The Tragically Hip

The Tragically Hip formed in 1984 in Kingston, Ontario. Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker were students at Kingston Collegiate and had performed together at the KCVI Variety Show as the Rodents. Baker and Sinclair joined with Downie and Fay in 1984 and began playing gigs around Kingston with some memorable stints at Clark Hall Pub and Alfie's, student bars on Queen's University campus. Guitarist Paul Langlois joined in 1986; saxophonist Davis Manning left that same year. They took their name from a skit in the Michael Nesmith movie Elephant Parts.[6]

By the mid-1980s, they performed in small music venues across Ontario until being seen by then-MCA Vice President Bruce Dickinson at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto.[7] They were then signed to a long-term record deal with MCA, and recorded the EP The Tragically Hip. The album produced two singles, "Small Town Bring-Down" and "Highway Girl".

They followed up with 1989's Up to Here. This album produced four singles, "Blow at High Dough", "New Orleans Is Sinking", "Boots or Hearts", and "38 Years Old". All four of these songs found extensive rotation on modern rock radio play lists in Canada. Road Apples followed in 1991, producing three singles ("Little Bones", "Twist My Arm", and "Three Pistols") and reaching No. 1 on Canadian record charts. During the Road Apples tour, Downie became recognized for ranting and telling fictional stories during songs such as "Highway Girl" and "New Orleans Is Sinking".

The sound on these first two full-length albums is sometimes characterized as "blues-tinged," although there is definite acoustic punctuation throughout both discs. Although the band failed to achieve significant international success with these first two albums, their sales and dominance of modern rock radio in Canada gave them license to subsequently explore their sound.

The Hip released another album, Fully Completely in 1992, which produced the singles "Locked in the Trunk of a Car", "Courage", and "At the Hundredth Meridian" and three others. The sound on this album displayed less of a blues influence than previous albums. The Hip created and headlined the first Another Roadside Attraction tour at this time, both to act as a vehicle for their touring, and to promote other Canadian acts (as well as non-Canadians Ziggy Marley and Pere Ubu).

Many songs from Day For Night were first performed prior to their release during the 1993 Another Roadside Attraction Tour. "Nautical Disaster" was played frequently in the middle of "New Orleans Is Sinking", an early version of "Thugs" was tested, and Downie sang lyrics from many other Day For Night songs, such as "Grace, Too", "Scared", and "Emergency", during this tour.

Day for Night was then released in 1994,[8] producing six singles, including "Nautical Disaster" and "Grace, Too". Trouble at the Henhouse followed in 1996, producing five singles starting with "Ahead by a Century", which reached number one on the RPM Canadian singles chart on 24 June and became their most successful single in their home country.[9] "Butts Wigglin", the fifth single from Henhouse, also appeared on the soundtrack to the Kids in the Hall movie Brain Candy. The live album Live Between Us was recorded on the subsequent tour at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan.

The band developed a unique sound and ethos, leaving behind its earlier blues influence. Downie's vocal style changed while the band experimented with song structures and chord progressions. Songs explored the themes of Canadian geography and history, water and land, all motifs that became heavily associated with the Hip. While Fully Completely began an exploration of deeper themes, many critics consider Day for Night to be the Hip's artistry most fully realized. The sound here is typically called "enigmatic" and "dark", while critic MacKenzie Wilson praises "the poignancy of Downie's minimalism."[10]

On the follow-up tour for this album, the band made its only appearance on Saturday Night Live, thanks in large part to the finagling of fellow Canadian and Kingston-area resident Dan Aykroyd, who appeared on the show just to introduce them.[11] Aykroyd, who is a fan of the band, had personally lobbied SNL showrunner Lorne Michaels to book them as a musical guest.[12] The band's performance on the show was one of their highest profile media appearances in the United States.

In July 1996, the Hip headlined Edenfest. The three-day concert took place at Mosport Park, in Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada, just a few months after the LP Trouble at the Henhouse was released. The concert sold over 70,000 tickets total and was attended by an estimated 20,000 additional people who gained access to the concert site after the outside security broke down.

In 1998, the band released their sixth full-length album, Phantom Power,[13] which produced five singles. It won the 1999 Juno Awards for Best Rock Album and Best Album Design. A single from the album, "Bobcaygeon", won the Juno Award for Single of the Year in 2000. The album has been certified platinum three times over in Canada.[14]

In February 1999, the Hip played the very first concert at the brand new Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario. In July 1999, the band was part of the lineup for the Woodstock '99 festival in Rome, New York. On the second day of three, they were the first band to take the stage. They were followed by Kid Rock. [15]

2000 saw the release of Music @ Work. It won the 2001 Juno Award for Best Rock Album. The album featured back-up vocals from Julie Doiron on a number of tracks, and reached No. 1 on the Canadian Billboard Charts.

In 2002, In Violet Light, recorded by Hugh Padgham and Terry Manning at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas was released, along with three singles from the album. It became certified platinum in Canada.[14] Later that year, the Hip made a cameo appearance in the Paul Gross film Men with Brooms, playing a curling team from their hometown of Kingston. Two of their songs, "Poets" and "Throwing Off Glass