock Centre, Kingston, Ontario. Thirty songs. Three encores, which was not a thing they did. And a country that put down whatever it was holding. Ten years later, jD asked fifteen people one question. Not what they made of it. Not where it ranks. Just this: where were you. The answers do not go where you would expect. An airplane hangar outside Olympia, Washington. A garage door in the country north of Superior with fifty people camped in the yard. A smoker in Calgary that had been running since sunrise. A lakeside deck in upstate New York with a bottle of Macallan 12 on it and a great blue heron that keeps turning up in the shape of an album cover. An arena in Chicago where a man from Detroit stood in a Gord Downie shirt underneath a Tigers jersey, missing the whole thing on purpose, waiting to find out whether two sentences he had typed five days earlier had reached anybody. They had. That is all yer getting. Who's Here Adam from Tampa had never seen The Hip play a note and owned five of the records. At 7:55 he told his houseguests he would be back in either five minutes or two and a half hours, went upstairs, and typed the words CBC and The Tragically Hip into a search bar. What he did the following morning cost him the next four years. Andy from London was three weeks deep into Scotland with a speaking gig in Pennsylvania waiting on the Monday. He flew home without his family for exactly one day. Where he watched it, and who was running the sound there, is the part that still gets him. Brian from Canastota got hooked by a Saturday Night Live performance in 1995 and never came unhooked. Bose rig on the deck, the lake in front of him, and a heron that has been showing up in a very particular silhouette for years. His wife found him out there at two in the morning. Brock from Kitchener was in the lower bowl. A ticket scanner went down and he ended up sitting inside a nearly empty K-Rock Centre while eight thousand people waited outside. Ten years on he has still never watched the broadcast. Not once, not one song. Colin from Winnipeg lost his mother and had his first child inside the same fortnight, and had to move a funeral to do it. He watched with a newborn who is ten years old now. He has a plan for the rewatch, and it involves all three kids. Dan from Buffalo and Colleen from Buffalo drove in from the Hamilton show with no tickets, no expectations, and their phones switched off at the border. Dan wandered down to look at a boat show at half past nine in the morning and got into a line without asking what the line was for. He was number twenty-eight. Duxoop from Toledo watched at home, alone, so that nobody could see him cry, pulling CBC down through a Windsor channel on Ohio cable. He knew twelve of the thirty songs that night. He is up to nineteen now, and the way he counts them is not the way you would count them. Greg from Tacoma spent the evening at his mother Rosalie's 79th birthday party in an airplane hangar, slipping off to a corner every ten minutes with a phone and no headphones. What he heard inside 'Grace, Too' that night he has never stopped hearing, and the people standing beside him in that hangar are a large part of why. Janice from Kitchener stopped for a photo at the Welcome to Kingston sign, signed the banners downtown, and walked into the arena at the exact moment it stopped letting anybody else in. She has a theory about how many people are eventually going to claim they were in that room. Jimmy from Detroit had tickets for the London and Toronto shows, and a promise to his wife that put him in Chicago on the 20th instead. Five days out he sat down and wrote two sentences on a message board. He will go to his grave believing somebody read them. Joanne from Thunder Bay had seen the August 12th show in Toronto and could not get to Kingston. A friend rigged a projector onto a garage door out in the country and fifty people camped in the yard to watch it. One song landed harder than everything around it, and it was not the closer. Spencer from Calgary made three racks of ribs, a couple dozen perogies by hand, and a house rule about side conversations. Gold glitter letters stuck to the fridge spelling out the songs he was hoping for. Then he walks the setlist album block by album block, and a decade later the surprises still surprise him. Steve from Toronto got a single ticket half an hour after they went on sale and watched from ten rows back. He has the sharpest disagreement in the whole episode, and it is not about the band. It is about whether the people watching it and the people inside it were even at the same event. Todd from Fort Mac says the words Fort Mac and 2016 and everybody already knows he means the fire. He watched at his grandfather's house in Louisdale, Cape Breton, with the family in from out west. It was the last time all of them were in that room together. What They Said "I'll start with the punchline, which was I was in an airplane hangar weeping." - Greg from Tacoma "I went by myself, but I was not alone." - Andy from London "When you're watching it on TV and Gord's breaking down at the end of the song, you feel completely helpless. But when you're at the show and that happens, you just start making as much noise as you know how to make to help your guy pull through." - Steve from Toronto "To me, it's a celebration of Canadian culture. And I know that was never the intention, but it's just always what it turned out to be." - Todd from Fort Mac About That Night Thirty songs at the Rogers K-Rock Centre. 'Fifty-Mission Cap' into 'Courage', 'Wheat Kings', and 'At the Hundredth Meridian' - four songs in and the whole country was already accounted for. Then 'Tired as Fuck', uncensored, on the national broadcaster. Then a thunderstorm nobody had been warned about. Then 'My Music at Work', 'Lake Fever', 'Toronto #4', and 'The Last of the Unplucked Gems', which is not a setlist, it is a dare. Three encores, closing on 'Ahead by a Century'. Setlist confirmed via setlist.fm. Fifteen people, one date, and not one of them tells it the same way. That is the whole point of this show, and Kingston is where it lands. GEDfest Toronto 2026 Saturday, October 17th, 2026. The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, with Grace, 2 on the stage. GEDfest raises money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer, and this community has put nearly $40,000 toward causes like these since 2018. Tickets and details: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ The Community Yer Letter lands once a month with everything happening across the network. Subscribe at subscribe.tthpods.com. The Facebook group is roughly 7,500 fans deep and still climbing at community.tthpods.com. Leave yer own Hipstory any time - jD reads every one.
Tip Jar Editing is hard and the battery needs charging. Buy jD a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 More From The Final Tour
Closing Thank you to Adam, Andy, Brian, Brock, Colin, Dan, Colleen, Duxoop, Greg, Janice, Jimmy, Joanne, Spencer, Steve, and Todd. Fifteen people handed over the most specific night of their lives and asked for nothing back. So there's that. #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #TTHPods #HipFans #CanadianMusic #InGordWeTrust Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Ottawa | 19 août 2026 | 01:13:46 | |
August 18, 2016. Ottawa, the second last night, and two fans who were in that building take jD back inside - ten years to the day. Thursday, August 18, 2016. The Canadian Tire Centre, out past the ring of car dealerships in the west end, and The Tragically Hip had two nights left. Kingston was already a pipe dream by then. For most of the country, Ottawa was the last chance. Ten years to the day, jD sits down with two fans who were in that room. Shawn from Ottawa, who has been in this community since he was sixteen. And Justin from Bridport, who you know from Discovering Downie, and who only got to Ottawa because a stranger with long hair heard "Yer Favourites" playing over the PA at a dirt track in Vermont. Two ticket stories, and neither one lands where you would guess. Shawn's shows up in his inbox, out of a presale nobody has ever really talked about in public, and there is something waiting in the will call envelope that nobody warned him about. Justin's shows up from a man whose name he did not have yet. He said yes first and introduced himself second. The songs: Justin starts to say 'Grace, Too', catches himself, and lands somewhere else. Shawn takes a deep cut off "In Between Evolution", the first record that ever got its hooks into him. They both land on 'Summer's Killing Us', and Ottawa turned out to be the last place The Tragically Hip ever played it. Then they walk the set list, and it is not the greatest hits argument you would expect. 'Opiated' out of nowhere. Four from "In Between Evolution" and four from "Day for Night", and the moment mid-set when Shawn worked out that none of those songs were going to make it to Kingston. Justin honoured Gord's wishes and kept the phone in his pocket, right up until he didn't. There is the morning of the announcement, too. Justin spent it alone in a car in Vermont, listening to a DJ who could not finish a sentence, with nobody to call. Shawn spent it in a country where everybody already knew before he was properly awake. Ten years later, hearing each other's version, that gap is the thing that gets them both. And then there is what happened after the lights came up, which involves two flights of stairs, a room that was not supposed to be a party, and a conversation outside it with somebody's grandfather. That one belongs to Shawn. Two nights later, one of them was inside the K-Rock Centre, still convinced right up to the turnstile that his ticket could not possibly be real. The other was at a racetrack, deliberately not watching. THE PANEL • Shawn from Ottawa - on Hipbase since he was sixteen and the resident kid brother of that community. In the family section on the night. In Kingston two nights later on a ticket a stranger handed him for nothing. • Justin from Bridport - Discovering Downie panelist, and the PR guy, announcer, lawnmower, and toilet cleaner at a Vermont dirt track. The American in the upper bowl who felt Canadian for exactly one night. SOURCES Set list for August 18, 2016 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, and the July 22, 2016 Victoria set list - source: setlist.fm. Thanks to Darren at The Tragically Hip Archive, and to the tapers, for the recordings Shawn listened back to before this one. THE GATHERING IN KINGSTON August 20 to 23, 2026, alongside Forever Hip - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party for "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016", a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. The CBC broadcast re-airs on the 22nd. Email jd@tthpods.com to get on the list. And if you spot a purple shirt or a purple lanyard in Kingston that weekend, that's a safe person to talk to. GEDFEST TORONTO Saturday, October 17, 2026 at the Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ Thanks to Shawn and Justin, because without them, there's not a show. Next stop: Kingston, and the end of the line. MORE FROM THE TOUR Victoria: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/99071e40-9d10-48f8-9b5d-f92416e791c3 Winnipeg: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/bf776e9a-c431-41bc-b605-f73fff1155d3 And because 'Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park' turned up in the Ottawa set, The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787 SUPPORT THE WORK The tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Web: home.tthpods.com | Facebook: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Newsletter: subscribe.tthpods.com | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #DayForNight #InBetweenEvolution #HipFans #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Emperor Penguin | 17 août 2026 | 00:52:03 | |
September 14th, 2009. Edmonton. The last time The Tragically Hip ever played 'Emperor Penguin', and not one person in that building knew it. Seventy-two performances. That's the whole run. The first on July 2nd, 1998, a couple of weeks before "Phantom Power" was even in stores, and the last one in Edmonton on the We Are The Same tour before the song went in a drawer for good. Justin pulled that off setlist.fm live on the stream, Hipbase backs it up, and it turned into the thing nobody saw coming, because one of the two guys at the table tonight is Shawn from Edmonton. He was at that show. He found out on mic. We're on a Thursday this week, which is the end of the Thursday experiment. Back to Wednesdays next week. It was nice while we had it. 'Emperor Penguin' landed at number 32 on the TTHTop40 Countdown and neither panelist is at peace with it. One of them would have guessed somewhere around 65. The other would have shoved it higher. Nobody splits the difference. So there's that. Then we spin a live version from Massey Hall, 2009, and Gord introduces the song with a line about why they don't play it often that tells you everything about how the band felt about it. There's a ninety-second outro hanging off the back of it that belongs to Robbie and nobody else. And somewhere early on Gord comes in on the wrong verse and does something with the save that Justin had been chewing on all day before we even hit record. WHAT ELSE IS IN HERE • Two readings of the lyric that come at it from opposite ends and land in the same spot, and one of them hinges on which parent actually sits on the egg. • "I like the tone of your trumpet. Come on, let's spill some paint." The most abstract stretch on the whole record, a notebook theory, and a guess involving Josh Finlayson that may not survive contact with HipMuseum. • The late night call in radio show sitting underneath these lyrics, and the drive home through the Bible Belt that Justin still can't shake loose from this song. • Shawn plays bass, so he hears this as a Paul and Robbie record, with Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay rock solid and deliberately out of the way. Then Robbie takes it home. • Steve Berlin, the first of his two with the band, and what having a producer in the room at the Bathhouse did to the atmosphere of this thing. • "Phantom Power" as the line in the sand. The last record of the first era, and what happened to a good chunk of the congregation immediately after it. • Shawn spent real time with the guys in the early days. Sound checks with six people in the room. Gord showing him the notebook. And a lyric on one of the most loved songs in the catalogue that he can tell you exactly where they were sitting when it came up. We get about ninety seconds of that story. It deserves its own episode, and we are going to get it. Next week is 'Tiger The Lion', which is track one on the record that follows the record that ends with this song. Brand new panel, brand new song, and yes, the shuffle is actually random. I promise. THE PANEL • Justin from Bridport, Vermont. He announces the sprint cars of New England, so if you're anywhere in the northeast, go find a dirt track. He's also a Discovering Downie panelist. • Shawn from Edmonton. The Port Bickerton Lighthouse Arts Festival goes August 24th in Port Bickerton, Nova Scotia, put on by the Port Bickerton Lighthouse Association. East Coast and Maritime acts, artists, and the biggest one they've done yet. THREE CHAIRS IN THE BATHHOUSE On August 20th at 1:00 pm I'm filming the final episode of Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour inside the Bathhouse in Bath, Ontario. Ten years to the day since Kingston. Three chairs are open to fans. Email jd@tthpods.com by August 15th with your name, email, phone number, whether you can be there in person, and a one minute video on why it should be you. Travel is on you. That's the only catch. THE GATHERING - KINGSTON, AUGUST 20 TO 23 Alongside Forever Hip. A mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party for "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016", a screening of Long Time Running, the CBC re-airing on the 22nd, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. Email jd@tthpods.com to get on the list. GEDFEST TORONTO - SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17 The Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Every dollar goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets through facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ. FIND US Home: home.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com Tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 MORE THE TRAGICALLY HIP ON SHUFFLE LIVE STREAM 'Bobcaygeon': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/dca7d1f5-6dea-4df8-b8d1-33008aa46cbd 'Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park': https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/68d2991b-9074-43ef-bd71-aa832c59a787 Live performance counts and dates come from Hipbase and setlist.fm, as cited on the stream. #TheTragicallyHip #EmperorPenguin #PhantomPower #TTHPods #HipHeads #OnShuffle Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Hamilton | 17 août 2026 | 01:01:27 | |
August 16, 2016. The Hip arrived in the Hammer, and three fans who were in the building take jD back inside - ten years to the day. Tuesday, August 16, 2016. FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, four days out from the end of everything, and The Tragically Hip pulled into a city that watched them play to nobody once and never forgot it. Ten years to the day, jD sits down with three fans who were there for that room: Gino from Buffalo, Matt from Buffalo, and John from Mississauga. Two of them had never been on a podcast before in their lives. One of them never made it through the doors. The songs first, because the songs are always first. Gino takes 'Poets', the last one of the main set, the one where Gord stopped and told the room about The Hip's first Hamilton gig - a club, zero people, and an owner who told them nobody gets paid until every song gets sung. So they played another hour to an empty room. Ten years and a lifetime later, Gord looked out at a full arena and, the way Gino heard it, said something close to look at us, look at where we are now. Us, collectively. Hamilton and The Hip. Matt takes 'Scared', and the line it's been a pleasure doing business with you, and the small jump in the video he was shooting - the moment his buddy behind him lost his knees and fell into his back. John takes 'Courage', because of what it took Gord to get in the van at all. A residency somewhere would have been hard enough. He went across the country instead. Then the tickets, and three completely different scrambles. Matt's Buffalo crew split the presale up like a heist - one guy on London, one on each Toronto night, Matt on Hamilton - with orders that whoever got in bought all four. Matt was the only one who got into the queue, and he had four seats about ten minutes in. Gino got shut out in the fifteen minutes it took the show to vanish, then his friend Greg found VIP seats hours later and warned him they'd be expensive. Gino's answer: I don't care. Third row on the floor. If it was within a 500-mile radius, you weren't stopping me. The day itself: a friend on standby in Niagara Falls, U.S., in case one of Matt's four didn't clear the border, a cash-only scalper outside the arena with PDF printouts and a very loose grip on legitimacy, and their buddy Scott laying out most of the money for a pair of those dubious tickets so a friend from Lockport could drive up and slide in during the first song. Gino owns his company, so Gino gave himself the afternoon off, got to Hamilton by mid-afternoon, and ate Portuguese chicken at the Charred Rotisserie House down the road from the barn. We ate like kings. He has been back a few times since. And then there is John, who was downtown at the Toronto Stock Exchange that Tuesday, letting a vendor in to do a routine job. At 2:30 the vendor crashed the system. Eight hours to bring it back. John is standing on a floor you get onto with retina scans and palm prints, he cannot leave the vendor alone, and his company supplies data to the exchange at thousands of dollars an hour. He had a ticket in his pocket and a family carload heading to Hamilton without him. So he stood there and asked himself the only question he had. What would Gord do? What's the Canadian thing to do? He thought about '38 Years Old' - which is the plate on his car - and the father in that song who turns his own son in because it is the right thing. John stayed at his post. He called his sons and told them to give the ticket away. Every August 16th since has been one of the saddest days of his year. Inside the building, the two who made it describe the same night from two heights. The small stage, the band pressed in around each other, a band of brothers making life as easy for Gord as they could. Gord finding faces one at a time, holding them, nodding, gesturing, taking what Gino calls little memory snippets for himself. The monitor on the floor by his feet for the words that wouldn't come. Gino has seen this band more than forty times, and he puts Hamilton at the top for sheer energy. Matt's read is sharper still: the energy was all there, the memory just couldn't always match it. The set list gave Hamilton 'Fifty-Mission Cap', 'Eldorado', and 'At the Hundredth Meridian' early, four from "World Container" as the night's rare record, and the best four of the six "Man Machine Poem" songs that made the tour. 'Poets' to close the main set. 'Gift Shop', 'Don't Wake Daddy', and 'Ahead by a Century' in the first encore. Then 'Fiddler's Green' and 'Twist My Arm' in the second, and a song Gino had never heard live anywhere. Matt has one regret and it is a beer. He went for one during 'Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin' Man', found the concourse narrow and the taps in the basement, and came back up on 'Fireworks' having missed ten minutes he will never get back. So there's that. Gino's detour is worth the price of admission on its own - Highland Bowl in Rochester, a grass amphitheatre, a downpour with thunder and lightning, the band stopping for maybe ten minutes, Gord calling out to the lovers of music who stayed, and grown adults sliding down the wet hill on their bellies toward the stage. Second best night he ever had with this band. Hamilton was first. Then the lights. Gino describes an arena that felt like one family at a memorial service, except it wasn't a somber memorial service - it was everybody holding everybody else up while Gord stood there telling them from the stage that it was going to be okay. Half an hour after the last note the set list was sitting within arm's reach, so Gino took it, and they passed it around for photographs. Nobody wanted to leave. Matt walked over to the King George pub with seven other people and found something else entirely. It almost had the feeling of a wake. Nobody wanted another round. Everybody was thankful. Everybody knew. August 20th finds all three of them in very different rooms. John rigged an aerial in the backyard of his brother's cottage outside Montreal, set both PVRs at home, and asked the local bar in a small French-Canadian town whether they'd be showing it - they had no idea what he was talking about. Don't move that coat hanger outside. Matt spent three hours assembling a children's play kitchen for his two-year-old daughter with the broadcast on, which should have taken one. Gino watched with a dozen guys at a friend's place, where Greg leaned over and said the thing nobody else had thought: doesn't he look nervous? He did. Of course he did. The landing belongs to John, though. There was no goodbye for him that night, so it came slowly, over days and weeks, like a song fading out instead of ending. And it kept going. He has a nine-year-old granddaughter now who knows the words, and he took her to Chudleigh's in Milton to see the Practically Hip so she could dance to them. Another generation, flying the flag. THE PANEL • Gino from Buffalo - forty-plus shows with The Hip, third row on the floor in Hamilton on a VIP ticket his friend Greg found hours after the show sold out, and a plate of Portuguese chicken beforehand he still drives back for. He came home with the set list. He listens to this band every single day. • Matt from Buffalo - second row of section 120, with a photo from that night still hanging behind him on camera. He ran the Buffalo crew's presale plan, got the only four seats any of them landed, filmed 'Scared' through the moment his friend's knees went, and lost ten minutes of the night to a beer line in the basement. • John from Mississauga - the one who didn't get in. A crashed system on the Toronto Stock Exchange floor at 2:30 on show day, a ticket handed off to somebody else, and a decision he made by asking what Gord would do. He watched August 20th through a coat hanger aerial at a cottage. His granddaughter is nine and already knows the words. SOURCES Set list for August 16, 2016 at FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton (now TD Coliseum) - source: setlist.fm. THE GATHERING IN KINGSTON August 20 to 23, 2026, alongside Forever Hip - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party for "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016", a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. The CBC broadcast re-airs on the 22nd. Email jd@tthpods.com to get on the list. And if you spot a purple shirt or a purple lanyard in Kingston that weekend, that's a safe person to talk to. GEDFEST TORONTO Saturday, October 17, 2026 at the Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ Thanks to Gino, Matt, and John, because without them, there's not a show. Next stop: Ottawa. MORE FROM THE TOUR Winnipeg: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/bf776e9a-c431-41bc-b605-f73fff1155d3 Calgary Night 2: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/98943c27-bdae-4f56-84d4-a57754be7719 SUPPORT THE WORK The tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Web: home.tthpods.com | Facebook: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Newsletter: subscribe.tthpods.com | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #WorldContainer #RoadApples #HipFans #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Toronto Night 3 | 15 août 2026 | 01:03:49 | |
August 14, 2016. The last night The Tragically Hip ever played Toronto, and three fans who were in the building take jD back inside - ten years to the day. Sunday, August 14, 2016. The Air Canada Centre, the last night of a three-night stand, and the last time The Tragically Hip ever played Toronto. Nobody in the building knew that for certain. Everybody in the building knew it anyway. Ten years to the day, jD steers into uncharted waters (they never do third ones) with three fans who were there: Dave from Thornhill, Jeff from Buffalo, and Jeff from Belleville. The news first, because the news is always first. Jeff from Buffalo came in from a morning run, read the email, and handed his wife the phone because he could not say the words. Dave was getting into his car at Yonge and Eglinton when his whole body sank (and one friend in the group chat skipped the first paragraph and celebrated the new tour - leave it to friends). Jeff from Belleville read it in the front foyer, flashed hot, and told his kids the only thing he could get out: Gord Downie is not doing well. Then the tickets. Jeff from Buffalo broke the algorithm by asking for one seat at a time - it kept offering him another, and two shutouts became four tickets. Dave had Kingston floors on his screen for five full minutes before the error message took them away. Jeff from Belleville stared down the spinning wheel of death for half an hour, then went to plan B. Plan B was this show. So there's that. The day itself: the recording booth outside the ACC that both Jeffs walked past and still regret, a stranger in the beer line who covered the round - "pay it forward, man" - and got the two people behind them too, and Dave breaking his own no-listening-on-show-day rule, blasting The Hip the whole drive down from camp in Haliburton before standing under the marquee, staring at the boys. Then the set list. 'Blow at High Dough' out of the gate, hitting everybody in the face exactly the way it should. 'Opiated', which Dave still can't quite believe he got. Four songs from "Now For Plan A", the rare record of the night. 'The Last of the Unplucked Gems' filling the room while Gord changed - reflection time, Dave calls it. The 'that night in Toronto' line in 'Bobcaygeon' that Gord missed and the whole building carried. And 'Daredevil' into 'Grace, Too' to close - the close-up on the big screen, everything pouring out of him, down to the last bead of sweat. Jeff from Buffalo kept notes from that week, and he read them back. Nervous on the QEW. No crying at the show. And one line that says it all: there's no way he's sick, because nobody sick could be that defiant. The whole evening was a magic spell, and it held right up until the house lights came on. Then it broke. There's a detour into the silver suit (hello, good evening folks, we are the Silver Poets) - armor, magician's misdirection, or just Gord radiating light in a purple hat, depending on which panelist you ask. Jeff from Belleville admits the outfits looked a little cringy in the photos beforehand. Then Gord strutted out. Case closed. And the thread runs where it always runs - to August 20th. A living room outside Buffalo with the kids and Pearl Jam dedications rolling in. The back of the floor at the Danforth Music Hall. And for Dave, a mystery ticket a few weeks later that turned out to be "Secret Path" at Roy Thomson Hall - which he now teaches to his grade 7 and 8 students every January, when it's cold and grey outside and Chanie Wenjack was about their age. The landing belongs to Jeff from Buffalo, though: a compromised man put on a show like that, and the rest of us have our health. We all have something terminal. Live like it. THE PANEL • Dave from Thornhill - a teacher who got one night away from camp in Haliburton and spent it at the last Toronto Hip show, watched Kingston floors dissolve into an error screen, and turned a mystery ticket into "Secret Path" at Roy Thomson Hall. His debut novel, "The Throwback Academy", arrives this October under the pen name TJ Thompson (Instagram: @tjthompsonbooks). • Jeff from Buffalo - four kids (including triplets), a ticket system broken one seat at a time, and notes written in 2016 that he read back on air. He writes feature stories for Buffalo Magazine - the newest one is about washed glass on the Lake Erie shore. • Jeff from Belleville - an hour and forty from home with his wife, Shannon, a plan-B ticket that turned into this episode, and the beer-line story this series will be retelling for a while. His internet fought him all night. He stayed anyway. SOURCES Set list for August 14, 2016 at the Air Canada Centre - source: setlist.fm. SIT IN THE THIRD CHAIR The finale of Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour films inside the Bathhouse in Bath, Ontario on August 20, 2026 at 1:00 pm - ten years to the day since Kingston. There are three fan chairs, and one of them could be yours. Email jd@tthpods.com by August 15 - the day after this episode drops - with your name, email, phone number, whether you can make it to Bath, and a one-minute video on why it should be you. Travel is on you. The chair is on jD. GEDFEST TORONTO Saturday, October 17, 2026 at the Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ THE GATHERING IN KINGSTON August 20 to 23, 2026, alongside Forever Hip - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party for "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016", a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. Email jd@tthpods.com to get on the list. And if you spot a purple shirt or a purple lanyard in Kingston that weekend, that's a safe person to talk to. Thanks to Dave, Jeff, and Jeff, because without them, there's not a show. Next stop: Hamilton - the show Dave almost talked himself into. MORE FROM THE TOUR Victoria: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/99071e40-9d10-48f8-9b5d-f92416e791c3 Winnipeg: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/bf776e9a-c431-41bc-b605-f73fff1155d3 SUPPORT THE WORK The tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Web: home.tthpods.com | Facebook: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Newsletter: subscribe.tthpods.com | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #NowForPlanA #UpToHere #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Toronto Night 2 | 13 août 2026 | 01:11:20 | |
August 12, 2016. Night two of three at the Air Canada Centre. The rare record is "In Violet Light", and four fans who were in the building take jD back. Friday, August 12, 2016. The Air Canada Centre, night two of three - the middle child of the Toronto stand, the night Patrick calls the forgotten one. Which is a strange thing to call a show Steve ranks, out of the 32 Hip shows he saw, as the best one. Not the biggest. Not the saddest. The best. Ten years to the day, jD sits down with four fans who were in the building - Brian from Buffalo, Steve from Toronto, Patrick from Newmarket, and Katrusia from Hamilton. (He was there too. He'll get into that another time.) Brian opens with something he says he has never told anyone - not on the Hipbase, not even his wife. He heard the rumour about Gord months before the announcement, and spent that winter connecting dots he did not want to connect. Katrusia heard the news on CBC, which felt fitting. Patrick read the email in a newsroom, surrounded by people who suddenly had to cover the story he was living. The ticket tales alone are worth the price of admission (which, for this panel, was face value across the board - a point of pride). A friend in House of Blues accounting. A table in the Air Canada Club. Steve watching night one from the gondola - a bird's eye view of a bird's eye view - and securing his night two seat from a location he is brave enough to name on the record. So there's that. Then the set list. 'Courage' into 'Locked in the Trunk of a Car' into 'Eldorado' to open. 'Membership', the white whale, finally landed for two of the four. 'Throwing Off Glass', live, in 2016. 'What Blue' making its case as the best of the final stretch. 'Grace, Too' carrying more weight than anyone was ready for. And 'Ahead by a Century' to close - a strange choice until it wasn't, with every person in the building on their feet, singing every word. The panel follows the thread to August 20th - two bottles of wine and a laptop in a Buffalo living room, a three-hour detour to stand alone under the Bobcaygeon sign, pizza in residence and pints at the Brass in Kingston - and lands where this series keeps landing. You never regret the shows you see. You regret the ones you miss. (Also, one of these panelists played a living-room concert for a baby who has not arrived yet, and the first song was 'Wheat Kings'. You'll hear it.) THE PANEL • Brian from Buffalo - 54 Hip shows, a "Phantom Power" diehard, and a teacher who crossed the border for this band for years. 'Membership' was the last "Phantom Power" song he had never heard live. Not anymore. • Steve from Toronto - 32 Hip shows, engaged that Canada Day, and proof that "In Violet Light" belongs to Kingston in the summer of 2002. He calls this the best Hip show he ever saw. • Patrick from Newmarket - five of the final six shows, every ticket at face value, a journalist brain that deletes nothing, and a 25-year chase for 'The Luxury' that ended on night one of this stand. • Katrusia from Hamilton - a deadhead family (buy and sell for face only), four shows on this tour, and a 2009 wedding themed to 'That Night in Toronto'. She got 'Bobcaygeon' at this one, standing next to the man she married. SOURCES Set list for August 12, 2016 at the Air Canada Centre - source: setlist.fm. SIT IN THE THIRD CHAIR The finale of Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour films inside the Bathhouse in Bath, Ontario on August 20, 2026 at 1:00 pm - ten years to the day since Kingston. There are three fan chairs, and one of them could be yours. Email jd@tthpods.com by August 15 with your name, email, phone number, whether you can make it to Bath, and a one-minute video on why it should be you. Travel is on you. The chair is on jD. GEDFEST TORONTO Saturday, October 17, 2026 at the Horseshoe Tavern, with Grace, 2. Raising money for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Tickets: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ THE GATHERING IN KINGSTON August 20 to 23, 2026, alongside Forever Hip - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party for "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016", a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. Email jd@tthpods.com to get on the list. Thanks to Brian, Steve, Patrick, and Katrusia, because without them, there's not a show. Next stop: Toronto Night 3 - the night the concourse became a puddle. MORE FROM THE TOUR Winnipeg: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/bf776e9a-c431-41bc-b605-f73fff1155d3 Calgary Night 2: https://redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/98943c27-bdae-4f56-84d4-a57754be7719 SUPPORT THE WORK The tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Web: home.tthpods.com | Facebook: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Newsletter: subscribe.tthpods.com | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #InVioletLight #HipFans #TTHPods Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Toronto Night 1 | 11 août 2026 | 00:51:33 | |
Tragically Hip Day in Toronto. 'The Luxury' out of the gate, a tour debut in the encore, and a family of four in seats a text message unlocked. Description August 10th, 2016. The Air Canada Centre - the first of three Toronto nights on the Man Machine Poem Tour, and the day Ernie from Denville, New Jersey woke up in his hotel room, flipped on the news, and heard the mayor declare it Tragically Hip Day before he had even gotten out of bed. He had flown up alone for his first-ever Canadian show, eleven club nights deep. The city was already celebrating. Then the lights come up and it is 'The Luxury'. Ernie had waited eleven shows to hear it. Jeff from Vaughan, following this band since 1992, can count the times he has heard it live on one hand. Two songs later comes 'Fiddler's Green', and Scott from Huntsville is looking at grown men crying as far as he can see, understanding exactly how the night is going to go. Third song in. They could do whatever they wanted. The roads in are half the story. Everybody got the same email on the Tuesday morning after the May long weekend - the news of Gord Downie's diagnosis, and a tour nobody knew how to feel about. Scott locked down Kingston hotel rooms before tickets even went on sale, then sweated out the Ticketmaster scramble for four Toronto seats - the morning after watching John Mann and Spirit of the West play a fundraiser at the Horseshoe Tavern, two Canadian heartbreaks stacked onto one walk home. Jeff sent a hockey dad four paragraphs about his life following The Hip, hoping to bring his wife and two kids, and got the answer every fan dreams about: they're yours. Which is how, during 'Fifty-Mission Cap', with Bill Barilko's banner up in the rafters, Jeff came to be filming a verse and then swinging the camera around to catch both his kids singing it back. There is a lot of night in here. 'Nautical Disaster' landing in the first encore as a tour debut (confirmed via setlist.fm, and backed by the notebook Ernie filled out that same evening). The crowd carrying the Toronto line in 'Bobcaygeon', the way Scott remembers it. The “Phantom Power” pair that closed the building down. And then the back half of the conversation jumps ahead to August 20th - Scott behind the stage in Kingston, not breathing until the scanner turned his print-off ticket green, Jeff front row in front of Robby Baker for show number 93, and Ernie back in New Jersey with the Kingston broadcast on the big screen and his son beside him. Somewhere in the middle of it, Scott sums up the entire summer in one sentence: “I've never been so excited for something I didn't want to happen.” So there's that. The panel
Come say hi
Closing Thanks to Ernie, Scott, and Jeff for bringing August 10th back - the flag, the notebook, the kids checking in on their dads. The Tragically Hip play the same building two nights later. Toronto Night 2, August 12th, brand new panel. We go again. More from the series
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| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Pigeon Camera | 10 août 2026 | 00:58:46 | |
Never a single. Never an opener. Played 164 times anyway. Toots, Tyler, and Chris go looking for the spy novel inside 'Pigeon Camera'. The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream takes on 'Pigeon Camera', track four on "Fully Completely". Gord introduced it in Hamburg in 1992 as a spy novel and never handed out the decoder ring, so the panel goes looking - the claves and castanets in the mix, the Charlottetown Accord landing the same month as the record, and the boots burned with no contingency plan. Live numbers courtesy of Hipbase and setlist.fm. Next week the shuffle stays on the record: 'Emperor Penguin'. New panel, new poll, the whole nine yards. Enter the Yer Hipstories finale at the Bathhouse (email by August 15): jd@tthpods.com Listen: home.tthpods.com The Gathering in Kingston, August 20-23: jd@tthpods.com GEDfest Toronto tickets, October 17: facebook.com/GEDfestYYZ Support: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: instagram.com/tthpods Newsletter: subscribe.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #FullyCompletely #TTHOnShuffle #TTHPods #HipFans Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - London | 09 août 2026 | 01:20:33 | |
Three fans - one in the penalty box, one in the last row, one from down the street - relive the night The Hip said goodbye to London. Description August 8th, 2016. Budweiser Gardens, London, Ontario - show nine of the Man Machine Poem Tour, and the last night The Tragically Hip would ever play that city. The lights drop, the band walks out, and the first song is 'Opiated'. Wade had more than 40 Hip shows under his belt and had never heard them open with it. Not once. That kind of night. This one is a full table - three Hipstories from three corners of the map. Dave from St. Louis made the 13-hour drive one week after hernia surgery, found two tickets through a fellow fan on the Facebook forum after a StubHub snafu, called ahead about a wheelchair, and walked out with penalty box seats 15 rows from the stage. Treated, in his words, like royalty. Dan from Buffalo rode in with his brother Matt - the same brother who took him to his first Hip show at the Aud in 1995 - on the way to London, Hamilton, and eventually Kingston. And Wade from London didn't have to travel at all. His city, his buddies up from Leamington, dinner on a patio two blocks from the arena with The Hip on the speakers. The panel walks the whole night. The pause after "I'll die before I quit" in 'It Can't Be Nashville Every Night', and the roar that filled it. "It's been a pleasure doing business with you" landing like a ton of bricks in 'Scared'. 'Pigeon Camera' in the first encore, and Wade suddenly finding dust in the air. The four-songs-per-album architecture of the set, the rarely played "In Between Evolution" material, and the 'Little Bones' that was planned for the night and never came - Gord stepping to the mic instead to thank London and remember the first time The Hip played there, when nine people showed up. Why no 'Little Bones'? The way Dave heard it, it had everything to do with keeping Johnny Fay healthy. So there's that. Then the ride home. A living wake that turned into a celebration, a 12-round boxing match where everybody came out a winner, and two separate no-tickets pacts - one made in London, one in Buffalo - that would carry all three of these guys to Kingston on August 20th. But that's a story the episode tells better. (Setlist details confirmed via setlist.fm - right down to the extended 'Daredevil' outro Dave remembered correctly.) The panel
Come say hi
Closing Thanks to Dave, Dan, and Wade for bringing August 8th back to life - the wheelchair, the pacts, and the dust in the air. The reflections roll on down the 401 next time. More from the series Victoria, where the final tour began: redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/99071e40-9d10-48f8-9b5d-f92416e791c3 Calgary Night 1, the latest stop: redcircle.com/shows/a01e8de3-1a04-4a44-ab9c-8fc6e3cb7474/ep/2937266e-6c5a-4435-87a8-dcc35b478f37 Community Facebook community: community.tthpods.com Instagram: @tthpods YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Yer Letter: subscribe.tthpods.com Email: jd@tthpods.com Tip jar: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #HipFans #TTHPods #CanadianMusic Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Winnipeg | 06 août 2026 | 01:33:26 | |
The review ran with no star rating. Infinite stars out of five. Four fans who were inside the MTS Centre explain why that was the only honest math. Episode summary August 5th, 2016. A Friday night, show eight of the Man Machine Poem Tour, and the MTS Centre sits smack in the middle of downtown Winnipeg with no room to breathe. The Tragically Hip open with four straight from "Fully Completely", and the second song is 'Pigeon Camera' - a tour debut nobody in the building saw coming. Ten years on, four fans who were there pass the night around the table with jD. Nicole from Winnipeg raised three daughters on this music and lived her whole life in Thunder Bay before Winnipeg claimed her. She loaded two teenagers into the car and drove eight hours west so her girls could finally see the band she had been singing to them since the car seat. Somewhere in the causeway, the opening notes of 'At the Hundredth Meridian' hit, and the cranky seventeen-year-old looked at her mother and got it. Kim from Cambridge has 41 Hip shows on her card, and Winnipeg came with a bonus night. Same hotel as the band, a waiter's tip to come back to the bar later, a hundred-dollar bar tab worth of nerve, and then a gracious Rob Baker outside the bathroom, a sit-down with Gord Downie's bus driver, and a photo with Gord Sinclair. The guitar picks Bernie Breen handed over are framed with her tour poster. Dave from Montreal got the email on a beach in Crete, day two of a vacation that never recovered. He went to seven shows on the final tour, and this one meant the most - August 5th was the one-year anniversary of his mother's passing. He landed from Calgary on a WestJet flight full of Hip fans, caught the band's tweet about seats beside the stage, and cabbed straight from the airport to the box office. In the hotel lobby he told Paul Langlois that 'Three Pistols' had dodged him for 65 shows. "I can promise you you're going to hear it," Paul said. Alicia from Winnipeg heard the news before almost anybody, because breaking news was her job - she was the editor at Metro Winnipeg. She reviewed the show on deadline, one ticket, scribbling in a row of stunned critics, and filed it with no star rating at all. Infinite stars out of five. You can't score a goodbye. They talk about the four-song "Now for Plan A" block and what it asked of the room. About Gord Downie stopping the show to thank the Winnipeg people who built the band an audience, and a local music writer's phone detonating in real time. About the scream at the end of 'New Orleans Is Sinking' that shut an entire arena up, Kim's Periscope stream that died the moment 'Springtime in Vienna' made holding a phone still impossible, and the moment Dave realized the rants were gone - no workshopping, because there was nothing coming next. And about August 20th, which found them in a second row in Kingston, a basement watch party, and a raucous Thunder Bay bar called The Foundry. Nobody at this table claims the full picture. They just know what that room felt like, and ten years has not dulled it. This is the Winnipeg night, told back by the people who lived it. Key takeaways • 'Pigeon Camera' and 'Streets Ahead' were both tour debuts that night, and the setlist held five songs from "Road Apples" and nothing from "Day for Night" - Calgary got that block two nights earlier (source: setlist.fm). • Kim from Cambridge spent the night before the show in the band's hotel bar. Rob Baker was gracious, a bus driver made the introductions, Gord Sinclair posed for photos, and Bernie Breen handed out guitar picks. • Dave from Montreal traded up to seats beside the stage the day of the show off a band tweet, then put his spare pair on StubHub at face value. He did it again in Hamilton and Ottawa. Ten years later, he is finally telling that secret. • Gord stopped the Winnipeg show to thank the local supporters who built the band an audience there - the panel can only remember it happening one other place, Hamilton. One Winnipeg music writer's phone exploded on the spot. • The night before the show, a Winnipeg lawyer fighting the same brain cancer threw a fundraiser - and the man Nicole from Winnipeg would marry years later was onstage in the band that played it. • Alicia from Winnipeg filed her Metro Winnipeg review as infinite stars out of five, and a Winnipeg Free Press reviewer independently refused to put a number on it too. https://web.archive.org/web/20160807202054/http://www.metronews.ca/news/winnipeg/2016/08/06/review-at-the-hundredth-meridian-tragically-hip.html Quotes “I always thought we had more time.” Nicole from Winnipeg “I said, infinite stars out of five, because there's no way to do it, whether you're a Hip fan or not.” Alicia from Winnipeg “When he stepped out in that green suit and just commanded that stage, it ended all of that. All of those nerves that I had before the show, they were gone in the first few notes.” Kim from Cambridge “I just had this moment of heartbreak of, oh, he's not workshopping because there's nothing coming next.” Dave from Montreal “If he saw me, I wanted him to know that Dave from Montreal was staring back at him.” Dave from Montreal Guest information • Nicole from Winnipeg - Thunder Bay born and raised, Winnipeg for the last six years. Raised three daughters on The Hip, and two of them made the 2016 drive with her. Her husband plays in Retro Radio, a Winnipeg classic rock band, and their love story runs through this music. • Kim from Cambridge - 41 Hip shows, Kingston included, second row, in a shirt she made herself. Drove out in a new Jeep with her cousin, camping at Pancake Bay and Sleeping Giant on the way. Keeper of feathers, tour-suit leather patches, and a Six String Nation story. • Dave from Montreal - Montreal journalist. Seven shows on the Man Machine Poem Tour, 65 Hip shows deep by that August. Wrote a pre-tour love letter in the National Post and a Rover essay on cover bands. A book is on the way, and that is all he will say for now. • Alicia from Winnipeg - journalist and then-editor at Metro Winnipeg, who reviewed the show that night. On weekends she fronts Whoopsie Daisy, a Winnipeg classic rock cover band, where 'New Orleans Is Sinking' gets the rage out the healthy way. https://whoopsiedacey.wordpress.com/ Resources, links and references • setlist.fm - the full Winnipeg, August 5 2016 setlist, including both tour debuts. • David Bastedo - The Tragically Hip's official concert photographer. His Winnipeg crowd shot is the one Dave found himself inside. • Dave's pre-tour love letter in the National Post. https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/music/the-tragically-hip-gord-downie • Dave's Rover essay on cover bands, The Strictly Hip, and letting the music live on. https://therover.ca/searching-for-the-tragically-hip/ • The bands keeping the music live, named on mic: Killer Whale Tank (Winnipeg), The Incredibly Hip (Brandon), The Hip Experience (on tour across Canada), The Strictly Hip (Buffalo), and Whoopsie Daisy. • "Secret Path" and The Downie Wenjack Fund - the work Nicole's daughter carries forward from the final tour. Calls to action Meet us in Kingston. The Gathering runs August 20 to 23 - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a first listen of "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016" the day it drops, a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's on the way out of town. Get on the list. email jd@tthpods.com GEDfest comes to Toronto. October 17th, the anniversary of Gord's passing, at the Horseshoe Tavern with Grace, 2. Nine years running, over $750,000 raised, and this year it is for Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. gedfest.ca Buy jD a coffee. Editing four loquacious guests is a labour of love. Tips only, no guilt. So there's that. [hyperlink: Buy jD a coffee - buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Related episodes • Yer Hipstories - Edmonton 2, July 30, 2016 https://kite.link/Edmonton2 • Yer Hipstories - Victoria, July 22 2016 https://kite.link/Victoria • Now for Plan A - Redux https://kite.link/nowforplana Closing paragraph Nicole, thank you for the sixteen-hour round trip and for the image of a two-year-old singing 'Boots or Hearts' from a car seat. Kim, thank you for holding your nerve at that hotel bar until it turned into guitar picks. Dave, thank you for bringing your mom into the room with you, and for owning every emotion Gord taught you to own. Alicia, thank you for infinite stars out of five, the only rating system this series recognizes. The band takes an extra day off, then it is Ontario the rest of the way home. Come back on August 8th for London, August 8 2016 - new building, new panel, and the home stretch beginning. If you were in one of these rooms, leave yer Hipstory. This series is stitched together from them. Socials and community • Facebook: facebook.com/groups/tthpods • Instagram: @tthpods] • YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods] • Email: jd@tthpods.com] #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #FullyCompletely #RoadApples #NowForPlanA Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Calgary Night 2 | 04 août 2026 | 01:05:54 | |
The band took their bow. The house lights came up, and nobody in the Saddledome moved. This is the night the ovation would not stop. Episode summary August 3rd, 2016. A Wednesday. Two nights after the first Calgary show, The Tragically Hip walked back into the Scotiabank Saddledome and played the city goodbye. Ten years on, three fans who were in the building pass the night around the table with jD. Spencer from Calgary is back from the night one episode. This was his third show of the Man Machine Poem Tour and the last time he saw the band live, and he spent it with Alan and Chantel, old friends from ten years of Hitmen games and Saddledome nights. His friend Al's text said it best: heavy but celebratory, like we all knew what was happening but we chose to live in the moment. Julie from Calgary hadn't seen The Hip since 1997. The tickets were a first date anniversary present. She and Keith from Calgary went with her parents, still dating, married the next year, and 'Ahead by a Century' was the wedding song. They talk about the word glioblastoma and where it landed in Julie's family. About Spencer's Periscope vigil in a Calgary bar the night the tour opened in Victoria. About 'Scared' with the lights up, the Jaws shirt, and an ovation that went on so long Gord Downie just stood there in the house lights, telling Calgary it was beautiful. Nobody here claims to be the expert. They were in the room, and ten years later two of them run a charity festival because of it. That part comes up too. Key takeaways • The tickets were a first date anniversary present. Keith and Julie were still dating at the show, married the next year, and 'Ahead by a Century' was their wedding song. Spencer had it at his wedding too. • Spencer watched the Victoria opener through a stranger's Periscope stream in a Calgary bar, and only breathed again once Gord got through the first song. • The middle of the set was an "In Violet Light" collector's run: 'Use It Up' (first since 2006), 'It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken' (tour debut), 'Throwing Off Glass' (first since 2009), and 'The Dire Wolf' (tour debut). Verified against setlist.fm, cross-referenced with Hipbase. • Julie marks 'Scared' as the moment the night turned - lights up, arms around strangers, the first cracks showing. • The morning the news broke, Keith wore The Hip under his suit to client meetings at the bank, and decided anyone put off by it was not his kind of client anyway. • GEDfest exists because of this show. Julie and Keith founded it after the tour, it turns nine this year, and Spencer signed on as an ambassador before the episode was over. Quotes "Everyone just became one. And for one night, there's very few nights in your life where everybody is connected, positive, happy, loving, sad. You could have hugged anyone in there. You could have kissed anyone in there. It would have been accepted." - Julie from Calgary "This might sound like hyperbole, but in a lot of ways that show changed my life." - Keith from Calgary Guest information • Spencer from Calgary - back from night one. Three shows on the final tour, and this was the last time he saw The Hip live. His daughter's name is Grace. Draw your own conclusions. • Julie from Calgary - GEDfest co-founder. Had not seen The Hip since 1997. Her first podcast, ever. She did great. • Keith from Calgary - GEDfest co-founder. Still has the paper tickets. The poster is framed on the wall. Resources, links and references • setlist.fm - the full Calgary, August 3 2016 setlist, including both tour debuts and the ten year gap on 'Use It Up'. • Hipbase - primary source for The Tragically Hip setlists and discography, cross-referenced against setlist.fm. • GEDfest - live music for the life and legacy of Gord Edgar Downie, with proceeds to cancer charities across Canada. gedfest.ca] • Helping Families Handle Cancer - the Calgary charity Spencer's sister runs for families whose child is going through cancer. • Lilliput Hats - Karyn Ruiz's Toronto shop, where the hats Keith remembers came from. Related past episodes: • Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Vancover Night 1 https://kite.link/Vancouver1. • Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Victoria, July 22 2016 - the opening night Spencer watched through a stranger's phone. https://kite.link/Victoria • Fully & Completely: redux - Man Machine Poem - the record behind the four song block.https://kite.link/MMPredux Things to know Give the anniversary somewhere to go. GEDfest plays Toronto for the first time - Saturday, October 17th, the anniversary of Gord's passing, at the Horseshoe Tavern with Grace, 2. Every dollar raised goes to Campfire Circle and the Murphy Family Fund in Precision Medicine in Pancreatic Cancer. Julie and Keith built this festival out of the night you just heard about. Tickets are on sale now. So there's that. [hyperlink: Grab tickets - GEDfest.ca Come home to Kingston. The Gathering runs August 20th to 23rd - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party, a Long Time Running screening, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. If you're making the trip, get on the list. [hyperlink: Email jd@tthpods.com] Buy jD a coffee Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged and buy jD a coffee. Tips only, no guilt. [hyperlink: Buy jD a coffee - buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Closing paragraph Julie, thank you for doing your first podcast ever and for the bubble of love. Keith, thank you for the postcard: the whole dome on its feet, lights up, nobody leaving. Spencer, thank you for coming back, and for signing up as a GEDfest ambassador live on mic. That is how this community works. In a couple of days the tour crosses the Rockies - Winnipeg, August 5 2016, with a brand new panel. The Tragically Hip Podcast Series keeps heading east, all the way home. Socials and community • Facebook: facebook.com/groups/tthpods • Instagram: @tthpods • YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods • Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #GordDownie #GordonEdgarDownie #ManMachinePoem #InVioletLight #HipFans Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park | 03 août 2026 | 01:07:04 | |
Episode Description Number 31 on the countdown. First zoo animal on Prozac. JD is joined by Duxoop from Toledo — broadcasting from the actual birthplace of Gus the polar bear — plus Andrew from Winnipeg and Dave from Montreal to dig into one of the most quietly beloved songs in the Hip catalogue. The panel gets into the Adam Kasper production that makes In Between Evolution sound the way it does, Rob Baker's untouchable outro solo, the Hip Museum's wonderfully unhinged George W. Bush theory, and the wordplay hiding in plain sight — because it was never what's troubling Gus. It's what's troubling us. Fair warning: this one gets emotional. Duxoop tells us what the lyrics did to him last year from a nursing home wheelchair, and Dave tells us about his friend Al — nickname Gus — and the cover band he's fronting at Al's memorial this Friday. Then the whole thing derails beautifully into a full inventory of every animal in the Hip discography. Explicit language. Recorded live on YouTube. On the Panel
Tale of the Tape Pulled from The Hip Handbook, which amalgamates HipBase and setlist.fm data. Album In Between Evolution (2004) Producer Adam Kasper, recorded in Seattle Single Third single from the record Countdown position No. 31 on the Top 40 Times played live 327 First played October 27, 2003 Last played August 18, 2016 — the Ottawa show As an opener Once As an encore Five times Poll Results Love it 52% Like it 36% Tolerate it 10% Skip it 1% Never heard of it 1% Possibly the most varied — and most indecisive — poll spread of the series so far. Duxoop's verdict: "That's crazy to me. These numbers should be way more lopsided toward the top." Live Version Featured Ottawa, 2004 — the Grey Cup halftime show. Andrew remembers watching it live and everyone around him asking why the band was opening the biggest gig of the year with a brand-new song. (They went into Courage right after.) What We Talked About The Album That Everyone Slept On
Adam Kasper and the Seattle Sound
Rob Baker's Outro
Gus Himself
The Toledo Connection
The Bush Theory
Gus / Us
Duxoop's Story Last year, when the countdown hit No. 31, Duxoop was three months into a nursing home stay with medical issues. Twenty-odd years earlier he'd started going to karaoke — big, scary-looking, socially awkward, mistaken for the bouncer. Now he was in his 60s, in a wheelchair, and the line landed like a ton of bricks: old and grey, and no one's afraid anymore. He sang it at the nursing home. "I don't think I've ever sung a Hip song with more feeling than I do with Gus." Grace, Too he can't fake — he feels like a schmuck trying to match Gord's intensity. Gus he doesn't fake. And after a week of thinking about it for this episode, he made a bold statement: Gus is now his favourite Tragically Hip song, over Grace, Too. Dave's Story — Al, Gus, and Colonel Mustard
One Bucket
The Countdown Neighbours No. 30 The Darkest One · No. 31 Gus · No. 32 Emperor Penguin — with Pigeon Camera at No. 28. As JD put it: their arctic phase. The Animal Album (An Idea That Got Away From Everyone) Duxoop floated it — Weird Al did a food album and a TV album, so why not a Tragically Hip animal album? The panel then attempted a full inventory:
Verdict: someone needs to make this playlist. Quotable Moments "It's not what's troubling Gus. It's what's troubling us. And that's just the best." — Dave from Montreal "Gord Downie sells the fuck out of this song. He sells the flakiness of the bear. He sells the confusion of the person watching it being like, why aren't you like a real bear?" — Dave from Montreal "It's funny — we're happy to hear a song about a sad animal." — Andrew from Winnipeg "Gus is like you're leaning back in your chair and relaxing a bit." — Andrew from Winnipeg "Grace, Too I feel like I'm faking it. Gus, man, I don't fake that one." — Duxoop from Toledo "It's up to us now to keep these songs alive." — Dave from Montreal "I live for that rare occasion where somebody goes, who was that song by? I got to look up that artist — and I get to make a new Hip fan." — Duxoop from Toledo Mentioned in This Episode
Plugs & Housekeeping Duxoop from Toledo A friend of Duxoop's was hit hard by the death of Glen Hansard, who was killed in a motorcycle crash outside Dublin on July 29, 2026, at 56. There's a local Toledo tribute on Friday collecting donations for the Dublin Simon Community, the homelessness charity Hansard cared deeply about. Duxoop, who was himself homeless for a couple of years recently: "I would definitely promote that." Andrew from Winnipeg
Dave from Montreal
The Gathering — Kingston
Next Week Pigeon Camera. Brand new panel, brand new song, a biggie. Live on YouTube, Wednesday at 8 o'clock. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Calgary Night 1 | 02 août 2026 | 01:03:20 | |
'Three Pistols' as an opener. Nobody in the Saddledome saw that coming, least of all the guy who'd spent the whole week camping. Episode summary August 1st, 2016. The Scotiabank Saddledome. The Tragically Hip are working eastward, homebound to Kingston, and the Man Machine Poem Tour rolls into Calgary for the first of two nights. Ten years on, three people who were in that building sit down and tell jD what it actually felt like. Spencer from Calgary was at both Calgary shows, and two days before this one he woke up from an afternoon nap, found face-value seats for Edmonton five hours before downbeat, and drove up the highway without packing a bag. Paul from Lethbridge talked himself out of the on-sale entirely, spent a fortnight regretting it, then bought behind-the-stage seats on the secondary market and has never regretted that. Steve from Toronto is a cancer survivor. He brought his fiancee to her first proper Hip show and found two old friends sitting directly in front of him. They talk about the email nobody was ready for. They talk about decoding the album blocks in real time, and about 'World Container' surfacing for the first time since 2009 with Gord Downie working the teleprompter and grinning through a fumble. They talk about a concourse so packed you could not move, a merch line that looked like a family reunion, and a version of 'Grace, Too' that Spencer says he will never shake. Nobody here is claiming to be the expert. They were just in the room. This is the Calgary night, told back by the people who lived it. Key takeaways • Steve from Toronto is a cancer survivor, so the diagnosis email landed on him twice over. Once as a fan, once as somebody who already knew the vocabulary. • Spencer from Calgary got Edmonton tickets at face value five hours before showtime, drove up with no bag packed, sat down with a hot dog and a beer, and the band walked out thirty seconds later. • Paul from Lethbridge and his buddy Nick skipped the on-sale, realized their error about a fortnight later, and bought in behind the stage. Hundreds of shows between them and this one still tops the list. • 'The Kids Don't Get It' was a tour debut that night, and 'World Container' had not been played live since 2009 (source: setlist.fm). Paul clocked the second one in the moment. • All three describe the same night from three different seats, and none of them describe a party. The word Paul reaches for is communal. He lands on an upbeat church service. Quotes “It was like this is happening to my friend Gord, which is a weird feeling to feel about someone that you've never known.” Paul from Lethbridge [MM:SS] “I used to complain that they didn't mix things up enough. I would do anything right now to get the most basic paint by numbers Tragically Hip set list if it meant being able to see that band one more time.” Steve from Toronto [MM:SS] Guest information • Spencer from Calgary - both Calgary nights plus an unplanned Edmonton run. Took his sister and his brother. Still the only concert the three of them have been to together. • Paul from Lethbridge - bought late, behind the stage, no regrets. Went with Nick, his concert guy. 'World Container' is a top-five song for him and he had never heard it live. • Steve from Toronto - cancer survivor. Five shows on the tour, Kingston included. Calgary was his now-wife's first proper Hip show. Resources, links and references • setlist.fm - the full Calgary, August 1 2016 setlist, including the 'The Kids Don't Get It' tour debut and the 'World Container' return. [hyperlink: setlist.fm Calgary Aug 1 2016] • Hipbase - primary source for The Tragically Hip setlists and discography, cross-referenced against setlist.fm for this episode. [hyperlink: Hipbase] • Long Time Running (2017) - the tour documentary both Paul and Steve credit with showing them how close the whole thing came to not happening. [hyperlink: Long Time Running] • The Ride to Conquer Cancer, benefiting The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation - Steve rides with a team called The Tragically Clipped, a name that predates Gord's diagnosis. [hyperlink] [VERIFY with Steve: team spelling, ride count, and the total raised] • GEDfest Toronto 2026, with Campfire Circle as cause partner - mentioned on mic. Details pending, see note under Upcoming events. [hyperlink pending] • Hipstories - Jake Gold - the earlier Hipstories conversations, from the archive. [hyperlink] • Hipstories - Paul Langlois - the guitarist on the band's own terms. [hyperlink] • Hipstories - Alan Cross - the wider Canadian music context. [hyperlink] Calls to action Leave yer Hipstory. This series is built out of them, and there are eleven more nights of that tour still to stitch back together. If you were there, or if you watched it from a couch and ugly-cried into a pillow, that counts too. [hyperlink: Leave yer Hipstory - reflections.tthpods.com] Come sit in the rec room. The Facebook community is where these conversations keep going after the episode ends. [hyperlink: Join the community - community.tthpods.com] Buy jD a coffee Editing is hard. Help keep the battery charged and buy jD a coffee. Tips only, no guilt. [hyperlink: Buy jD a coffee - buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40] Closing paragraph Spencer, thank you for the Edmonton story, which is the single best piece of dumb luck anyone has brought to this series so far. Paul, thank you for 'World Container' and for the phrase upbeat church service, which is the closest anybody has come to naming what those rooms felt like. Steve, thank you for Jay. Spending the last two hours of a friendship at a Hip show is not nothing, and neither is saying so out loud. jD spent most of that summer in a psychiatric hospital and missed the tour entirely, which is a fair part of why this show exists at all. Ten years later the record gets built out of other people's memories. So there's that. Come back in two days for Calgary, August 3 2016. Same building, different night. Socials and community • Facebook: [hyperlink: The community group - community.tthpods.com] Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Edmonton Night 2 | 31 juil. 2026 | 01:04:21 | |
Episode Description Ten years to the day, JD travels back to July 30, 2016 and the second of two Edmonton nights on the Man Machine Poem Tour. He's joined by two Edmontonians who were in the building — Kirsten and Chris — for a conversation about scalped tickets and Ticketmaster nightmares, the last concert ever held in Rexall Place, a set list that dug deeper than anyone expected, and the two encores that sent a city home in pieces. It's a night of firsts and lasts: 'Scared' heard live for the first time and the last time in the same breath, a room full of strangers crying through 'Courage,' and a final 'Bobcaygeon' with the whole barn lit up. Fair warning — the waterworks come up more than once. Around the Table
In This Episode The Icebreaker: One Song That Puts You Back in the Room
Hearing the News, and the Fight for Tickets
Who They Went With
The Set List
The Encores
Gord on Stage
The Last Night in the Barn
When It Hit
August 20: The CBC National Broadcast
What They'd Tell Someone Who Wasn't There
Notable Quotes “He didn't just sing it. He poured everything into that lyric — the only way he can.” — Chris, on "Ahead by a Century" “I was in the building. And that was what was important. I don't think I've ever been so happy to get such crappy tickets in my life.” — Chris “You just kind of willing him. There was a collective will, just like — you can do this.” — Kirsten “I looked to my left, looked to my right, looked down, and then I looked at my brother, and everybody was crying.” — Chris, on "Courage" “It came in waves. Each night it would come in waves — this is it. This is the final tour.” — Kirsten “I can't believe I was here. That was the thing we kept hearing over and over again as we got on the train.” — Chris “To be a witness of such great musicianship, such great ambassadors to Canada. Just good people doing good art.” — Kirsten Mentioned in This Episode
Plugs & Next Time
For more information and to follow the series, visit home.tthpods.com. To reach JD, email jd@tthpods.com. This has been a presentation of the Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Edmonton Night 1 | 29 juil. 2026 | 01:09:42 | |
Ten years to the day. Two fans who were at Rexall Place for Edmonton night one tell the story - the presale tricks, the tight circle on stage, and the night the building went to church. Episode SummaryEdmonton, night one. July 28th, 2016. Rexall Place - months before Rogers Place opened its doors - and The Tragically Hip's first of two nights in Oil Country on the Man Machine Poem Tour. Ten years later, Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour sits down with Britain from Wainwright and Dave from Edmonton, two fans who were in the building. Amber from Meadow Lake joins long enough to drop the ticket story of the series - her seniors' exercise class watching her land eighth row on the floor through the Tales From The Hip fan club presale, in tears - before the connection gremlins claim her. We hope to hear the rest of it someday. The road to tickets is half the fun. Dave is the lapsed fan brought all the way back - off the bus during the Bob Rock years, pulled in by 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind', then all in the moment the news about Gord broke: two sets of four from Ticketmaster, first spin. Britain - 40 shows deep - worked the presale, then discovered Ticketmaster would upgrade seats right up to showtime, held his target ticket hostage online while he waited on the phone, and turned row 17 into row 11 centre. Then he drove the 200 kilometres from Wainwright and did it all again two nights later. Inside the building, the panel remembers the band opening in that tight huddle at the front of the stage - a support group, buddies in the garage, there for Gord - before the intermission and the thunderstorm video interlude gave way to the full rock show. The album-by-album set list format gets called a stroke of genius, the In Between Evolution sampler delivers 'Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park' as a sleeper highlight, and 'Scared' - "pleasure doing business with you" - leaves Britain levitating somewhere above the floor. Dave's word for it: church. There's real talk about saying goodbye - during the show, on August 20th, 2016 when CBC paused its own Olympics for 11 million of us, and not until the Long Time Running documentary made it land. The word this panel keeps coming back to: celebration. The Panel
This series is a living audio time capsule, and it only works if the community brings the goods. Were you at a stop on the Man Machine Poem Tour? Share your Hipstory and be part of the record. Want more from the network between episodes? Subscribe to Yer Letter, the monthly newsletter from jD. ClosingHuge thanks to Britain from Wainwright and Dave from Edmonton for taking us back inside Rexall Place - and to Amber from Meadow Lake, who the bandwidth gods took from us far too soon. The takeaway this week is the word the panel refused to let go of: celebration. They did it for us. We got to be there. So there's that. Next up, after a day off: Edmonton Night Two, July 30th, 2016, with a whole new panel. Get after it. ConnectFacebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #InGordWeTrust #YerFavourites Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: 700 Ft. Ceiling | 27 juil. 2026 | 01:00:57 | |
jD convenes the expert panel to dissect "700 Ft Ceiling," the song that lands like a baseball bat to the face right in the middle of Trouble at the Henhouse. The conversation starts warm — everyone's summertime Hip pick, from "Membership" to "Morning Moon" to "Summer's Killing Us" — before turning to the puzzle at the centre of the track: what exactly is a 700-foot ceiling? (Aviation term. Lowest layer of broken or overcast cloud sitting 700 feet above ground.) The panel unpacks Gord's habit of collecting phrases for their sound rather than their meaning, the wintery outdoor-rink imagery, and the Lou Reed-flat melody that barely distinguishes verse from chorus. Things get spicy on placement. Tracy calls it filler and skips it. Mikk and Jamie agree the song detonates a gorgeous opening run — "Gift Shop," "Springtime in Vienna," "Ahead by a Century," "Don't Wake Daddy," "Flamenco" — and kicks off what Jamie dubs the album's weird second half alongside "Butts Wigglin'" and "Coconut Cream." The Kids in the Hall theory gets floated. So does the grunge theory. Everyone concedes it hit much harder live than it ever did on record. Then the episode's real gift: Mick and Jamie tell the story of renting the Bathhouse for a weekend — sleeping in the studio, playing pool while spinning We Are the Same on vinyl, Billy Ray wandering in at 10pm with stories, engineer Niles behind the board, Gord's training bike still parked where he left it. Once-in-a-lifetime stuff, told well. Next week's shuffle: "Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park" from In Between Evolution. Key Quotes"It's like an alarm clock goes off." — Mik, on where the song lands on the album"It is like a baseball bat in the face." — jD"Think about how many shows they played after 2004 that they did not play this song. That's why it ranks low. Guys, I'm telling it like it is." — Jamie"I think this is kind of Gord's secret talent — he listens better than everybody." — Mik"He says '700-foot ceiling' like four times, but the second or third time it's '700 and sinking,' which is just cool." — Jamie"It kind of felt very lived in. There was nothing you couldn't touch, nothing you couldn't sit on." — Mik, on the Bathhouse"I'll get emotional if I talk about it." — Jamie, on being shown the band's jam space"Well, I know what we forgot to do this week. We forgot to listen to the goddamn song." — jD Tale of the Tape — Trouble at the Henhouse
"700 Ft Ceiling" live stats (via The Hip Base and setlist.fm)
This week's poll: 47% / 47% split, with 6% "tolerating" it. Songs & Albums MentionedTragically Hip songs
Tragically Hip albums
Other references
People Mentioned
Links & Plugs Kingston weekend events — Friday mixer at a pub · live record listening party August 21 at 4:30 at a pub · Sunday brunch at Morrison's. Email jd@tthpods.com to get on the list. Mik Perlus — Ragged Islands — Mick's EP, recorded over three days at the Bathhouse. Includes a cover of "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken." Available on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other streaming services. Named for East Ragged Islands, Nova Scotia. Jamie — Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish — with English and Russian supertitles. Recently ran at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto (roughly 17,000 attendees during Jamie's run). Coming to the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles, February 13 – March 14, 2027. The Hip Handbook — JD's new AI-built discography and stats tool, debuting on this episode for the Tale of the Tape. The Hip Museum / Museum After Dark — referenced for the grunge angle and album background. Next Week"Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park" from In Between Evolution. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Vancouver Night 2 | 27 juil. 2026 | 01:01:26 | |
Ten years to the day. Three fans who were at Rogers Arena for Vancouver night two tell the story - the tickets, the Fiddler's Green goodbye, and the night a one-year-old slept through history. Episode SummaryUncharted waters - we never do third ones. Vancouver, night two. July 26th, 2016. Rogers Arena, the third stop on the Man Machine Poem Tour, and the night The Tragically Hip opened with Fully Completely - just like the set-list sleuths predicted. Ten years later, Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour gathers three fans who were in the building: Craig from Langley, Tina from Prince George, and Jay from BC - currently in Ottawa, so probably working for CSIS. We're careful what we say. The ticket stories run the full range. Craig and three coworkers all hit Ticketmaster at 10 a.m. sharp and every one of them scored - no bots, no drama. Tina borrowed a friend's Amex presale code, landed 13th row at the back, then got a phone call: Ryan was trading her his row seven, side of stage seats, because the bigger fan deserved the better view. Jay missed Victoria for a high school reunion, struck out on Vancouver night one, and was mid-refresh with his whole family when his dad popped up with the last row of the lower bowl - exactly where he likes to sit. Then there's the night itself. Tina brought her daughter - the day before her first birthday - who took in the whole scene, collected high fives across the concourse, and fell asleep against her mom the moment the music started. The panel digs into the songs that hit differently: Craig's 'So Hard Done By' that suddenly wasn't funny, Jay's 'Fifty Mission Cap' with Bill Barilko's ghost and the shiny hats, a 'Music @ Work' section that produced 'Toronto #4' - bonkers - and the 'Fiddler's Green' that became Tina's goodbye moment, her "hey man, thanks" to the band that got her through everything. Plus the 'Grace, Too' moment both nights: three minutes of guitar and an entire building screaming. Ten years on, the reflections go deep - how Long Time Running reframed everyone's memories, the Spirit of the West parallel at the Commodore, and Tina on what Gord's Kingston challenge to Trudeau has meant to the Indigenous community: a legacy that goes beyond the music. The word this panel lands on: gifted. The Panel
This series is a living audio time capsule, and it only works if the community brings the goods. Were you at a stop on the Man Machine Poem Tour? Share your Hipstory and be part of the record. Want more from the network between episodes? Subscribe to Yer Letter, the monthly newsletter from jD. ClosingHuge thanks to Craig from Langley, Tina from Prince George, and Jay from BC for taking us back inside Rogers Arena - the trades, the tears, and the toddler who slept through the whole thing. The takeaway this week is Tina's word: gifted. We watched them pull a rabbit out of a hat, and we got to say goodbye. So there's that. Next up: Edmonton Night One, July 28th, 2016, and one last night in the old barn. Get after it. ConnectFacebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #InGordWeTrust #YerFavourites Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Vancouver Night 1 | 25 juil. 2026 | 00:56:47 | |
Ten years on, jD sits down with three fans who were there the night the Tragically Hip played Vancouver on the Man Machine Poem tour — the second stop of Gord Downie's final run across Canada. Tina, Joe, and Shaun walk through the whole arc of that evening: the scramble for tickets when floor seats and Ticketmaster luck meant everything, the electric-but-apprehensive mood in the building as everyone wondered how Gord would hold up, and the moment his shaking hand during "Three Pistols" turned nerves into relief. The conversation ranges from the emotional gut-punches — "Grace, Too," "Bobcaygeon," "Tired as Fuck," and "At Transformation" — to the craft behind the show: the band huddling close around Gord like a bar band again, the retrospective set lists that pulled from nearly half their catalog, and the stripped-down staging that only fully landed watching the final concert on TV. Along the way there's talk of secondary-market ticket gouging and dynamic pricing, the pride of a country coming together over a rock band, and how each of them found their way home that night carrying a feeling Tina sums up perfectly: "How can you feel so empty and so full at the same time?" Next episode: July 26 — Vancouver Night 2, with a new panel. Tina from Vancouver A devoted Hip fan (by her own admission the bigger fan in her household) who scored floor seats, row 26, through Ticketmaster while nearly everyone she knew was shut out. "Grace, Too" was the song that hit her hardest that night. By day she works for a Canadian pet-treat company.
Joe from Vancouver A lifelong musician (playing in bands since he was 15) and an entertainment-lighting professional — a rental account manager for a major North American lighting company. He got into Vancouver Night 1 on a spare ticket from his cousin's daughter, sat on Rob's side of the arena, and has played Rob Baker in a Hip tribute, which shaped how closely he watched the band that night. "Bobcaygeon" is the song that still takes him back.
Shaun from Vancouver A big fan who first heard the news — Gord's diagnosis and the one last tour — while riding the SkyTrain out to Surrey. He got a ticket on the first crack through Ticketmaster and watched from the rafters, just happy to be in the building. "Three Pistols" is forever linked for him to the image of Gord's shaking hand. Outside the music, he runs a pair of travel websites and recently drove an EV across Scandinavia to the top of Europe.
Connect with the Podcast Website: home.tthpods.com Reach jD: JD@tthpods.com A presentation of the Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Victoria | 23 juil. 2026 | 00:52:36 | |
Ten years to the day. Three fans who were in the building for opening night in Victoria tell the story - the tickets, the silver suit, and the night the Man Machine Poem Tour began. Episode SummaryFirst stop. July 22nd, 2016. The Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria, where The Tragically Hip opened the Man Machine Poem Tour and, as jD puts it, tore the place up. Ten years later, Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour gathers three fans who were there - Chris from Kelowna, Dave from Campbell River, and Jay from Edmonton - to take it from soup to nuts: hearing the news, chasing the tickets, and living the night. The ticket stories alone are worth the price of admission. Dave had seen The Hip 19 times and never sweated a ticket - until dynamic pricing and the bots turned this on-sale into the most stressful of his life. Chris dumb-lucked into fabulous seats through a venue voucher he had to drive to Victoria to redeem - and ended up on CBC, Global, CTV, and CNNalong the way, posting his mileage in a very Canadian unit: 12 Tragically Hip songs per hundred kilometres. Jay stared down 45 minutes of "sold out" on Ticketmaster before row four on the floor appeared for him, his wife, and his two-year-old daughter - then did it again and landed row two for Vancouver. Then the lights went down and 'Boots or Hearts' opened the night. The panel remembers the acoustic-style start, the deep cuts up front, Gord Downie's glittering silver suit and feather - and Chris's reading of it all: this was the band flipping the bird at cancer and controlling the narrative. Jay's daughter got a wave from Gord during 'Blow at High Dough' - a moment you can spot in the documentary. Dave got 'The Luxury', played for the first time since 2000, at his 20th show. There's real talk about the four "Man Machine Poem" songs played each night - 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind', 'Machine', 'What Blew', and one more with a title we can't print here - plus where everyone was on August 20th, 2016, from inside the Kingston barn to packed small-town bars in Dorintosh, Saskatchewan, and Vanderhoof, BC. The word the panel lands on: gratitude. The Panel
This series is a living audio time capsule, and it only works if the community brings the goods. Were you at a stop on the Man Machine Poem Tour? Share your Hipstory and be part of the record. Want more from the network between episodes? Subscribe to Yer Letter, the monthly newsletter from jD. ClosingHuge thanks to Chris from Kelowna, Dave from Campbell River, and Jay from Edmonton for opening the vault on opening night - the nerves, the tears, the feather, and the wave. The takeaway this week is the word Chris found and everyone kept: gratitude. They chose the stage. We got to be there. So there's that. In two days, the series crosses the Strait to the mainland: Vancouver, July 24th, 2016. Get after it. ConnectFacebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #InGordWeTrust #YerFavourites Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Everytime You Go | 20 juil. 2026 | 01:06:33 | |
A side-two burner with a secret third verse? The panel digs into the 1988 Horseshoe debut and discovers 'Every Time You Go' was once a song called 'Holding Out'. Episode SummaryThe wheel said 'Every Time You Go', and the wheel does not lie. This week, The Tragically Hip On Shuffle takes on the side-two rocker from "Up to Here" (1989) - played live 61 times between July 15th, 1988 and June 25th, 2004, three of them as encores, and ranked #93 of 169 on the fan countdown, sandwiched between 'Heaven Is a Better Place Today' and 'When the Weight Comes Down'. jD gathers Andrew from Winnipeg, Adam from South Tampa, and Daryl from Belleville to debate, discuss, and dissect it. The listening party spins the demo from the "Up to Here" box set - a skeleton with muscle, as jD puts it, alive but not quite finished. Then comes the find of the night: both Daryl and Adam independently dug up the song's live debut at the Horseshoe Tavern, July 15th, 1988, where Gord Downie introduces it as 'Holding Out', dedicates it to race car driver Bobby Rahal, and sings a lost third verse - a prom dress, a tear-stained vest, and a waltz - that the band later cut. They did not play it again for a year. So there's that. From there it's a close read of the lyrics - knowing a Dave, the big snake pit, a birthday suitcase brown from dust from no place, and the formidable "my girl don't just walk, she unfurls" - plus the Thunder Road parallel, the highway girl connection, and Andrew's case that this song is the musical blueprint for 'Little Bones'. The poll lands at 69% love it, the panel wrestles with a front-loaded record and a side two that swings, and Adam asks the question every box-set owner is asking: how did 'Wait So Long' not make this album? The wheel gets spun twice (a first - the chat caught a repeat), the Kingston gathering gets a massive plug, and a big scheduling announcement lands: next week's live stream moves to Tuesday night, because Wednesday belongs to the debut of Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour. The Panel
The randomness is the feature, and the community is the point. Join the community Facebook group to catch the next live stream, vote in the polls, and share your take in the chat. Want more from the network between episodes? Subscribe to Yer Letter, the monthly newsletter from jD. Heading to Kingston? The gathering runs August 20th to 23rd alongside Forever Hip - a mixer at the Merchant Pub, Choir! Choir! Choir! in Springer Market Square, a listening party for the brand new record "The Tragically Hip Live, July 22 - August 20, 2016" on its release day, a Long Time Running screening, the CBC re-airing of a national celebration, and a farewell brunch at Morrison's. Reach out to jD to get in on any or all of it. ClosingHuge thanks to Andrew from Winnipeg, Adam from South Tampa, and Daryl from Belleville for bringing the goods - lost verses, countdown brochures, and one very good Everly Brothers joke. The takeaway this week: even a side-two album track has a secret history, and sometimes the archive gives you a whole extra verse. Two dates to circle. Next week the live stream moves to Tuesday night at 8 to talk '700 Ft. Ceiling' from "Trouble at the Hen House". Then Wednesday night, exactly ten years on from Victoria, Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour kicks off - a new episode every second day celebrating the Man Machine Poem Tour. Get after it. ConnectFacebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #TragicallyHip #GordDownie #UpToHere #TTHOnShuffle #InGordWeTrust Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip - Live Stream: The Darkest One | 13 juil. 2026 | 01:03:28 | |
A song this beloved, played live only 31 times? The panel unpacks the mystery, the mischief, and the cat at the centre of 'The Darkest One'. Episode Summary The wheel landed on a big one. This week, The Tragically Hip On Shuffle pulls 'The Darkest One' - track three and the third single from "In Violet Light" (June 11th, 2002), and number 30 on the Tragically Hip Top 40 countdown. jD gathers Kirk from Chino, Sean from Toronto, and Duxoop from Toledo around the table to debate, discuss, and dissect it. The tale of the tape raises the episode's central puzzle: first played live December 31st, 2001, last played August 1st, 2003, and just 31 performances all-time. Why did a single this strong vanish from the setlists? The panel has theories - Gord Downie's punishing high notes, his one-of-a-kind delivery timing, and the karaoke bravery both would demand. There's a listen to a formidable live version from Vancouver, September 20th, 2002, a close read of the lyrics (a darling sky, not a darkening one - and the moment as a wild place), and Duck Soup's honest, funny, and disarming answer to the question the song keeps asking: who's the darkest one in your friend group? Then it's off to the music video - the Trailer Park Boys, Don Cherry, vintage KFC buckets, and one great cat let in from the rain. The panel ranks the song on the album, mourns Hockey Night in Canada, debates a "Fully Completely" box set, and jD floats a Hip Club conspiracy theory about those suspiciously excellent bonus tracks. The Panel
Timestamps - 00:00 - Welcome and panel introductions - 03:14 - First hit: favourite Hip summer jams - 06:05 - The tale of the tape: 'The Darkest One' by the numbers - 09:37 - High notes, weird timing, and the karaoke problem - 11:20 - Poll check: "In Violet Light" gets its flowers - 13:44 - Listening party: 'The Darkest One' live in Vancouver, 2002 - 18:54 - First thoughts around the table - 25:35 - The lyrics: every friend group has one - 32:16 - The video: Trailer Park Boys, Don Cherry, and a great cat - 37:50 - Final thoughts and album rankings - 46:24 - Did it break through south of the border? - 53:16 - Spin the wheel: next week's song revealed - 55:11 - Plugs Resources & References - Setlist and play-count data: hat tip to Hipbase and setlist.fm - Live recording courtesy of The Tragically Hip Archive - The Hugh Padgham stories come from This Is Our Life by Michael Barclay - Bands plugged this week: The Fabulously Rich (Pacific Northwest), Gift Shop (Vancouver), the Knights of Molino (San Francisco), The Daryls, and the Delgado Brothers - Related listening: Discovering Downie, wherever you get your podcasts Join In The randomness is the feature, and the community is the point. [Join the community Facebook group](https://community.tthpods.com) to catch the next live stream, vote in the polls, and share your take in the chat. Want more from the network between episodes? [Subscribe to Yer Letter](https://subscribe.tthpods.com), the monthly newsletter from jD. Closing Huge thanks to Kirk from Chino, Sean from Toronto, and Duxoop from Toledo for pinch-hitting on short notice and bringing the goods - from Salt Lake City name-drops to dentures that laugh. The takeaway this week: the wild are strong, the strong are the darkest ones, and every friend group has one. So there's that. Next week, the wheel says 'Every Time You Go' - a deep cut from "Up to Here". Get after it. Connect Facebook group: [community.tthpods.com](https://community.tthpods.com) | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com TheTragicallyHip TheHip GordDownie InVioletLight TTHOnShuffle InGordWeTrust --- Meta description (155 characters): The Tragically Hip On Shuffle unpacks 'The Darkest One' from In Violet Light - Gord Downie's high notes, the Trailer Park Boys video, and one great cat. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Bobcaygeon | 06 juil. 2026 | 00:58:50 | |
The shuffle lands on *'Bobcaygeon'* - a love song built on a race riot, and the track one fan ties to losing Gord Downie. --- "This is the song I think of when I think about coming to terms with the fact that Gord Downie was going to die." Dave from Montreal --- Episode Summary The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream is back after a week off, and the shuffle lands on *'Bobcaygeon'*, the acoustic-leaning centrepiece of "Phantom Power" and one of the most beloved songs in the entire **Tragically Hip** catalogue. The panel - **Chris from Seattle**, **Greg from the Kootenays**, and **Dave from Montreal** - takes it apart from every angle. They dig into the constellation imagery, the buried 1933 Christie Pitts riot the lyric nods to, the much-debated "Aryan twang" line, and the way **Gord Downie** humanizes a cop caught in the middle of it all. First impressions split the room between love at first listen and slow-burn grower. From there the conversation moves through the song's placement between *'Save the Planet'* and *'Thompson Girl'*, Steve Berlin's organ work, and how *'Bobcaygeon'* became, for more than one fan in the room, the song tied to coming to terms with **Gord Downie's** passing. Along the way: an icebreaker on favourite live Hip performances, a featured live cut from Austin City Limits, poll results that surprise nobody, and a look ahead to the next shuffle. A real conversation about how a quiet song carries this much weight. Tale of the Tape - Song: *'Bobcaygeon'*, from "Phantom Power" (released July 14, 1998), the album's fourth single - TTHTop40 Countdown ranking: #14 - First played live: May 10, 1997 - a full year before the record dropped - Last played live: August 20, 2016 - Played as a show opener once, and as an encore 115 times - Featured live cut: Austin City Limits, September 15, 2006 - Listener poll: 91% Love It, 7% Like It, 1% Tolerate It The Panel **Chris from Seattle** returns for his second appearance - the panel's lone American and a working musician. His band Loud Flowers just put out two EPs, the Litho EP and the Earwig EP, recorded in part at Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's Seattle studio. **Greg from the Kootenays** has caught The Hip somewhere north of 25 times and brings a scholar's eye. He has published academic work on the band, including the article "Ambiguously Hip: The Tragically Hip and Canadian Nationalism." **Dave from Montreal** is a writer, journalist, and tour guide who has covered The Hip for years. He runs non-touristy Montreal tours with Spade and Palacio. Resources, Links & References - "Phantom Power" (1998) - the album *'Bobcaygeon'* calls home - Featured live version: Austin City Limits, September 15, 2006 - Setlist and live-performance data sourced from Hipbase and setlist.fm - Live recordings via The Tragically Hip Archive - Band history reference: This Is Our Life by Michael Barclay - Greg's article: "Ambiguously Hip: The Tragically Hip and Canadian Nationalism" - Chris's band: Loud Flowers - the Litho EP and the Earwig EP - Dave Kaufman's Montreal tours with Spade and Palacio - Instagram @davekaufman1, Bluesky @davekaufman - Related listening: Discovering Downie Support the Show Editing is hard, and the coffee runs dry. If The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream keeps your battery charged, you can drop a caribou in the tip jar at buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. Tips, always - never an ask. Big thanks to **Chris from Seattle** for coming back and bringing the musician's ear, to **Greg from the Kootenays** for the scholarship and the 25-shows-deep perspective, and to **Dave from Montreal** for going somewhere heavy and honest with this one. *'Bobcaygeon'* is a slow jam about something dark and ominous under the surface, and this panel found every layer of it. Next shuffle is *'The Darkest One'* on July 8 - no show on Canada Day, so mark the calendar. - Explore the full discography, lyrics, credits, and mapped live shows at The Hip Compendium: compendium.tthpods.com The network home: home.tthpods.com Facebook: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com #TheTragicallyHip #PhantomPower #GordDownie #TheHip #TTHOnShuffle #InGordWeTrust Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Fully & Completely redux - Man Machine Poem | 18 juin 2026 | 01:26:42 | |
Fully & Completely: Redux Man Machine Poem The last record. "Man Machine Poem" arrived in June 2016 wrapped in the worst news imaginable - and somehow it was still everything. Episode Summary: jD and Greg LeGros sit under a pear tree - bees and all - for the final entry in Fully & Completely's full Tragically Hip discography run. The album in question is "Man Machine Poem", the Hip's fourteenth and last studio record, released June 17th, 2016. Produced by Kevin Drew and Dave Hamelin, it arrived weeks after the band announced Gord Downie's glioblastoma diagnosis - though almost everything on it was written before that news broke. What jD and Greg dig into here is not just a final album. It's a listen to a band that sounds revitalized. That sounds, somehow, free. Track by track they work through all ten songs - 'Man', 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind', 'What Blue', 'In Sarnia', 'Here, in the Dark', 'Great Soul', 'Tired as Fuck', 'Hot Mic', 'Ocean Next', and 'Machine' - unpacking the lyrical weight, the production choices, the thematic through lines, and the heartbreak of knowing this was the last one. There's also conversation about the musical landscape of 2016 - "Blackstar", "Blonde", "A Moon Shaped Pool", "We Got It from Here" - and the news, announced in the episode, that a new Gord Downie solo double album was coming. A heavy, funny, essential listen. “This is the most complete and well-written and natural sounding that they’ve sounded since ‘Phantom Power’. You could not ask for more.” - Greg LeGros What They Covered Track 1 - 'Man' • Psychedelic opener. Gord's vocal sounds ageless. jD hears the melody of 'Machine' hiding in the first 30 seconds - a bookend hiding in plain sight. Track 2 - 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind' • Written about Laura Downie's illness. Greg reads it three ways simultaneously - personal, political, about the post-truth media cycle. 'Exciting over fair.' It lands every time. Track 3 - 'What Blue' • Greg cracks the code mid-episode: those eyes in the grey of everything falling apart. A marriage ending, quietly, inside a great song. Track 4 - 'In Sarnia' Fully & Completely: Redux Man Machine Poem tthpods.com 2 • Originally titled 'Insomnia'. Greg's go-to on the album. jD calls the guitar intro and vocal entry 'spectacular.' A love song to sleeplessness, or to a city, or to both. Track 5 - 'Here, in the Dark' • Seasonal affective disorder as a rock song. The last lyric - 'Me, I'm as happy as my least-happy kid' - hits like a gut punch. Both of them feel it. Track 6 - 'Great Soul' • Jammy and psychedelic and soaring. Greg reads the lyric run - 'I want to enchant you, I want you to enchant my days' - like a poem, and it sounds stunning that way. Track 7 - 'Tired as Fuck' • The campfire song that isn't. Tragic and hopeful at the same time. Greg's favourite line on the whole record: 'Tired as fuck, I want to stop so much, I almost don't want to stop.' Track 8 - 'Hot Mic' • Big, ballsy, stompy. Possible commentary on celebrity, patriotism, or Canada overhearing the wreck next door. Probably all three. Track 9 - 'Ocean Next' • Sounds recorded underwater. Feels like moving. Transition and mournfulness, wrapped in something that sounds straight off 'Day for Night'. Track 10 - 'Machine' • The album closes funky and light. The groove catches you off guard after everything that came before. 'I'm a real machine. It follows.' A stadium-sized song that most people only heard in arenas. Stadium-sized, Greg says. He's right. Also In This Episode The context of 2016: jD and Greg run through the musical landscape - David Bowie's "Blackstar", Frank Ocean's "Blonde", Beyoncé's "Lemonade", Radiohead's "A Moon Shaped Pool", A Tribe Called Quest's "We Got It from Here". A year of established artists making career-best work. The Hip fit right in. Greg's daughter was born in January 2016. He heard the news about Gord standing in a coffee shop with her in a stroller. He heard 'Tired as Fuck' that same afternoon. "A mixture of emotions" doesn't cover it. Album lore: the record was almost called "Dougie Stardust". When David Bowie passed away, they changed the title. The original cover would have stayed the same. jD notes he cannot imagine this collection of songs under that name. Gord Downie solo news: announced during the recording of this episode - a new double album, "Away Is Mine", ten songs in electric and acoustic versions. Josh Finlayson asked for the acoustic takes as a memento. Gord was recording this in July 2017 - three months before he passed. "Getting the shit done for us. Colossal output." Fully & Completely: Redux Man Machine Poem tthpods.com 3 Sports: 2016 Stanley Cup (Penguins over Sharks, Metallica sang the anthem), Grey Cup upset (Ottawa over Calgary in OT), Kyle Lowry at Momofuku, salt-and-vinegar chips, a bootleg DVD incident that nearly ended a marriage before it started. SEO Keywords (Platform Use) Primary: The Tragically Hip, Gord Downie, Man Machine Poem album, Tragically Hip Podcast, The Tragically Hip Podcast Series, Canadian rock podcast Secondary: Fully & Completely Redux, Man Machine Poem review, Tragically Hip discography, Gord Downie legacy, Tragically Hip 2016 album, Kevin Drew, Dave Hamelin Long-tail: Man Machine Poem track by track, Tired as Fuck Tragically Hip, In Sarnia Tragically Hip, what is Man Machine Poem about, Gord Downie final album Away Is Mine (Platform Format) Fully & Completely: Redux - Man Machine Poem Meta description (150–160 characters): jD and Greg LeGros go track by track through 'Man Machine Poem' - the Tragically Hip's final album, released June 2016, produced by Kevin Drew and Dave Hamelin. • Listen to the full episode at home.tthpods.com • Subscribe to Yer Letter - the monthly newsletter from jD - at subscribe.tthpods.com • Join the community at community.tthpods.com Closing "Man Machine Poem" arrived in the worst possible context and still managed to be exactly what it needed to be. jD and Greg land there, eventually, after all the bees and all the detours and all the gut-punch lyrics. The final Hip album deserved a final Fully & Completely episode that matched its weight. This one does. Fully & Completely is part of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series. Subscribe, share, rate, and review at home.tthpods.com. Email: jd@tthpods.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip Top Forty Countdown: Song Thirty-Four - Tyler from Etobicoke | 18 juin 2026 | 00:57:29 | |
The Tragically Hip Top Forty Countdown: Song Thirty-Four – Tyler from Etobicoke Hey, it’s jD, and this week I’m joined by Tyler from Etobicoke — a Hip historian with a well-worn cassette copy of Road Apples and a tale or two from the Phantom Power tour in upstate New York (plus a Barry Manilow origin story we didn’t see coming). Tyler’s Hipstory is a slow burn that turned into a full-blown obsession somewhere between Cheapies Records, a GO bus, and a shitty hotel in Albany. We trace his path from summer school soundtracks and Tom Petty tapes to finally seeing The Hip live in ’98 — and we get into the bittersweet reality of missing out on shows you wish you’d seen while still holding deep reverence for the ones you did. This week’s song gives us the perfect excuse to dive into We Are the Same, the “Bob Rock era,” and what it means to wrestle with a band’s evolution — especially when that band means as much to you as this one. Tyler brings a literary, layered read to a song that’s not just long in runtime but rich in emotional nuance. If you’ve ever tried to parse your way through The Depression Suite or wanted to scream “don’t you want to see how it ends?” into the void, this one’s for you. We talk fandom gaps, rediscovery, studio tensions, and Gord’s poetic range — and somewhere along the way, we start to unpack how music helps us process the messiness of growing older. Also: Opiated love, Rochester weirdness, and one surreal morning-after sighting of The Watchmen at a budget hotel breakfast. 🎙️ Next week: It’s Greg from Toronto — a Fully & Completely co-host and long-time Hip podcaster who knows his shit and never skimps on a good anecdote. Don’t miss it. Tyler from Etobicoke is a regular voice on the Toronto Mike podcast’s quarterly FOTM Cast and a lifelong music nerd with a soft spot for The Hip and a sense of humor that lands somewhere between dad joke and deep cut. He’s been to half a dozen Hip shows, including a fateful night in Albany where Gord stopped the encore mid-song to protect the crowd — “Enough tomfoolery,” he said, and walked off. Legendary. 🎙️ Drop your hot take: castfeedback.com/tthtop40 📧 Send your Hipstory: tthtop40@gmail.com 💸 Support & join the membersHIP: buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40 Listen on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube | dewvre.com/tthtop40 Follow us: Instagram: @tthtop40 Join the group: facebook.com/groups/tthtop40 This countdown is raising $25K for the ALS Society of Canada in memory of our friend Matt Rona. Every donation helps. Support the cause and join the community at buymeacoffee.com/tthtop40. Transcript follows below. The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown Artist: jD Year: 2025 Transcript [0:00] A member of the DATC Media family. Previously on the Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown. It is the second track and fifth single from the 1992 masterpiece, Fully Completely. Bill from Kingston, we are talking about looking for a place to happen. What are your initial thoughts about this song? A little late to the party, falling in love with this track. It wasn't the week it was released. It might have been years later. Where, and this is the beautiful thing about the Hips catalog, you know, good luck picking your 10 favorite hip songs. Right. Problem with that is it changes, constantly changes. There are new songs that you, you know, I'm on a pigeon camera kick right now. And to me, it's one of the greatest songs they've ever done. But it didn't really register the first time I heard it. It wasn't until years later. And this is the beautiful thing about their catalog. Like I said, is you catch moments of brilliance in every song. [0:56] Music. [1:04] Hey, it's JD here, and I'm ready to go. The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown is now underway. Week over week, we're going to count down the 40 essential tracks by the hip that you selected with your very own top 20 ballots. I then tabulated the results using an abacus and a Pentium III- powered Malarkey Wagon. You should also meet Malachi, the Malarkey Wagon's newest feature, AI. How will your favorite song fare in the rankings? You'll need to tune in every week to find out. So there's that. This week I'm joined by the Tragically Hip superfan, Tyler from Etobicoke. How the hell are you doing on this haptastic day, mister? I am doing well. It is good to be with you. Thank you for having me on. Thank you for doing this. You do all the heavy lifting here. This is a breeze for me. I love these podcasts. I am ready to lift some heavy things. All right. Enormous things, in fact. Enormous things. Oh, perfect. Well, let's start at the start. Take me through your Tragically Hip origin story or your hip story. Sure. Yeah. So I think the first song I ever heard by the hip was New Orleans is Sinking. I think it was being played on much music. I was at my friend Dave Froder's house in Stony Creek, Ontario. Beautiful Stony Creek, Ontario. file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 1 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM [2:31] And I remember him being very excited about it and watching it with him and thinking, yeah, that's cool. But it didn't really stick with me. I didn't immediately run to Sam's and pick up up to here. I was just like, yeah, that's a cool song. And then I just kind of forgot about it. Um, it didn't, the hip didn't really connect with me until the summer of 1991. Uh, I was, uh, attending summer school, my, my everlasting shame, uh, cause I failed grade 12 math. I was not a good math student. Uh, and so I was taking the go bus in from Burlington every day to attend Scott Park high school, right by Iverwind stadium, the, the, the year departed Iverwind stadium. Scott Park's not there anymore It's been leveled Probably for the best. [3:21] And one day after Summer school I was downtown Hamilton And I was in Cheapies Records and Tape Also I remember Cheapies The Dear Departed Cheapies Yeah And I bought I bought two albums I believe One of which was Into the Great Wide Open By Tom Petty, And the other was Road Apples On cassette Oh boy. [3:46] Yeah uh and so i remember sitting on the go bus and popping in road apples and just being absolutely riveted um and i listened to the the petty album a fair bit but i listened to road apples every morning on the way in every afternoon on the way home i could not get enough of it uh and from that on i was i was hooked so what prompted you to make that purchase i honestly don't remember um okay i i i don't know if it was a whim or if if i'd been talking about it with my friends but whatever it was um i i grabbed it and i never looked back yeah it was the first cd i ever bought is that right yeah and i didn't even have a cd player yet i knew i knew i was i knew i was getting one and i knew what i wanted to christen the cd player with and it was the tragic that's that's an excellent choice uh my i'm i'm sad to say that the first cda i ever owned was a compilation uh i believe it was a columbia records compilation called hard and heavy which had uh among other things uh frankenstein by the edward winter group it had uh uh i think ted nugent there's a ted nugent song on there might have been cat scratch fever um so that was the first cd i didn't buy it i think somebody gave it to me with the cd player that i got for Christmas that year. Nice. Uh, yeah. Oh yeah. A classic. [5:10] Columbia house bringing back memories. Yes. So where do, where do we go from there? You, you spend a summer with road apples, uh, definitely a great summertime companion. Um, where do we go from there as we roll into the fall and grade 13, presumably? Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was actually going into grade 13. Uh, and you know, Road Apple stuck with me. [5:32] The next album I got obviously was Fully Completely, which was the next one that came out. I didn't get that. That was the first hip album I had on CD. My good friend Derek Ma gave that to me for Christmas in 92, I guess. Um, and the thing, the thing that I, that I regret constantly is that I file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 2 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM didn't see them live until 98. Um, I was not for whatever reason, I was not a big concert goer in my sort of late teens, early twenties. Um, it just, I just didn't go to concerts and I, and I don't for the life of me understand why. Cause I, I, I love concerts. I, I love them then. Uh, it just didn't, it didn't occur to me that it was a thing I could do. Like I was an only child, so I didn't have like the, the influence of a, of a sibling to say like, check out this music or sort of this show. Um, so it was kind of my own weird winding journey where I, I was sort of listening to my parents' music for the longest time. Like the first concert I ever went to was actually Barry Manilow. Get out of here. Oh, actually you said that in the chat the other day, didn't you? I did. Yeah. I was a huge Barry Manilow fan when I was six years old. I would like bring in Barry Manilow songs to show and tell and like lip sync to them. And it was, I should have been. Amazing. I should have been severely bullied as a child, but somehow I wasn't. But that voice, that voice kept the bullies at bay. Oh yeah, exactly. Exactly. [7:00] Yeah. So I, I, I didn't get a chance to see them until the Phantom Power Tour in 1998. Great record to see them on. Oh, it was, it was a fantastic tour. But, you know, I so I I cruised through many albums and, you know, I bought them the day they came out, day for night, Trouble at the Hen House, bought them, absorbed them immediately. [7:22] But it wasn't until 98 when I was working, I was in a relationship and a good friend of mine said, hey, the hip are playing in Albany, New York. So what do you think? We we take a road trip down there. Um, we got two other couples together. Uh, we got a shitty hotel in Albany that I recall being right next to the expressway. Like the cars were inches from the hotel room. Uh, and we saw them at, uh, the palace, I believe it was Thanksgiving weekend of 1998, uh, in Albany, New York. And it was a fantastic show. Uh, it was like a small ish theater. Like maybe, maybe if, you know, maybe a thousand seats, not, uh, not huge. Huge um and you know probably 80 to 90 percent canadians who had made the the trip down as as were uh many of those sort of new york state shows right um but it was fantastic i i recall uh, the gourd stopped the show right before the encore because somebody was crowd surfing and whacked their head on the edge of the stage. [8:32] So that was that. He was a great, he was a great lighthouse for that, for that front heroes of people. He always was looking out for them. Yeah, he really was. And, and yeah, he just was like, okay, that's enough. Tomfoolery. Good night, everybody. Uh, which I think probably the right call. I remember it being clearly, they did not do an encore. Damn. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was, I think they played 18 or 19 songs. I mean, I still loved it and felt like I, I got my money's worth. Um, but yeah, it was kind of a, kind of a shitty ending to a, to a great show. Any highlights you remember other than that low light? [9:11] Um, just, I mean, obviously just seeing the band in person was just mind, mind blowing for me file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 3 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM having, you know, listened to them for seven, seven years at that point, uh, them having been in my ears for, for that long and that consistently. Um you know and see like the the big songs like poets and and fireworks and and bob cajun were just you know they just sounded they were really at their peak i think on that tour um and it was it was a real experience for me the the watchman were the the opening band uh and they were fantastic as well um they they actually stayed at the same hotel as us so we saw them at breakfast the next morning, which was exciting. That's so wild. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They stayed at the shitty hotel. I'm sure the hip had slightly better accommodations in Albany. Yeah. I would hope so. I mean, Albany being the crown jewel of New York State. Oh, it's beautiful, especially in the fall. Are you being sincere? No, I'm not being sincere. Okay. Fair enough. I mean, Albany is, I have nothing bad to say about Albany. If anyone is listening from Albany, I have no beef with your town. It's a lovely place. That's right. Mimico will not be facing off against Albany anytime soon. That's right. That's right. Yes. [10:33] So where do we go from there? Once you see them live, does that break a floodgate and you start to see them live? A little bit. So yes, yes and no. So I saw them six times total. That's a great number. Yeah. It's pretty good. I mean, I, I curse myself for not having seen them at least twice that many times. Um, you know, I saw them after that, uh, Albany show, I saw them again. Uh, it was the same, it was still the Phantom Power Tour, uh, at the ACC in Toronto, uh, in February of 99. So it was the first. [11:03] The weekend that the ACC opened, there were two hip shows. Wow. Yeah. And then I think the Leafs played maybe the next night or something like that. I can't remember if I'm getting that right, if the Leafs played first and then there were hip shows or if it was vice versa, but it was the, they were the first shows at the ACC. They were definitely the first concert at the ACC. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know like you, whether or not it was, uh, before or after the Leafs game, but they were definitely the first band to play. Yeah. Yeah. That's special. So that was, yeah, that was great. That was great. Um, and then I saw them again on the music at work tour. I saw them in Rochester, New York. Uh, again, it was like this weird little. Massey, but they played Massey in Toronto for that. Yeah. I never saw them at Massey. Um, I, we were at this weird little, it was almost felt like a high school auditorium in Rochester. Uh, it was a very strange venue. Um, but it was a great show. You love your upstate New York venues. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It was the same friend, actually, who had suggested the Albany show. He just liked taking road trips to New York, I guess. [12:09] And then also on that tour, I saw them in Hamilton at Copts Coliseum. And I remember that show being extremely happy that they played Opiated from Up to Here, because I always loved file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 4 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM that song. I don't know that I ever heard them play that. I'll have to look it up on my set list. I don't think they played it that often, but that was definitely a highlight of that show. Oh, I love that song. yeah so do I so do I um and then after that cop show which was I believe spring of 2000, I didn't see them again until 2015 oh on the day for night tour yeah uh the fully completely the fully completely tour that's right that's right I said for night but I meant fully yeah um and I don't again I don't know why it's not like I fell out of love with the band uh you know I went through some stuff like I had a kid in there so that kind of uh kept me off concerts for a while, Um, I, I got divorced in there. So that also kind of kept me off concerts for a while. Um, but, uh, yeah, no, there, I, I just, I, I didn't see them. I think there was a time kind of maybe following we are the same in, in that sort of late 20s. [13:20] 2000s period where it's not that I didn't love the band, but I was certainly kind of exploring other musical options and, um, they were just kind of there for me. They weren't something I was like, yeah, like I got to go see them. Um, and again, I, you know, I do regret that because I think I missed, missed out on some, some excellent shows. Uh, but that's, you know, it's just the way it goes. Were you still buying records on the day they came out during that? I was, I bought every, every single one of them, um, the day they came out. Um, see, I don't know that I did. I don't know that I did after in violet light, uh, in between evolution. I did not for sure. Yeah. Um, yeah, I won't bore anybody with my, with my thing, but yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm pretty sure it was, it was all the way until, uh, Greg turned me on to now for plan a probably five years after it came out. Oh, really? So had you, had you sort of parted ways with the hip entirely during that period? Similar to you. It was a fallow period. Like it was just, you know, it was like, I listened to things here and there, but in no way was it the same as in my, in my early thirties and twenties and high school for that matter. Yeah. Like I was. [14:33] Yeah. And I think part of that is just, you know, the, the age and stage thing. Like when you're in your late teens, early twenties, you've got all the time in the world to, to go deep on, on music and, and bands that you love. And then as you get into your late twenties, early thirties, you start having, you know, career responsibilities family responsibilities and and the time you have to spend on kind of digging deep on music is is those times are few and far between, Now, there's an interesting confluence that has been revealed through the docu-series, and that is that the band themselves weren't that impressed or blown away by their output during that period. So you get that combined with the fact that the main cohort of their fans being Gen Xers were all going through that period at that time, give or take. And it did lead to an incredibly fallow period. Now, I know there are diehard hit fans that didn't waver and continued to see them and saw them hundreds of times, but that was not me, unfortunately. And yeah, I, like you, have regret. file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 5 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM [15:37] Yeah, no, exactly. But, you know, we all have to make choices and I don't regret the choices I made, but I do wish I had seen them a few more times in that period. And it's not like I don't like those albums. I like them very much. Um, but yeah, it was just the, the, the, the way the, the, the universe was, was working and speaking to me at that time. It just, uh, just wasn't happening. Tyler, I, I, I think for me, it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful mistake that I made and, you know, quote Gord, why search for perfection when you're making successful mistakes? Uh, and, and my successful mistakes were, you know, not listening to several records in the catalog at the time of, but the benefit of that is in my forties, I've got to explore all this music that I wasn't overly familiar with. And I've done that with, with you all through these podcasts. So it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, no, I mean, I, I think, I think we've all benefited from that. Um, certainly from, from hearing you and, and, and the various co-hosts that you've had on your, on your podcasts, uh, it's allowed us to kind of look back. [16:47] And maybe find some things that we didn't find the first time around, uh, and, and, and kind of re-examine our, our love of the early stuff too. So that's, uh, that's been really exciting for me. Oh, thanks. Yeah. Yeah. So, um. [17:03] So do you have like a go-to record at this point? Is there something that you'll put on like record-wise? It really varies. And I, and I still kind of go through periods where, yeah, I go through periods where I don't listen to the hip at all. And then I come back to them and I listen exclusively to the hip for a couple months at a time. It's kind of feast or famine that way. There are really, you know, probably five or six records that, that I would put on. On a regular basis day for night is probably the one that I, that I go to the most just because I love so many of the songs on that album. And it really, for me, kind of holds together as a, as a full statement, like an end to end, no skip classic album. [17:51] And it takes you back too, right? Oh yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like I was in university when that came out. There was just so much exciting stuff going on in my life. Uh and it was really yeah it really does take you back to to being 20 years old again um, but but yeah i could i could definitely make a case for at least half a dozen other albums and even the ones that don't make that case uh you know i still put on fairly regularly so it's they have a really spectacular catalog with you know i don't think there's a dud in it you know Even the EP, it's not something that I go back to often, but there are some really special songs on that as well. So they're a unique band in that way that you don't look at an album and say, oh man, that was a real dud. [18:42] No, I agree. Like even when I first listened to, we are the same, I thought it was very beige. And now I listened to it and I'm like, what was I thinking? What was I thinking? This album is rich. file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 6 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM [18:55] This album is, you know, but again, then watching the documentary and you hear that it's not even really like a band album, you know? [19:03] Um, yeah, that's troubling to me a little bit. it is it is it really it really kind of makes me reconsider those albums and again not in a negative way but it just helped me kind of understand why they sounded the way they did and and kind of what the why those songs came out in the way they did um you know but i i for me there's kind of a stopping period and i think one of the guys in the band i can't remember who even said it in the documentary that phantom power is kind of the end of the classic hip period right like yeah everything from from the ep up to phantom power is is kind of in that in that range and then that's right music it works still has elements of classic hip but they have started to go in a different direction it's around the same time as gorge's writing is writing his solo stuff so he's exploring some new areas um they bring in kate fenner and chris brown who as we learned from the documentary the band was not thrilled about um not that they they don't like kate and chris but it just changed the dynamic of the band um and then every album from then on is really a departure from from that original sound and i think a departure from the album previous there aren't really many through lines that that connect those those last albums maybe the the bob rock albums are a little bit more connected uh just sonically um but it's it's really interesting to to go back and look at those later period albums to see kind of where the band was at. [20:31] What their relationship was with Gord, what their relationship was with each other. And it's a really interesting exercise, especially now that we have seen the documentary and have the insight that the band provided us with to show us that maybe things weren't that great with the band. That was so crushing watching that because our whole lives we've grown up that these guys, they throw around the word brothers. And, and it's the perfect term really, because I guess I was just taking it in the positive sense the whole time, but with family, we do have conflict and, you know, um, and it's okay. You work through that conflict and you become stronger at home. [21:19] Yeah. And I mean, I, I think as the documentary showed the, their bond was strong enough that they were able to work through that stuff and, and kind of have it out. And, you know, Gord, Gord was, it's so funny because Gord on his own, his solo stuff, which I love, um, Gord would probably have, well, maybe not a hard time filling the horseshoe, but he would have a hard time filling Massey hall, let's say with, with just with a solo tour. Uh, whereas the band could fill the Rogers center, like Taylor Swift style, you know, like the, the. How about Rogers stadium though? Could they, could they sell out that? I bet they could if, if, you know, assuming it gets built, uh, we'll, we'll see. [22:04] Um, but where was I going with that? I guess, you know, we saw that the, the band dynamic file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 7 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM and Gord was kind of off on an island, um, because he was exploring his own stuff. He was working with other musicians, uh, and the rest of the guys in the band were like, well, Hey, what about us? You know, what, aren't we a band? Aren't we still doing this? Um, and, and it's, it really is something very, um, fascinating to, to look back and, and again, see those albums through that lens. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, definitely agree. Well, should we look at the song of the week through a different lens? Let's do it. All right. We'll be back right after this to talk about this week's song. Hey, this is Paul Langlois from the Tragically Hip saying hello. Now on with the countdown. 34. [22:53] Music. [32:23] That's right, today we're revealing a standout on The Hipp's 11th studio long play, We Are the Same. Today's song is the absolutely gorgeous, The Depression Suite. Tyler from Etobicoke, what are your initial thoughts about this song when you first heard it? [32:44] Yeah, so, I mean, this album, We Are the Same, is such an interesting part of their catalog. You know, we talked about the Bob Rock albums a little bit in the previous segment. And, you know, sonically, it's a very, you can hear the hallmarks of Bob Rock if you've heard any other Bob Rock albums that he's produced. There are certain hallmarks that you can hear the way the drums are tuned, the way the mix is done, where the focus is at any particular time. Uh and so those out those two albums um world container and and we are the same really kind of stick out a little bit in the catalog as being separate from everything else and kind of their own little chapter um we are the same as probably my favorite late period album um there are just so many songs on it that that stand out for me and i think part of it is the the lyrics that that gourd's writing at that time they're very personal they're very introspective uh and they really kind of resonate with me i'm i'm very much a lyrics guy when i listen to music and and those, songs those lyrics really connected with me the the first time i i heard the album and i think yeah and and the depression suite for for me is just such a beautifully crafted. [34:12] Multi-part story. [34:15] That has probably the broadest scope of any Tragically Hip song. And we'll get into some of the intricacies of that in a minute. But the first time I heard it, I think it really, It really almost, it startled me because it was so different from anything else the band had done to that point. And since really, there's nothing else like it in the catalog. [34:41] And so I remember hearing it and I remember thinking, man, that is, I wasn't sure if I liked it, but it really caught my ear as something very, very different. Yeah yeah i i think so too um just it's file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 8 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM the longest song in the catalog yeah so right right away it stands out just you know before you even put the needle on the record you're looking at the liner notes and you're like wow nine minutes or eight minutes and change this is uh this is substantial i wonder what is contained within and then you lift the lid and you get all those, uh, uh, for lack of a better word, goodies. What do you think of, um, those segments in the song, the way it's broken down and, uh, you know, that good stuff. Yeah, no, it's again, very, uh, very unique composition of the song and, and, you know, reading about it, um, Bob Rock had suggested they take three different songs that, that were sort of on the table for the album and combine them into one. And according to Gord, Paul Langlois had suggested these particular song to be used. And there's three songs that make up the sweet. So the first part is called The Rock. The second part is called New Orleans World, which again, Gord loves going back to New Orleans. [36:07] And the third part is called Don't You Want to See How It Ends. Oh, my fire alarm is going off. Sorry. Oh, good timing. Give it one second. I don't know how long it's going to go off for. [36:19] That never happens. Do you remember where you were? Yeah, I do. Okay. You're talking about The Rock. Yeah. In New Orleans. In New Orleans. Yeah. Yeah. Breakdowns. Okay, it stopped. So. Okay. I don't know what that was. Yeah, weird. Okay. Should I just start that part over? If you would, please. Sure. Yeah, okay. Yeah, so. According to Gord, Paul Langlois had suggested these particular songs be the ones that they combine into this one song. The Rock is the song that they used for the first part. The second song was New Orleans World, which again Kurt loves going back. It's New Orleans references. The third part is Don't You Want to See How It Ends. And. [37:11] There is a through line that connects these songs. If Paul Langlois was thinking lyrically that these were the three songs that should fit together, he made an excellent choice. I agree. [37:24] Yeah. Lyrically, again, this album feels very, very intimate and introspective. Again, we know now that the band is going through some real struggles. I'm not sure how tuned into those struggles Gord was at the time, though, because he and Bob Rock seemed like they were sort of off on their own island doing their own thing. Literally, they're on Maui, right? Well, yeah, exactly. [37:48] And the rest of the band was kind of sitting there going, okay, what's going on with this album? So, you know, Gord's lyrics are very personal, very introspective. Uh and and gourd has also said that that bob rock he i think he he viewed bob rock almost as like a coach or a guru of of sorts um you know i think bob rock really pushed gourd uh lyrically i think he pushed him as a musician and a vocalist um but but again you know so i think those things really helped gourd and i i think they really i think the album benefits from it um but obviously the the band, uh, felt the impact file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 9 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM of that, uh, that isolation. Um, the interesting thing also is that they only ever played it, uh, in concert on that. We are the same tour in 2009. Uh, so I think they played it like 82 times, but only in 2009, never again. Um, wild. Yeah. Yeah. You would think a song like this would have made its way back into the catalog, at least even for the, the, um, the farewell tour, but, uh, yeah, Only, only in 2009. Wow. Um, so I wonder, I wonder. [39:05] It just makes you wonder, the alternate universe where, you know, glioblastoma isn't a thing, and Gord is still around, it just makes you wonder how many of these songs would have become live staples or live classics, you know, over the years that it takes to marinate, you know? [39:26] Yeah i i agree with you um and i think this is this is one that that would have made its way back around um just because i think there is a segment of the fan base that that really, gravitates to this song and and and sees it as something special i think there are a lot of hip fans that probably hate this song because it's very very different from anything else that uh that the hip has has done uh and it's also very long and some people just don't like long songs which fair enough well it could come off as indulgent i suppose but it's so earnest that it it's hot yeah exactly exactly the the the way that that gourd kind of spins this tale of i think it's a tale of depression i mean the the title says it but um the scale of the song is really i think what sticks with me um it's it's such a grand sweeping tale that i i i couldn't help but be drawn into it yeah you do become i mean it's long enough that it envelops you like a blanket uh you can wrap yourself in it and really get caught up in the lyrics i know as somebody who struggles with mental health um i found myself listening to it and being a lyrics guy as well uh listening to it and really um really digging in on those lyrics and having them uh resonate in my bones you know. [40:50] Yeah. And it's a song that I go back to if I'm, if I'm having kind of a hard time, um, you know, I like to not necessarily wallow in it, but I like to hear songs that are kind of speaking to me and how I'm feeling in that moment. And, and this is certainly one that I go to when, uh, when I'm not feeling my best. [41:09] Oh wow yeah i can i can see that there's an emotional through line in the song as well that it almost would take you through a spectrum of emotions through the song like from feeling sad and melancholy to ultimately being sort of you know the the final chorus don't you want to see how it ends is somewhat uplifting the way it's the way it's sung right that's exactly how i see it too I think it's a tale of depression in three acts. I think it examines the feelings of depression through the lens of some very common human reactions to the experience of depression. I think it starts at a place of avoidance. It moves to a place of kind of stoicism and quiet reflection. And then it ends on kind of a note of hope and a little bit of a glimmer of light for the future. Um, which is, which is why by the file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 10 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM end of it, I feel, I, I feel good about things again because, uh, you know, it's, it's, I've been able to kind of sit in my negative feelings for a while. And then by the end kind of draws out the hopeful side. Oh, that's lovely. I think that's absolutely fucking great. Yeah. [42:23] So is there anything else you want to say about the depression? Sweet Tyler. Well, yeah, there are a few things I'd like to say about it. Please, please do. You know, yeah, I wanted to dig in a little bit on those three topics because I think, I think they're really important to, to examine. Um, so act one for me, the rock, um, it's again about avoidance. It's someone, the narrator is kind of paralyzed, feeling paralyzed by their depression and just kind of wants to avoid everything. You know, they're, they're burying their head in the, in the pillow. Um, they're finding some comfort in being kind of locked away in their, in their bed. Um, and he's hearing some sounds in the environment that to him feel like empathy, like, you know, are you going through something? He, the, the sound of the siren, the sound of the, of, of the, the, the bustle outside, what he's hearing from that is, are you going through something? And so he's, he's feeling like the world, even though he's feeling kind of isolated and depressed and wanting to avoid everything and everyone. He's feeling some empathy from his environment and it causes him to maybe sort of reach out to someone else in his life, a loved one to ask them the same question. Are you going through something? [43:38] Whoa. Yeah. Okay. I like that. I like that idea of the, of the sounds representing the question. Are you going through something? I think that's a really astute observation, Tyler from Etobicoke. Nice. Thank you. See, this is me, uh, this is me going back to my English student roots and, uh, you know, let's, let's do a really close read on this poem and tell me, you know, tell me what it's about. Let's write an essay about it. Um, so this is, this was kind of the exercise I went through. Um, so that takes us to act two. Yeah, Act 2, New Orleans World. So again, Gord has gone back to New Orleans so many times. Obviously, New Orleans is sinking. If New Orleans is beat, the band, they didn't start out in New Orleans, but they recorded some of their early work there. And it's clearly an important place for Gord. It's a place with a lot of mystique, a lot of history. But he's also put the narrator of this section in a very boring setting. And the way I read the lyrics, it seems like he's a worker in a windowless casino or some kind of environment like that. Like it's very boring, very sterile. [44:51] But as he's going through this job, he's dreaming. He's thinking about what else is there in the world? What else is there out there for him? Uh and i think what that thing is for this this narrator is being a songwriter and the the question that he poses to himself you know what it i think it's the song or the question that that every dreamer asks themselves is what if this song means file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 11 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM nothing like what if i do this what if i follow my dream and it has zero impact what if nobody cares or nobody listens so it's he's going about his work-a-day job and dreaming, but at the same time thinking, well, maybe I shouldn't because maybe it'll just end up being nothing. That sounds remarkably similar to somebody who might be procrastinating and. Absolutely. And I mean that deep procrastination that comes with depression and anxiety. I don't necessarily mean, oh, I should do this later. But, uh, you know, the, the narrator of this song is really, um, that, that's really powerful to, to, to think of them as putting something off that they're dreaming about. [46:06] Because it might not mean anything. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's kind of the fear of success and the fear of failure all wrapped up in one. And, and you're exactly right. Like, I think anyone who has struggled with those feelings of depression or procrastination has gone through that thinking, well, you know, I could do this, but what would be the point? You know, what, what if I do this? What if I invest all this emotional energy in it? And it's, it just falls flat in its face. [46:34] Okay we're good now because you finished the thought i don't know why this is normally this is on wednesdays oh really i don't yeah they do what the last wednesday of the month but this is not even close to that okay it just went once again i don't know what's happening so this takes this this was at the end of act two oh that's the end of act three now okay yeah so let's go let's go to, uh, the, the final act act three, where I'm really curious to see how you put this together because there's a couple of phrases in this and this one that throw me right off the trail. Yeah. There, there is some, uh, some ambiguity, let's say in, in lyrics in this final section. Uh, and I, I spent a long time thinking about it and, and trying to, to make sense of it. And I have a theory, but there's some of it that's just like over my head and I can't even get into Gord's psyche for this stuff. But I think in this third act, our narrator, and I'm not sure if this is the same narrator through all three pieces or if it's three different people. I don't think it matters that much. I think it's three vignettes that could be connected, certainly connected emotionally. But our narrator in this third act is a frontiersman. And it seems like he's in Fort McMurray, or as he refers to it, Florida without the ocean. [48:03] And he's pondering the Canadian dream, moving somewhere that's full of promise, establishing himself, being the man on the moon, finding his little slice of heaven. Um, but it's a struggle between settling for that or continuing to push for, for something more. Um, and the question that he repeats over and over is, don't you want to see how it ends? Which to me feels like he's asking himself, shouldn't I keep going? Shouldn't I keep pushing and not settle for this? Shouldn't, isn't there more than this? And for me, this part of the song is about that feeling of when you're coming out of a feeling of depression and you find a little bit of hope, a glimmer of light in a choice. And you're able to find the courage to bet on yourself and to feel comfortable in your ability file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 12 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM to move forward. And I think it's a really powerful message. And it's something, again, that when I'm feeling down and I listen to this song, this is what kind of pulls me out and says, yeah, you know what, I can do this. I can push myself forward. I don't have to be stuck here in this mire. I have the ability to move past this. [49:20] I really appreciate the optimism in your reading of that final. Because it could be, you know, you could read it very, um, sadly, I suppose, you know, like it could be like that this person is, you know, ready to take their life by suicide, uh, ready to die by suicide. And, you know, they're having that inner monologue. Don't you want to see how it ends? But I really liked the optimism in, in your telling of it, because it does tie into that feeling that we all have when we listen to the song of hopefulness yeah and i think i think the first several times that i listened to it that that negative reading of you know i think maybe he's considering killing himself um is how i saw it but the more i i kind of listen to it and and look deeper into the lyrics i think it is a message of of optimism and and hope um you know And I was looking also for literary inspiration for this part of the song because of the three segments, this feels the most literary. And as we know, Gord drew a lot of inspiration from literature and poetry. [50:34] He makes a reference to Farley Mowat, Lost in the Barrens. And he talks about Athabasca. And Athabasca is a place in Alberta. It's south of Fort McMurray, but there's Lake Athabasca. Uh, and it's, it's been used in, uh, writing in particular by a Canadian poet named Robert service. Uh, and he has a poem called the man from Athabasca. Uh, and he doesn't, Gord sometimes would, would draw almost verbatim from poetry. He doesn't do that here, but there is the, the last verse of the man from Athabasca kind of speaks to, I think what Gord's going for here. So I'll just, I'll read that last verse. For I've had my fill of fighting, and I've seen a nation scattered, and an army swung to slaughter, and a river red with gore, and a city all a smolder, and, as if it really mattered, for the lake is yonder dreaming, and my cabin's on the shore, and the dogs are leaping madly, and the wife is singing gladly, and I'll rest in Athabasca, and I'll leave it nevermore. [51:39] So i think you know i don't know if he was if that was on gord's mind when he wrote this it certainly wouldn't surprise me but i think for the narrator the idea of athabasca is settling as it is in in that poem these people were literally and that when i say these people i mean people who were sort of original pioneers and settlers out west but even the people now who who have gone into Fort McMurray to, to kind of work in the, in the oil fields. You know, these people are literally settlers. Um, and he's pondering the cost of staying in place versus seeing how it ends and pushing forward. Um, so I, you know, again, I don't know if there's, there's a connection to that poem, but, but I found something kind of very, um, you know, the, the, the settling side of things in that poem file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 13 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM versus the, the pushing forward that Gord speaks of. Yeah i like the gordian read of that that is uh that is uh very well done thank you gordian read. [52:41] Anything else about um the depression suite this this gem of a fucking song uh Uh, it, and by all rights, it shouldn't be, it comes from this record that is, you know, in some ways, uh, divisive among the Tragically It fans. [53:04] Um, it's, it's Bob rock. It's got, you know, gang vocals. It's got strings. It's got, there's just a lot of stuff that should make it not work. And yet it works beautifully. It does. It does. Yeah. I love the song very much. Um, and I think, and we talk about the Bob rock sound. I don't even really particularly like the Bob rock sound. It, to me, it sounds a little over engineered, uh, it does. It seems sterile sometimes. Yeah. Sterile. Um, so I, you know, we can't do this, but it would be interesting to hear what this album would have sounded like with a different producer. Um, but obviously that, that opens up a whole other can of worms of would we even have gotten in the song with another producer and probably not. I wish they had worked with Steve Berlin for the remaining, remaining part of their career, because it seems like he really understood them and got a lot out of them. I, I agree. I agree. [54:00] Um, and yeah, you, you, you mentioned the, the gang vocals and, and one of the things in the documentary again, that, that, uh, they talked about was the fact that Gordon Bob are off doing their thing on Maui. Uh, and then they brought in, uh, Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair to do vocals, I think on two or three songs. And I assume this was one of them because you can hear them on the third act doing just, I think, personally, some of their most beautiful background vocals. Just really gorgeous, those ah-ahs in the chords. [54:36] Um but you know clearly they were going through something uh because you know they they were not sure what what their involvement in the album was really going to be beyond you know just playing on the songs it certainly was less than than it would have been on on any of their previous albums so well St. Clair's disdain is palpable in the dark when he says I've never been I've never been fired from a job until now and it's from my own fucking band exactly yeah oh yeah yeah but uh yeah so i don't know if it's my favorite hip salt uh there are certainly others that i probably go to more often or would would mention before i mentioned this one but it's up there uh and it's probably the one that i've spent the most time thinking about trying to to kind of peel apart and understand, And it's really just the scope of it. It's such a different, grand, unique set of stories or vignettes that just, I think, tie together so beautifully. So it's one that I will always love. Well put. Tyler from Etobicoke, do you have anything you would like to plug? file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 14 of 15The Tragically Hip Top 40 Countdown 2025-05-23, 6:28 PM [55:48] Do I have anything I'd like to plug? Not really. Oh, you know, a quarterly podcast. Yeah, quarterly. I appear on the Toronto Mike podcast with my good friend Cam Gordon and Toronto Mike. And we we do a thing called FOTM cast, which is a look back at the previous quarter of shows of the Toronto Mike podcast. So if you are a listener of Toronto, my podcast, I recommend that you check out FOTM cast. If you're not, uh, I would probably not start with FOTM cast because it's, uh, it's pretty meta and you probably will listen to five minutes of it and say, what the hell is this? So, uh, anyway, yeah. Quarterly, uh, check it out. Thanks so much, Tyler. And that's what I've got for you today on this, the seventh episode of the tragically hip top 40 countdown as usual subscribe share rate and review the podcast tell your friends let them in on the fun thanks for stopping by pick up your shit. [56:53] Thanks for listening to the tragically hip top 40 countdown to email us send an email to tth top 40 at gmail.com we're social find us on all the socials at tth top 40. [57:22] Podcasts and such. file:///Users/jd/Desktop/TTHTop40%20-%20607.html Page 15 of 15 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: Yawning or Snarling | 15 juin 2026 | 00:55:34 | |
One night in El Paso, the cops go into the crowd - and somehow, 32 years later, we're still unpacking what that means. This week on The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream, the shuffle landed on 'Yawning or Snarling' from "Day for Night" - and it pulled 76% Love It in the community poll. Add in the Like Its and you're sitting at 95%. Not bad for track four on a record that doesn't exactly hand you easy entry points. jD was joined by the most international panel the show has ever assembled: Andy from St. Thomas, Glynn from Melbourne, and Thomas from Oxford - who tuned in at 1 a.m. on his birthday, which is exactly the kind of dedication this community runs on. The conversation went deep. Bass as MVP. The panning of that slide guitar in headphones. The way Gord built entire worlds by changing two words between verses - glaring to throbbing, day to night - and what that does to the light in El Paso, literally and otherwise. Glynn brought a photographer's eye to 'the bladder of light' and the science of bat sonar. Thomas picked up his guitar mid-episode to demonstrate what makes those interplaying guitar parts so quietly unusual. Andy connected the border tension of early 90s El Paso to the cop-into-crowd imagery and made it land differently than it did before. And the chat surfaced a connection between this bass line and REM's 'Undertow' that is frankly hard to unhear. Oh, and the wheel spin at the end? Next week we're talking 'Bobcaygeon.' At the start of summer. So there's that. About the Panelists Andy from St. Thomas is a Tragically Hip fan whose entry into 'Yawning or Snarling' was sonic first - the vibe of "Day for Night" as a full atmospheric world - before digging into the lyric's snapshots of border tension and hollow men making purchases. Glynn from Melbourne is a travel photographer and educator who leads international photo tours through his company Creative Photo Workshops (creativephotoworkshops.com.au). His visual brain is genuinely one of the great instruments for decoding a Gord Downie lyric. He came to 'Yawning or Snarling' bass-first, and he left having delivered the definitive explanation of Club 101 in El Paso. Find him on Instagram and Facebook. Thomas from Oxford has a YouTube channel (Tommy KL) and a SoundCloud under his name, Thomas De Bock, featuring three Hip covers - including a recording of 'Cordelia' that predates the pandemic. He also plays guitar, and he used it. His breakdown of the interplay between the guitars - and why the slightly-off notes are the whole point - is the kind of thing that makes you want to listen to the song again the second it's done. Tale of the Tape: 'Yawning or Snarling'
Resources & References
Listen & Connect New episodes drop every Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. Find the full show at home.tthpods.com. Join the community at community.tthpods.com. Subscribe to Yer Letter at subscribe.tthpods.com. Email jD directly at jd@tthpods.com. Follow on Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods Next week: 'Bobcaygeon.' The wheel has spoken. See you Wednesday. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||
| Are they big school buses? (In Violet Light) | 11 juin 2026 | 01:41:30 | |
jD, Pete, and Tim are back and this week they're listening to the 2002 release In Violet Light. Transcript Track 1: [0:00] As I sit at my computer to write this introduction, I've really had to rack. [0:05] My brain for anything specific about In Violet Light. It has nothing to do with the brilliance of the record, but I had pretty much left the missionary zeal phase of my hip fandom and was now, sadly, just a casual. Even something as cool as The Hip Club, which was included with the CD release on the June 11th, 2002 CD didn't suck me in, and it's a damn shame too. When I see you out there with cards still in your wallet, I'm jealous and forlorn. [0:40] Something that was so essential in my life was now being left behind because I was focused on the lo-fi experience of bands like Pavement, Silver Jews, Guided by Voices, andSebadell. I did, however, make it out for the In Violet Light summer tour at the then Molson Amphitheater and was blown away by the new songs I heard live. Lake Fever, Silver Jet, The Dark Knuck, they all rocked live. But there was one song that captured my attention and bled through all the noise I was experiencing at the time. It's a song that I still hold close to my heart today, and it's remained a beacon, like a lighthouse leading a lost vessel homeward in more recent years. It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken is a masterpiece in the hip-souvra. Everything just works, and it straight fucking cooks as an ominous-sounding live jam. [1:40] I was working at Starbucks downtown when a barista, now my wife, asked me what I thought of the new album and particularly that song. I don't have the words for it, I told her. She agreed. This was supercharged hip at its best. Now it's time for Pete and Tim to experience A Heron Outside in Violet Light. They both were floored with music at work, so IVL has to be a slam dunk, right? Have to wait and see on this episode of Getting Hip to the Hip. Track 4: [2:37] All right, so welcome back to Getting Hip to the Hip, I'm your host JD and every week we talk about a Tragically Hip record with two budding fans of the Tragically Hip butformerly completely ignorant of the existence of the band and I don't mean I mean ignorant in the dictionary definition you guys are both classy gentlemen but you just it had never it hadnever made it to your ears before. So, we've got Tim and we've got Pete, and we're doing In Violet Light this week. Tim, Pete, how you doing? Hey, guys. How's it going? It's going. It's good. We are back for another week. I'm just, you know, I'm just so pleased that somebody's listening to this. I'm just sure of it, right? Yeah. Well, we're selling tickets for the finale event. We can announce that Tragically cover band 50 Mission are going to be playing, we're gonna have local comedian Pete Van Dyke there, there's gonna be some silent auction items, one ofwhich was donated to us by the Tragically Hip themselves, which is fucking spectacular we also have some items coming to us from David Bustito, so I'm real excited about that becausehe was their official tour photographer for a long time I'd be Curious to see what he what he might what he might donate excellent. [4:07] So yeah, that's pretty I was thinking this week if we make it to the end of this podcast like get through all the records Without a like a seriously like hardcore diehard to actually hitfam you're killing Tim or I And I think we've it's been a success But yeah, it won't happen. Hopefully it won't happen after today's recording. There may be like an Oswald Jack Ruby incident at the finale. [4:38] But you guys don't have guns in Canada, so that's good. I had already plotted... It's really hard though. Oh God. I had already plotted, you know, a disguise for the event, so it's not really me that's there. No, I'm not Pete. If you see somebody with a goatee and a mustache and another mustache on top of that mustache, that's probably Tim Lydon Maybe two mullets The glasses with the nose and themustache Yeah, so let's start off like we always do and get a sense of how you guys took in this record Where you did your listening? Did it heighten or expand that experience? All that good shit. [5:26] I went into it right away. I mean, after our last pod recording, I kind of jumped right into it. In Violet Light because I was excited and wanted to keep the momentum going and the work going and I listened to it all over the place. I was, well, the first listen was cleaning out the garage and I was driving and I was at physical therapy for a portion on the train headed to Seattle. It was, I was kind of all over the place listening to this and I gotta say it was a more fragmented listen than past albums in that I had a hard time. I know about you, Pete, you might be the opposite of a feeling, but I had a hard time going from first song to last song and just listening to it straight through. It was because of a myriadof reasons, but sometimes because of the music. Yeah, sometimes because of the music. Huh. You know, I mean, I hear what you're saying, Tim. For me, I too jumped right into this one immediately after we finished, like, maybe even that night, finished the recording or the very next day. As is with everything with this band, I started to listen and was just wildly unimpressed. [6:48] And then just, it like, as the time went on, I just was like, so wrong and like, I, I mean, literally, I'm glad I've, I've been saving my notes now in my like notes section of my computerbecause I didn't save the notes from the first one, because they just now have gotten longer and longer and longer. And like, by the time we get to the final record, it's going to be a Dostoyevsky novel, dude. [7:18] It's just super, yeah, it's ridiculous, man. I enjoyed the shit out of this record. I would say my listening places, mistake, I started at the computer, which is maybe why I was unimpressed, but I'm just going to say this, there's nothing better than driving in my car,listening to this record. I did a lot of driving this last week, a lot of driving, and this record just, especially on the sound system I have in my car, I think that I'm a... Premium premium audio system in my car. Yeah. [8:00] You know laugh while you want to Just I love it And I think it's my laugh is like 96% joy because you know for all of us Out there and in the interwebs land listening to this It's somedude named Pete He's got, you know blonde hair and blue eyes and he's from California and he lives in fucking Spain driving around in some cool car Which I don't know what it is. So don't tell me No, you don't some cool car with some cool sound system this dude from LA gets a drive around fucking Spain And I'm you know at time of recording While we'repromoting our event coming up. It's you know, just fucking snowed 11 inches in Portland in 24 hours and it was the most snow in 24 hours since 1943. And here's Pete just driving around, do, do, do, do, do. It's not snowing. It's snowed. It snowed this weekend, too, and where I was at. Oh, wow. Envy and joy. Envy and joy. OK, I'll take it. Yeah. I'll take it. Yeah. So. J.D., what do you think? Yeah, J.D. This was a record. This was the last record that I saw a tour for until the last record. [9:15] So I was starting to like wind down my extreme, like this is my number one band fandom. And if you'll note the year, you guys will recognize that's when, you know, like I found pavement and I just was getting caught up. Like, you know, the 2000s for me were getting caught up in everything that I'd missed in the 90s for singularly listening to the Tragically Hip. And of course, a bunch of other stuff. So I resented that a little bit, but when Greg and I were doing the podcast and I came back to this record, it was like, what were you thinking? What blows my mind is that this is 2002. [10:04] This means they've released six records in less than 10 years and they keep getting better, like they keep getting stronger or different at the very least. And I, I just don't understand how they were able to do that. You know, I just don't. Aye, aye. I second that emotion, Smokey, certainly. I have a feeling, I don't know what your all music rating you saw was. I didn't look that up. But I feel that at this point, the past few albums and this one have been highly influenced by who's helping on the production side. You know, this one we had Hugh Pagum. [10:53] Yeah. who did police albums and XTC and split ends and, you know, albums with beautiful sound. He invented gated drumming. The sound of drums in the 80s. Think of In the Air Tonight, the drum sound. [11:13] He invented that sound. And that sound is so prevalent in like, Like, you know, especially like, well, like highly glossed 80s, you know, artists, right? They were, they were all playing with that stuff. And there's... Sorry, go ahead. No, no, no. I was just gonna, it's crazy you mentioned the drums just because, and I didn't hear the gated sound in this, but in a lot of my notes, I mentioned the drums, the sound of the drums in thisparticular record are they really, really, really stand out, really stand up. Yeah. For a drummer that's not flashy, you know what I mean? Right. Not flashy at all. He's so, and this is going to sound like I'm damning with faint praise, but I'm not, when I say he's so competent, I just mean workman like, you know, Johnny Fayeis just workman. Like it's, it's just, he knows what the song needs and he goes in there and gets it done and that's what you get, you know, but he, he really, In my opinion, he rises above on this. He's a bit of the cream that comes to the top on this record, man, for a lot of reasons, but we'll get into it in the songs. I might agree with that, but just to circle back, I think that the production side of this one. It's more. It feels less. [12:32] Band driven and more like who produced this album. That's how it felt to me and Sometimes that that feels awesome with sometimes that is awesome. And sometimes it's like whoa. Yeah, okay That's the that's the album that you tag him if I'm saying his name, right pageant pipe edge I'm happy on the hue pageant produced and in thatYou know, I felt this on this one. It's just to continue my food analogies It's like showing up at a restaurant and there's like there's you still got everybody in the kitchen But somebody else, you know kind of wrote themenu like it's like where'd that where'd our where'd our house cheeseburger go? You know, it's just missing and we have some something else. So this one felt a little different to me and I mentioned this the Pete a few days ago But even on the sound side, from my car to my headphones, everything, this album is fucking bright. It's as if somebody came into my equalizer and pumped up most the levels, especially mid to highs, because it's fucking bright. [13:39] So much that I was turning down my shit to make it more tolerable. It was over-the-top produced in on the sound finish side. It was different than the others different than yeah Well one last anecdote about Hugh Padgham That's sort of funny is Johnny Faye was of course a big Stewart Copeland fan. [14:07] So He ended up skipping his grade 13 exam one of his exams to go and buy a police record the day it came out. And I forget which record it is. [14:25] Oh man, you, God damn. Yeah, I'm not 100% certain what record it is. That's amazing. Yeah, so he was absolutely stoked to be working with this producer. And this was their first sort of, Like he says their first sort of get, you know, in terms of producers. So I wonder if they were performing and they just, they were performing for him. And they also were sort of like in reverence, just lifted their hands off the wheel and just said, you know, take us home. I don't know. That's crazy. You know, I swear this is going to be the last quick anecdote, but just cause you brought up the police. Do you guys both know that the record Synchronicity, which is easily my favorite police record, I had 32 different covers. [15:18] No, no, look, that's a fact. No, no, but some are more valuable than the others. So they did last time. So they actually produced all of them. No, they just the covers themselves. Yeah, different. Yeah, that's amazing. That is amazing. Yeah, they just they were like different pictures that they had taken. And they just made multiple different covers and put it out. And so some people have like, a blue and yellow stripes. Some people have the red, the yellow and the blue. Some people have more red. It's just really unique. I love that. Yeah. Random people. Just because we're talking about the blue. Cool factoid. Yeah, this album, just if I could keep going a little bit, it felt... [16:01] One of the words that came to mind was, and it's not, but it was like sophomoric or homecoming. Like, it felt like the band had gone on, you know, this... how many years are wetalking now? It's 2002, right? How many years are they in the game? 84. Yeah, so 618. That's a lot of years. And I feel like if you're a band and you're at it for that long, to me, you're going to have this kind of album that's going to come out. You're going to find a producer that's amazing or someone you've looked up to forever, and you're going to just go hit the go button with them. And that's kind of what this album turned out to be, to me, in my opinion. It feels like professional accomplished. [16:54] I'm really trying not to go to the word generic or standard TH, but some of it does feel that way. And then there's these little glimpses in there of Gord still doing his thing. The last album, if I could circle back to that like, There's no Tiger the Lion on this album for me. That's kind of my statement. Like the music at work, when I hit Tiger the Lion, it was like, oh shit, what is this song? And I was really searching for that on In Violet Light, and it was hard to come up with that. It was hard to get there. Oh, wow. I've got two Tiger the Lions on this record, and they're fucking back to back. Ha, ha, ha. Ooh, man, I'm interested to hear what these are, too. Let's go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Alright, well let's go song by song then. Are you ready? Fuck yeah. I'm ready, man. What's the first song? Are you ready? [17:52] See, I was waiting for that though, I was waiting for that all week. That's in your notes, isn't it? It is in my notes. Say, ask JD, tell JD, no. [18:01] Dude, I'll take this one, Tim, just because I want to kick it off, man. I mean, what a fucking song to open up a record with. It's just, it's the band taking the fucking golf ball, putting the tee between their pointer and their middle fingers, sticking the fucking ground, and then looking back at you handing you theclub and going, so, are you ready? It's just fucking, the chorus is amazing. Johnny Faye's drums on this, I'll say this just off the top, but this is like many songs I heard his snare is so bright. Mm-hmm. His snare is so bright. It's a fucking bright out this It's yeah, it's just it's you could it's standout for sure The the cool way it starts with the guitars I think Paul Langlois, am Ipronouncing his name right finally? You nailed it. So Paul Langlois guitar He's playing like a like a dissonant note in there because when Rob Baker comes in with his little guitar licks he's not playing anything dissonant he's playing likea like a happy sort of major lick and it works great with what what Paul's playing but it's just it's just fucking Cool. [19:27] I have a halftone guitar lick, the solo. I love this. I just, I love this song. It just got me ready for the next shit to come. This is a plane taking off. And you know, we get Silverjet down the line, but it is a Silverjet just fucking going a thousand miles an hour up into the air right now. I fucking love it. What about, let's say you, Tim. You know, I thought it was a super starter also. [20:04] It reminded me, just the whole, are you ready? Reminded me right away of the English beat, are you ready to dance? Or are you ready to ska? There's like this old, that got covered a few times too. It's just Similar lyric that it just brought me back to which is always fun. I thought gourd sounded Like cleaner and brighter, of course, I'm gonna stop using that word in a minute Higher in tone like he sounds a little cleaner like almost He's really mastering histool Yeah Like also as if perhaps he you know Quit smoking for two weeks up until recording or something like there was just he was he was cleaner or less growly. At the same time, the song compositionally was like, pretty basic, let's get going and see, kind of see what's next. You know, it's not an embracer, it's a, let's put it in first gear and get this car moving down the road, you know. I have a question for you. What do you guys think of the first four lyrics, the first four lines of lyrics? Here the old whistle blowing, they're pulling the plug, Doug, we got to get going, they got our whole Doug. [21:24] I think this record's riddled with Gord Downie Canadianisms, all just chock full of it. It's a reference of something, shit I don't know, being an American who doesn't even live there.No, no, this isn't a Canadian one. This is just interesting. Lyrics to me that I just wondering like when I heard it I felt it was like self-referential like it was like you know like oh like they're we're done guys they were could be it they were startedfalling out of favor a little bit at this point just the diehards really started to cling on you know for the next two or three records. After this it's still like a giant cohort like a giant cohort. Yeah, like I mean they were still doing stadiums and things like that, but But it was so those lyrics really stuck out at me, you know, like and then it's like are you ready? You know, it's like fuck it all like are you ready? You know what the balls of the balls of gourd down in a fucking call at the fan base like that. That's fucking I I Mean, I don't know. Yeah, just like it's like hey, I guess I guess we're not the fucking We're not the the sweetest maple syrup in town anymore fellas. So let's they got ourfucking holes Doug. Let's just play our shit Yeah, let's do it Yeah, I think I had some image of like getting out of your factory job The end of the day Friday, maybe got paid It's like we got to get the fuck outof here because these guys are gonna kill us eventually but not tonight I don't know it felt very working-class to tie back to what you said Pete. You know this this album is riddled with Gordisms and and sorry and There was so much to look at and rabbit hole, and it was it was like fuck these guys Maybe you know part of it isthey were Pulling out lots of stops for Mr. Hugh on the production side. Yeah, fun there. So we move next to track two use it up. [28:01] So I thought we went from like, okay, this is a fast-paced, let's get moving song, to kind of a slowdown quickly. I mean, I found this happening. I know, JD, you comment sometimes on my, you know, look at albums as if they're books or chapters or what have you, but this one, you know, it was a little bit slow and darker andthere's a message or a lesson, there's like a teaching happening, the chorus of this super sing-along chorus with a way going, you know. I was like, okay, is this a radio hit or, I don't know. [28:48] This is the one with the Bruce Springsteen reference, is that right? Yeah. You know, I had quickly wondered if this one felt a little too like scripted to reach USA audience. I don't know. I was a little bit confused, a little bit like started off strong and then went into the slow dark kind of let's pull on the heartstrings quickly here. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, well, we'll go to Pete. What do you think, Pete? It's again, like the plane has taken off with Are You Ready? And now it's just it's ascending into the fucking cosmos, dude, this song. Fucking just it cooked. I got chills. And And the hairs on my arms stood up, thinking and dreaming about hearing this song live.". [29:52] Like literally, the way the drums are, Paul Lanois' guitar in this song is the drums, the way he holds the rhythm to it. Rob Baker must have, I don't know what, I mean, here's the thing, I think I said this maybe the last podcast, but his talent as a guitar player has become exponentially better as each recordgoes on. Not just like all the cool effects that are in this, it just is fucking awesome. I mean, just hearing the licks, Gord commands this song like a fucking admiral commands an aircraft carrier. I mean... [30:39] When he goes, I love the chorus, music that can take you away, and it just, there's like an echo effect or there's some sort of effect that just lets his voice ring out, but there's a partwhere he goes back into the second verse, I think, or maybe the third verse, and he goes an octave higher and he goes, instead of, use it up, use it up, and he gets really high. And it just, it's like watching the kettle on the fucking stove about ready to fucking explode. That's what I think of this song too. I think of it as like, just a builder. And like, I don't think of it as a slow song at all. [31:23] You know, like, like, like, there's some, some, some real hot water bubbling away here, getting ready to boil over. You know, you guys are almost making me want to listen to this album, but not in order. Not in order. I feel like I should go back to it and put it on random and see what happens. See what happens, yeah. Because I just, I wish I had the same sentiment. I went from, like, the car is moving to, oh, who are we trying to grab here? I mean, these lyrics are heavy, fairly simple, compared to some other hip songs, you know, lots of repeated chorus but like I just wasn't exactly yeah just didn't just didn't grasp me so thethe the way the guitar starts once the drums kick in it's got that kind of like bluesy bar rock sound to it just like I just imagine the fucking crowd just just just thumping at that live showwhen this song is played live. I mean. [32:31] And Gordon singing out, somebody pushing the fucking sustain button on who's ever working the board and just away! And it just, everybody losing their fucking mind and Rod Baker doo doo, doo Just, sorry man, I fucking I sound like a douchebag fanboy on this podcast You know I'm cool with it Theother day I was like I'm gonna come in maybe not sounding the most positive about this And I was like, I bet Pete's going to hold it up for us. But that's kind of a tough part. Part of this assignment is really difficult in that we're listening to albums and albums and albums by a band, hours and hours. And we should add up the hours by now. [33:20] And we've watched some videos, and we've never attended a show. I mean, I've never seen The Rolling Stones. I've listened to every one of their albums. There's tons of examples like that. But I haven't sat down and gone through song by song by The Stones, nor do I want to. So nobody invite me to go do that. But anyways, it's like we've not seen the hit play. And I know that many of their songs are probably just amazing live. Yeah. They're built for live, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just a facet of my hip career that I'm missing. But this next one, the darkest one, which I'm mostly going to let Pete talk about because it has to do with it, you know, a little bit with his favorite TV show. But this one, this is my JD karaoke request, this one. Oh wow. I want to hear JD belt this one out. That's what I heard when I heard this song. I was like, oh, this is good. Oh, this would be cool to hear JD sing karaoke. [34:31] Have you ever done karaoke to this song, JD? I never found it at a karaoke place. Usually they have the bigger hits, but they don't have the deeper cuts. Well, maybe you could just send me your own video recorded version. I'll do it. I mean, just to share with me. [34:52] Yeah, this song contains one of my favorite sets of lyrics ever, like ever, by anybody. You know, the wild are strong, and the strong are the darkest ones, and you're the darkest one. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. Like, that build to describing somebody in that manner, oh, it just makes me grin. just makes me grin. Oh, God, dude, the song. First of all, I love that it was the the track of the trailer. That's how I recognized it initially. You know, you know, I mean, we have to talk that kind of guy. It really cooks the opening. But I mean, just Gord Sinclair's bass is like holding this song up and help pushing it up and get it off the ground. I agree that the chorus, we're the strong or the darkest ones and you're the darkest one. I mean, it's just how he repeats it, how Gord repeats it, you're the darkest one and I can't sing like him. The melody just goes up and down. It's just fucking amazing. [36:15] There's the line, it's funny because like initially all I thought it was like that horrible show they used to have on. God, I can't even remember the name of it, where the guy would like, God, what was the name of that show? It was the Chris, not Chris Matthews, he was on NBC. Remember the guy would, the police would be checking those people, the people that were trying to hook up with young kids or something. And he said, why don't you come in and have a seat, right? Remember that? Oh, yeah. He's like, he busts people like, Yeah, he busts people. Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, God, I can't remember the name of the show. Yeah, whatever it's called either. If you if you remember it, send us an email. JD at gettinghiptothehip.com What that horrible show is. I think Pete at gettinghiptothehip.com. That's for Pete. Yeah, I know. All right. Anyway, he would always say, like, why don't you come in and have a seat? But like, that's like a really demonic, horrible version. This was like,so like, Gord was like inviting everybody, come in, come in. It's warm and it's safe in here. Like, it was just like, like, we're already, we've walked through the door with these first two songs on this record. Now he's saying, like, hey, come in, makeyourself at home, have a seat on the couch. You know, it's so personal. I don't know, I got a really personal vibe from this record. [37:44] Lyrically, the way that the band played together so beautifully. [37:49] I feel like, yeah, you already mentioned the chorus, JD. You can really feel the band come together on this there. Everybody's now at the same level. Like, it's not the... No offense to Gord Downie, because he's, you know, he's just what it is he's amazing but like I feel like it's not just the gore downy show I like feel like if you took any member of thisband out of the band it would be equally as devastating. Equally as devastating. 100%. The last thing I will say is I don't know how I'd ever confirm this, but I feel like Rob Baker has maybe switched out the pickups on his Fender Strat duringthis one. He's maybe using some of those Fender Tex-Mex ones instead of the delay sensors. And I was just... because that solo at the end sounds really twangy, it's hard to use Tim's term, bright. [38:42] And it pissed me off so much that the song faded out. But the more I thought about it, the more I was like, dude, you can't end this song with a raging solo, such an amazing song, you just have to let it fade out. You can't compete with the rest of this song. So Rob Baker or the producer, they were in the right to just let the song fade out because You can't one-up yourselves in the same song. It's just so good. I didn't have an issue with the fade-out on this one. I think, in part, it's just the total tone of the song and the lyric. You're the darkest one. I mean, you're right. How would you end that? I didn't question it. It didn't cross my mind. But we got to talk about how fun the video is. I didn't see it. We don't. Oh, I got to see it. [39:35] Yeah, that part, you know, we had just to add to that we have not talked about their videos much and at some point it'd be You know side note here it'd be fun to uh Maybe I don'tknow what riff on this later Watch their videos and have an episode where we each talk about our favorite video they produced or something Yeah, because this video This one jd knows. Yeah, it's a hoot like I watched it like six videos Come on, you've seen the video with bubbles and everybody. Oh, this is the one. Oh To me. [40:24] Like Actor that like you forget that like, oh, that's core Johnny from the tragedy. He just looks like he belongs, right? Right, the video is so good, it feels really true. He could be Trevor Roy's cousin or something. I have a teenager at home that watched that whole series enough times so it was on in our basement regularly. I never saw that episode until through research found that, but the video is so fun. I seriously watched it six times, it's just so good. and made me love the song more, and it made me come back. You know, of course, in order of going through, in Violet Light, it just made me come back to this song as like, this song's a stopper, you know? It could just be its own single, you know? It's just, it's just one of those songs. Yeah, I mean, just give it to me on a seven inch and I'll just play that on my turntable. It's just a good, good song. God rest Jim Lange. [41:31] Yeah, poor lady So that takes us to The next track on the record, which is it's a good life if you don't weaken Yeah, no, I'll go so this from what I found this was the most played forthe album on Spotify by far The song has been played a ton for this album was like four million listens or something which I. [41:55] Think is huge There was one question Yeah, this song for the single. Okay, so that to me, that was kind of a surprise. Like why this one? Why do people glom on because it's awesome. But I might add a question of it around. I didn't do a deep dive. But Gord said it was this phrase, Molly Lorimer use life on the road when discussing life on the road. And I couldn't find much on this Molly Lorimer. I I don't know if you guys did. That was gonna be a question to you. Yeah, I don't know. It's just attributed to her. Yeah. It's a good life if you don't weaken. Yeah. It's a graphic novel by singularly named artist simply known as Seth. I don't know, that's all I've got. Yeah, but that line came from Molly. So, yeah. The piece itself was brought to the attention of the band by one of the staffers, Molly Lorimer. Okay. As Gord wanna explain, was fond of using the expression when discussinglife on the road. [43:01] Yeah, I mean, I love that part about it and that reference as far as literary references go on many of the songs, you know, was a little bit more mysterious, especially even differentsince it's based a bit on a graphic novel, which I don't think Gord has done yet. It seemed kind of like a love song or a, I don't know, a separation song or figuring out life, coming back together. You know, it was, it was, it was, there were lots of question marks on this one for me. It was kind of like, why is it so popular? What am I? I don't think I'm missing something here. I think I get it. I think it's just, I don't know, another, another heartstrings puller. That's kind of where I was left. What about you, Mr. Pete? [43:52] I did not like this song when I first started listening to it. The first run or two of it, the first thing I wrote was, this song is the cover of this record. So you listen to the guitar and you look at the cover, you're just like, oh, this is like the title track of the record. And then it just, I don't want to say it's my favorite song on the record, but it's pretty close man. I mean it's so good. The way this song builds, the keyboards come in and it just layers so nicely. I feel like when the chorus comes in and the harmonies hit, It's just, oh God, it's just beautiful, man. It's so good. The bridge is like butter. Sometimes bands, because they feel the need to put a bridge into songs, because in Newsflash, not every song needs a bridge. And sometimes bands just put it in and they sound like shit. And this is just not one of those cases. It's like such a beautiful extension of the song. I don't know why I wrote in here. [45:22] Rob Baker's Fender accompaniment is wretched. And I don't think I meant that as an insult, because I loved it. I thought it was really good. But the build before the chorus of the song is just because it starts out so soft. so yeah that finger-picking guitar and then it just builds to this climactic. [45:46] Saga Wonderful. I don't know man. I can't say that enough fucking good things about the song. I loved it. Well, you answered my question I think that's that's great. I'm gonna go back and listen to it I was you know, I wasn't it wasn't so Wasn't so feeling that I I I am invasive how it grew on you. I think that's Make that's wonderful. I would say it's a lot of people's favorite song. Yeah record. As far as the singles go. [46:16] Because this record's full of deeper cuts, too, that that fans are really big on. One in particular I'll get to when we get there. But these are the these last two songs. The Darkest One and It's A Good Life If You Don't Weekend are my two favorite songs on this record. I love those songs. Pete, with Silver Jet, did you long for a bridge in that one or some sort of change up or how'd you feel about the long ending fade out of this one i love i mean i liked it i the song and theway i to be honest with you the the song first when i first first heard the song a couple times i didn't like the um that lick in there it just sounded i didn't like it it was pissing me off did itsound like a little it sounded almost like a little bit hairband to me. Like there was some kind of, I don't know. It totally did. Yeah. Reminds me of like Van Halen or something, you know? Yeah. It made me wonder if this was a a music-first song. [47:25] I just think that you can only get away from your roots so much, you know? At the end of the day, we all return to, you know, just as we're born, begging and screaming and crying for your mama, you die the same way. And so we all have that in us throughout our lives and like, they have that history. It's like it or hate it. That's part of their history as a band. But I chose to embrace it and I really liked it. I thought one of the coolest things was this song and one other one I think we'll get to. There's a lot of like harmonic plays with the guitar. That. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's it's it's Rob Baker, but it could be Paul and Juan just playing those those those repeated harmonics on the guitar with that heavy distortion andit's just fucking cool. And I don't know that this is one but it feels like a like a a Gord Downie Canadianism song. [48:34] It may be about something in history. I just seem too random to be talking about a silver jet. This is one record I didn't look at any of the lyrics. I just listened I listened intently. On your first listen or what do you mean? On any listen, which I think it served me well because I paid much more attention to the music and the band and like Gord doesn't need toimpress me with his lyrics, I don't need to fucking read his lyrics to to be impressed by them so, I think the fact that I didn't look at any lyrics for this record made me appreciate it a littlebit more, and I'm glad I did that. [49:16] Process-wise, definitely the first six listens or something, I'm not looking up really looking up lyrics much at all. It's just at the end is where I love to do the deep dive where I've really taken in the album and what makes me, I don't know, just completes my wonderment of where this album is goingor where these songs are going. And this one, you know, I love the roars overhead You know, it's it really I talked about this before but that one felt super REM Michael Stipe to me I just totally couldn't completely hearMichael Stipe in that one and it's And it's also, you know, this is 2002 and that reference to me is more like 88 You know late 80s, maybe early 90s. Sorry. Um, so Yeah, dude, I didn't think Tim you're you're spot-on with that Michael Stipe reference Oh big time big time, and you know, I I don't say that in a negative way. I just circle back to Wishing I could be a fly on the wall and the tour bus to hear what these guys are listening to or sharing, you know because it's it's There's definitely some some threadsthroughout all of it the the ending was the ending and I thought this one was um, I I don't know just long They're starting to now have like one song where there's an ending of like aminute or more of just music just instrumental. [50:42] You know, which which I I dig sometimes I wish there's like for this song in. [50:48] Particular there was Maybe there was room for a Stronger bridge or some sort of change up in it. I think I think this this song. I don't know I. [50:58] Maybe this is one of the songs I need to hear live but this one like it was really close to being one of my favorites on the album there just was something wow something in therethat was just a little bit missing like I first few times I listened to this one I was like oh what is it about this song there's there just wasn't enough salt on it or something there wassomething in there so I want to go back and hear it again and maybe find some live version to see what's different about it. Yeah, it's definitely a banger live. [51:36] I think some great lyrics. I think one of the coolest vocal deliveries on the record. Like he's barely opening his mouth. He's like grinning these lyrics out almost. [51:51] A rock star using the word archipelago. Oh yeah, that's a great point. Like throwing words like that in there from a phrasing perspective is just a nightmare. And yet He does it and he does it with ease It's so crazy My father-in-law mentioned we're telling on because my wife's gonna Ibiza Ibiza Ibiza He beat that um next week and And or twoweeks and I was like asking where it was and like thinking about it Is it over here? Where's that? He's like and he said He said archipelago on, but he said it in Spanish, but I knew what he was saying, because it's a very similar word. And it made me think of this song, and I was like, oh yeah, Silver Jet, like, just to hear, I mean, how often do you hear the word archipelago? Never. On a given week? Yeah. On a month? No. And I heard it, like, the same day I was listening to this song, he said archipelago, and I was like, that's fucking weird. There's a glitch in the matrix somewhere, man. Yeah, totally. There's lots of great one-liners in this song. It's, it's, it's, it's chocked full. It's, it's a really, I don't know. Again, this was one I kept coming back to and kind of couldn't get enough of, you know, that I'm thinking it through. Your father-in-law's going to Ibiza? Is he going to a rave there? What's he, what's going to, does everyone know he's going there? [53:20] No, he's just going, she's going to a, just with her friend to visit. Oh, she's going this way. But I was going to say a minute ago, all the cheeseburger references by you, Tim, we're going to start calling you Randy. You start having to do this podcast to get your shirt off. [53:39] I don't know, Mr. Leahy. We haven't had a cuddle in a long time. I gotta say, I gotta say one thing, dude. I don't know, God, if she listens to this podcast, she's never gonna ever want to talk to me again, but my sweet, great and wonderful colleague, Barb, who lives on, um, I can never say hername. Canada is such a huge, huge country. It's more on the West Coast. But every time I just see her name, she sends me an email. I don't see Barb or Barbara. I just see burp. It's actually, I just see it spelled B-E-R-B. I just hear Randy saying, burp. [54:29] Like, it's just, and I know she would find it funny because she loves that show. She's a huge, ridiculously huge head fan. I think that's the booze talking, Pete. I think he might need to lay off of the booze. That's my best advice. Probably. So, uh, looking gla- throwing off glass. [58:21] Like, right when this one, maybe it had to do with me microdosing throughout the week, but wow, it was like, turn down the levels. There are some serious drums and cymbals and big, big loud king of pain, kind of. There's some serious production happening with this one. You know, it's overall, my comments on this one are super basic. It's a beautiful song In general, you know, I got the the dad vibes from it the teenage kids It's kind of like The daughter song. I don't know JD. I was like, oh this seems like to me this might be You know JD's song for his his girls, you know, it's just a beautiful beautiful song There's just wasn't a whole lot more toit than that for me. It's just like whoo. Okay Okay, that's a mouthful. I love this track. It was a great, like, in-between. [59:26] It was a great palate cleanser. I know that's like a negative connotation to say, in-between this song and the next, but it just was so needed and it was so well placed in the order of it. I love the way it's just, it was a super spacey track. Vocals were just echoed all over the place and yeah I don't have a ton to say about it other than I really really enjoyed it. I thought again this is the other one where Rob Baker's harmonics really really shined on it like they just drive the song and I'm like it's just Just awesome. [1:00:06] Loved it. Just loved it. Really, really good chill out song to kind of go, take a break, lower the blood pressure a little bit. You've been rocking out. We're only on song six. Yeah, it was kind of serene. It was its own movie, this one, I think. You know, it's definitely stands on its own. Yeah, the next song All tore up. Yeah, I'll tore up. Okay. So here's another really Gonna this is the last time I'm gonna talk about about holy shit the drums and the cymbals the high hats on this one It's just like whoa Turnit down guys. Like this is a this is my final call out on the production side of this one. It's just, Kaplow in my ear holes. So there you have that. But the there's Tim is Tim is Huey Lewis in that firstscene of Back Feature one. Sorry, guys. Just too loud. Next, please. Sorry, Tim, I didn't mean to cut you off. Love it loud. I just you know, I have. [1:01:23] Yeah, anyways, that there The bridge in this one, you might make it, right? You know, that really smacked me. This is just an amazing change in this one. I felt like this one stepped out a little bit more than previous songs and kind of was leaning a little bit more in a direction that I had been looking for, just musically, just tragic, hip-esque,you know? This one kind of brought me back to, I don't know, just what I want in a hip album. [1:02:00] I liked the finding, the reference towards Dottie Cormier, famous Canadian bluegrass singer. So kind of went down a rabbit hole and checked out her stuff and gave her a bunch of listens. Yeah, I mean, she's mentioned in there and she's one of the more famous bluegrass people of Canada, which is awesome. I'm not a huge bluegrass fan, but I definitely appreciate it when Icome across it, and it's great. But I thought it was a song about going for it, living life, just appreciating things, looking for moments of biggest impacts or things that matter. You know, I typed in, you just need to be you and keep moving. It's inspirational. This is a good, to me this is. This is a good hip song on this album. If somebody's going to say, what should I listen to? This would definitely be one of the songs. Oh, yeah, I liked it. Aside from the bright, fucking bloody. All right. Happening. [1:03:13] Well, to back that up, I will say one of the things I've written in my notes here is Johnny face snare is boosted. It is. And I love I do. Yeah, I love it, like for me, it fits with the album, like, I could see how you could look at it as a, as maybe a, like, I would do this differently, but like, I just feel like they did that onpurpose, and it fits with the record and I think it's done well. It's noticeable. That's the problem, though. But you know what, like, maybe, like, here's the thing, maybe it should be noticeable for a lot of reasons because the drums in a lot of these songs really, reallydrive the momentum of the tunes. The opening lick that I think is, I want to say it's Rob Baker playing, that opening lick with the double stop, just how he just, I'm like, wait, how do you play that again? Because it just, it doesn't stop, it doesn't stop and start where you think it's going to stop and start. It's really, and the drums come in at a different tempo, and it's just cool as fuck. Question JD, I have this written out, what are the school buses in Canada? Do you guys have like yellow school buses like we have in the States? [1:04:36] Because I mean, I don't know, are they big school buses like the big long ones? Yeah, Bluebird, which is like one of the big school bus manufacturers, used to have a plant in the town, like 20 minutes from where I grew up. And I worked there every summer building school buses. Yeah. Okay. Well, maybe you would have seen any bass player in the whole of Canada that was worth their salt getting on that school bus because literally Gordon Sinclair takes anybodylistening to this record who plays bass to fucking school on a bus. I mean, it's a master, it's a master's degree, it's not a master class, it's a fucking master's degree. I mean, the way he fucking goes up high with the bass in this, I'm just like, I listen, this is one of the very few songs where I like stopped and and clicked back and was like listening to itand going, what the fuck is he doing, dude? Like, I don't know anybody that can play that shit. I've met a few bass players in my day, but just so smooth and so cool, I mean, I loved it. [1:05:51] The only other thing I will say about this song is that the lyrics and the vocal phrasing by Gord, and I say this and I feel like people hate me for saying this, but if they hate methen they're not true Canadians, because it's very much a lot of Alanis phrasing the way Gord sings the lyrics on this. I listened to Jagged Little Pill last night, as a matter of fact, on vinyl. It's a fucking record that still stands up so great. But yeah, anyway, very much got some Atlantis vibes with the phrasing on it. It was a great song. So wild that you hear Atlantis all the time. Oh, I love that. It's Atlantis and Michael Stipe. I think those are the most referenced singers. [1:06:45] Yeah Yeah, that's far out let's keep moving so with leave JD did you ever hear this one live? Do you recall? I don't recall. No, I just this is this was definitely one right away I was like, oh, this is probably great life you know, I just I go there so often just because I've been to so many shows and I know theSerotonin boosts that you have when you leave a concert or hear a song you love, you know it's just this this one was me reaching for that um it felt uh oh just introspective anddeliberative and it it i the only thing about it is kind of towards the end i felt like it could go another minute you know i felt like we could have and have had another verse in there if it's ifthere's a live version of it being longer or if they mix it up because this song just compositionally felt like there was opportunity to play around and change it a little bit so it's I thought itwas a pretty cool song. How about you Pete? I thought it was really cool. I mean the way it started was very like spacey and mm-hmm like almost like Wait, what? [1:08:10] Did my Spotify malfunction or whatever? Like it couldn't have happened before with CDs, but really, the way it's like a shuffle, it kind of feels like a shuffle, you know, the waythe beat is. And the phrasing again, this is another one where Gord's phrasing is super, super diverse. [1:08:36] The chords are really... I got some heavy Stone Temple Pilots vibes. Oh, totally. Completely. Yeah. Really? Like, those guys from... I think I was almost going like Alice in Chains or something. There was something in there from the 90s. 100%. 100%. There's a part where Paul Langlois' guitar comes in, and the song, it starts to form, And there's a line that says, a routine flight for this bird tonight, more worms for earth in the afterlife. [1:09:15] Like, what the fuck, dude? Look at that. After that line, the song just like explodes open. [1:09:26] I love the chorus. It's just, yeah, I'm not displeased with this song at all. There's nothing. I'm trying not to wrap up the whole album, but you know, if you guys haven't figured out already, I really liked this album. There's not much negative shit I can say about it. So if you're looking for negative shit, just turn off the podcast and wait. Or just call me, you know, I have throat pain. Because this next one, if we can get into it. Yeah. Yeah. A beautiful thing. You know, it's kind of this cute start sing-along-y feeling. Definitely XTC. Definitely R.E.M. You know, like it's the bridge, the guitar solo kind of bridge that happens in there. When I heard that, I was like, oh, what happened? This song, it was the first time I heard it, I couldn't finish it. This was one of the few songs that this has happened to me. And I was like, God damn it. Here's the song that I need to talk about that it took me a handful of times to get through because it just, it wasn't a beautiful thing for me. It was, uh, I just, I just, I know I was totally questioning it. It was like, are they, were they trying to make a wedding song or like, what is, what is this song? I was like, what the fuck? This didn't need to be on the album. It just kind of... [1:10:52] Sorry, sorry hip fans. Yeah, I mean I hope you guys don't kick me off the pod, but this one I was like FF fast-forward with next week. We'll be joined by just We found Tom from Seattle who's gonna join us next week we sent him a supply of happy pills and Definitely told him he's not allowed to have any indica beforehe gets on the pod Tim, I felt you with this, man. I mean, here's the thing, though. At first I felt you with this and I was like, I started listening to some more and I was fucking love this. First thing I like, I thought this was the father daughter song when I heard it first. [1:11:42] But the three, four, this is a dance song. You can, there's definitely people, There's the guy, you know, with his arms behind. Somebody or the girl on his shoulders or whatever it is, swaying back and forth with this song at the concert. 100,000 percent. The chorus is super strong. The way they go, Beautiful thing. Toot toot toot. Exactly. This is the second song I've noted that I think Rob Baker switched out as his pick-up song. God, I, I, I, I, I, I, I hesitate to scour the internet for, for those, um, you know, when the musicians do those pedal reviews or they're like, it's like the Amoeba what's in your bag thing. Often like interview guitar players and be like, what's on your pedal board? Or like, what's the kind of guitar you're using? And like, I know if I find one of Rob Baker, my life's over. Cause I'm going to be like, Hmm, spending more money on shit. [1:12:49] I thought this song was a beautiful song, just fucking awesome to be cheesy and tie it up that way. It's basically one of three of the fewest listens on the album. I know Spotify isn't everything, but I take it as, you know, a guiding point. The last three songs are the three least listened to on this album. So and I felt like the album did take a little bit of a turn for me with that. All right. Well, let's move on to Dire Wolf then. Um, dude, drums, opening lick, a guitar solo, fucking clean as hell. It, it, it, it, this is going to sound weird, I got to phrase this properly. Because the opening, these last two songs are really unique because they change so much. The first part of the song made me feel like I'm going to phrase it properly. [1:14:00] Like I was in a wheat field during a cold, a cool summer day. The opening was so cool. I think Pauline Waas is opening up with the guitar. And this seems certainly like a Gord Downie Canadianism song, lyrically is it? Yeah, big time. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And what I want to know, Gord talking about what he loves themost, his country. And I wrote this down because I was thinking about it driving home yesterday. And it almost brought me to tears listening to this song. So I was like, dude, what a gift. [1:14:43] Sorry to get all serious for a second, like what a fucking gift this guy was to his country. Absolutely. I never got it before. Like my friend Barb, who I talked about earlier, I was making a joke about. Barb? Barb, yeah. And then you, JD, and then other people in my life who've mentioned The Hip to me have been super passionate. I'm just like, it's almost kind of like, God, okay. Hey, I just didn't get it. And this is a song where it just really hits home. And the more research I do about the band, the more I get into them, the more I look at interviews with Gord, I'm just like, like, I don't think Americans have anything as an equivalentbecause I know there was that hockey, the guy on like SportsCenter Canadian Hockey who said like, you know, If you took Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, all those things, you know, thatquote, JD? Yeah. Yeah. Like you'd like sort of get like what? Because like, yeah, we don't have that. Like this guy had plenty of criticisms for his government. But at the end of the day, it was like a really unifying force for Canada. [1:15:57] I don't know, man. This song just got me all fucking weebly eyed and loved it. That's awesome. I mean, I agree with all that. I feel like this song you could easily write a 15-page dissertation about there's so maybe 150 like there's so much in here this to me was another song that could be a movie or a book Idon't know. This song is so loaded and, you know, it's... [1:16:31] I don't know. It's just quite poetic. I could go on about the lyrics or things I looked up and all the literature references. I mean, it's just it's too much to even get into but I feel like there's also this yin-yang sort of to the song with the music versus the lyrics like it's the music to me at times feels like I don'twant to say pretty or cute, but the music has kind of this positive feel while the lyrics are kind of out here on their own. It's wild. It's just a huge song. And I agree with you, Pete, on Gord versus all of our USA stars. [1:17:20] You know, just this last weekend, the Boss played in Portland, and I saw lots of footage of the Boss playing live at our arena and, you know, sold out show, of course. And we have one close friend who is a major Bruce Bringsing fan, like flies all over the place to see him and all that. [1:17:43] And just in watching, I mean, I get them musically and everything, and I've read up on Bruce and his whole upbringing and his struggle to success and watch his interview withObama and all those things, but at the same time, I'm like, this is nothing comparative with Gord in his lyrics and what he goes after. He's not talking about the struggle of just working at the factory. Talking about like that all the way back to hundreds of years before and you know just it's, it's so much more and i commented on this a little bit ago but there are a couple pods ago butwhen i met with a couple fairly important indie rock dudes in portland and mentioned i was doing this they didn't know either like they both had not still i mean guys our age not listenedto the tragically hip and when I mentioned that they're, you know, this beloved facet to the country of Canada and how just how important they are, you know, they didn't really even getthat because who do we talk about in that regard? Elvis? I don't know. All these all these different things that that just don't measure up to me. [1:19:06] But even so too, you're right, Tim, because like you can sit there and say that about any other country on the planet. Yeah. You could probably say that about Spain. You could say that about Japan. You could say that about South Korea or China or all these places. Oh, they're really big there. But literally, it's right next door to the roof of the United States. And the fact that those indie rock gods, who I know you're talking about, had no idea who the hip were. I was just fucking... I mean, they do, but they absolutely don't. Right, yeah,exactly. [1:19:38] You know, like if I could have played a song right then and there, in the moment, before even mentioning them, and said, who do you guys think this is? They would have gone like, oh, this is maybe something from the 90s I glossed over, because, you know, just, I'm not sure. Maybe I was too into, you know, rare indie rock during that decade, I don't know. It feels like something I skipped over and that's exactly I think what has happened with the hip in the US but to circle back up also on this album and the production of it and you HughPadgham, I don't know why I'm tripping on my Little knowledge of Italian when I see his name, which is not Italian Hugh Padgham when I look at you know of his signature statement onthis album, I think, this is O2, and this is another grasp at getting a global audience, like really trying to get people outside of Canada to embrace these guys who have this super specialthing going. I think by this time, the band is, I don't think it's the band, the machine might've been that way, but I think the band at this point where they're making records. [1:20:57] And they hope as many people hear them as possible, but like, you know. But from a producer standpoint, a producer can definitely be going for that. I mean, if someone's gonna sign their name as I produce this album, especially in this era of still going for album sales, I feel like there's a bit of that on this one. And I thought when I heard the whole album, I thought, okay, we're probably getting a little bit more raw on the next album. We're probably getting a little bit more Tiger the Lion. I hope, you know, there's gonna be another turn and that's kind of in the wave of listening to the hip so far as we started off like all over the place and then we found some roots where wewere just like flowing through and then there's some highway changes, you know, so much of this has been about life on the road and we're hearing all the different examples in thedifferent decades of time, so. [1:22:06] It's a fucking cool experience. I love you guys! And to sew it up, the guitar solo just really puts you in an emotional tailspin at the end of this tune. And by the way, I looked it up while we were earlier when we were chatting, Hugh Pagin did in fact produce Synchronicity. [1:22:29] I think it's that record. I think it's that one. Yeah, he did. And he skipped the exam and he had to go to summer school as a result. So it was like such a good record just for that record. All right, let's wrap up this record with the Dark Canuck. [1:26:42] Okay, I loved this song because it's two different songs, if you haven't noticed. It's not the same song. I mean, I don't know what to say about this song. I focus mostly on like, how the song starts off with like just a simple four-four beat and then it goes, like I spent most of the timelistening to the song trying to figure out what the time signatures were because they were just so random. And I think I boiled it down to it goes 6-4 and then for every phrase it goes 6-4 and then 2-4 and it just repeats. [1:27:35] Goes, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. [1:27:40] 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 1 playing like this really cool licks, like, I don't know, harmonic minor shit. And just, it's just, they just, I don't know, maybe they didn't know they had like, okay, well, we got one more song we're gonna throw on the record. What do you guys wanna do? Let's just fucking... It's just taking a bunch of paint, throw it against the fucking wall and see what happens. Yes, yes. And they got a fucking awesome song, dude. It is a trip of a song. I can listen to this song a thousand times. It's a fucking cool tune. Honestly, it was the kind of the one I was waiting for in that same regard, you know. Right away, this was another one where I was like, oof, right away, oof, this is a banger life. Lucky people got to hear this one live. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, there's, and then this huge transition halfway through, yeah. Two songs feel, it felt like we just moved into a new song. It was just shoved into us. We went from, I have this note, we went from, um, the idea of a soldier returning home to feeling like we're on a bad holiday, like it just, it's just full of like facesmacking. [1:29:08] I don't know. It's just the build-ups and this felt like, okay, Hugh's gone, guys, let's finally report on Canucco. Well said, well said. You know, they finally got what they wanted to do. And I really adored that 30-second drum machine ending, whatever that was, like, I just thought it was cool. I was like, okay, I'm gonna keep going with the podcast because a couple songs ago, I was like, what do I send JD an email what do I do oh no just kidding no this one was fun it was itwas i, i longed for gourd to sing more angrily which is why i thought about you know the live version of this but um yet i should say it was just still just worked right and uh, it was kindof like a Whew, okay, there's Envy. I didn't know what a Canuck was. I didn't know what a Canuck was until I looked it up with this song. I just thought they were a fucking hockey team. Wow. What is a Canuck? I don't know that I know. It's like a lumberjack, right? No, it's just a term for a Canadian person, I think. Yeah, it's a derogatory term. I don't know that it's derogatory. I think it's just a slang. It's like Yankee for a, you know? [1:30:34] Yeah, that's the way I've always heard it. People call us Yankees here a lot. That's the way I've always heard Canuck. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I thought too, you made me think it was, you made me doubt myself. That's a good trick. I don't think it's derogatory or anything, it's just... No, I don't think so. This is a more fun way of saying Canadian. Where did you land on the record, like overall? Like Pete, I think it's pretty clear, you really enjoyed it, but you started out not enjoying it, but now it's a grower. I mean, I definitely had some speed bumps through it. And yeah, a little more than usual, I would say. But also like, you know, still, still really liking this exercise and hearing a band's evolution. It's so interesting. And overall, just for me personally, it's like this album and the way it's different than others. [1:31:38] It just makes me commend just general artistic decision-making and direction and the way people do things. I mean, it's interesting. All of my kind of feedback and sentiment over this album was like, it's still just valid to be out in the music space of life for people to see and hear, you know. [1:32:07] It's yeah yeah well what is your MVP track what song are you putting on your playlist Pete did I steal your thunder did you have kind of a album wrap-up statement oh no no nono no no you didn't so much okay, I I loved it man I I just. I don't know. Sorry, I was talking earlier, but the band's really become important to me. Like, I really like this band a lot, man. Oh, that's amazing. It's fucking... It's just, it's become... [1:32:47] And this record, I think, made me realize it. Especially because when I first started listening, I didn't like it. Right. Yeah. I took it into different parts. I think part of that is also we're doing the week over week and it's a crash course, so it's really hard. It's not a natural way to learn to like a band. Yeah. It's almost like, I don't want to say this in negative way, J.D., but it's almost like torture. It's like programming. No, think about it. Imagine it's like you're in. [1:33:18] A German prison in 1939 and you're being told to agree to all this stuff. And you're like, OK, all right, yeah, OK, I agree to it. Eventually, you start believing it. I know that's a really poor example. My apologies if anybody's offended. That's not what my intention was. My intention is to be like, it's very forceful. And so that being said, it's not natural the way I'm liking this band. But at the same time, the evolution, When I start listening to the record, then how much love I have for this band is just, it's a cool thing in and of itself. Very, very cool. It's just so cool to step back. I don't know, sorry, I'm rambling, but. No, not at all. No, I dig it. It's cool to step back and look at how much, how cool this band is. I concur, I concur. So what are your MVP tracks for this record? What song will you take away? [1:34:27] Drumroll... Hmm, I'm not quite sure. I'm gonna go, you know, I'm gonna go with the ender, the Dark Canuck. I'm gonna go with that one. It was a bit of a release for me to get to that song and hear it and hear it through. And it also made me want to listen to the album again to run through it. So this was a little bit of a saver for me. And, you know, the transition was wacky and there's been a couple songs I forget. I think the second or third album there was kind of a wackylittle bit of a different song that I chose. I should go back and remember which one that was. But yeah, I love less produced, more hip is kind of just what I keep seeking. I want that raw kind of flavor of the hip and I want, I just want to hear more of that. I, overall, I mean, I really liked, there's a couple on here that were really strong, like Silver Jet totally has its place, but I'll go with the end one, the Dark Canuck. All right, your mix is going to be pretty wild. Yeah, I think that's okay. [1:35:41] Of course, I'll let you guys. Oh, go ahead. No, go ahead, man. I was just going to say, can I just copy and paste the record? Just drop this shit. I don't know, man. I don't want to make a decision. Pete's playlist from every album of the entire catalog, folks. You can find that on the album in Violet Byte. Dude, it's a hard thing. All I will say is, and it would probably change, But just because I just pictured so much like seeing it live, like, use it up to use it up. If that fucking song was played live, especially when again, when Gordon hits that octave. Yes. Oh, my God, dude. I just feel the injection of nitrous oxide for energy that must have gone into a crowd when he hit that second verse or whatever, whatever the party sings it. [1:36:41] Fucking Christ Almighty, dude. Sorry, just. I so hate myself for never getting to see this band live. I got it. It's a huge I live my life. Not a lot of regrets, but that's one of them. Hey, which is in part, very exciting to go to the JD. Here's your plug. Oh, yeah. Well, you'll get to see a facsimile of them. Yeah, simile. Obviously, you know, tribute bands are, you know, your mileage may vary with tribute bands, but the tragically have a distinct place in this country. And there is, you know, there are a lot of really great hip tribute bands out there. There are a lot. I think we've got, you know, one of the best though for our event. And again, that's going to be Friday, September 1st, and tickets are $40. And you get to watch the finale of this podcast go live. And then you get a hip concert, a 50 Mission concert, I should say. We have a comedian. There's not alcohol there, is there? There will be booze, yeah. Oh, I'm going to stay away from the beer, because if they play, if by chance this band plays Use It Up, and I'm three beers deep, I'm going to get the fucking 86,dude. We need a sidebar conversation about that. I've had ideas too. I've had ideas too. [1:38:07] Well, we're going to have a comedian that night also. And I think maybe this part of the silent auction, I think maybe we need some sort of, this is so cheesy, but maybe we need some sort of, you know, gift basket from Portland and giftbasket from Malaga. So maybe, you know, let's bring something, Let's bring something from the homelands. Yeah, let's bring something from the homelands. I can't bring my own because it's gonna... You could also fake it, you know. Yeah, I'll just fly it at the airport. But man, that's gonna be such a fun event. And as we're climbing out of winter, I know this isn't being broadcasted, pushed to the world in winter, but as we're climbing out of winter here in Portland, I'm really excited about theend of August happening. What date's the event again, JD? September 1st, Friday, September 1st. September 1st, people. I can't wait dude. Use it up. It's gonna be fucking great. Use it all up. Can I just say that if anybody wants to talk gear, look for the guy with the glasses and the fake nose and the fake mustache. [1:39:25] If anybody needs to come over and slug me in the arm, just warn me. You know, if I dissed one of your songs, I'll take a hug instead. Yeah, these guys have done a yeoman's duty here, you know, taking on this task, although for most of us, we're like, task? I listen to, you know, a hip-hop record a week anyway. But you know, the way you guys are doing this is really great, and I'm really, I'm just fucking amped that you're getting into it. So that's real cool. Thanks, JD. It's a gift. It truly is a gift. It truly is a gift. I've told you this before in private messages, but it's a gift. So thanks, man. Thanks, Canada. Pleasure. Thanks, Tragically Hip. Well, on that note, we'll bid you all adieu. Anything you want to wrap up on, folks? I'm just looking for the next one. We're going to jump into a whole nother album, Pete. You ready? Can't wait. Are you ready? [1:40:33] Alright guys, thanks so much. Talk to you next week. Thanks JD. See you guys. Pick up your shit. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy | |||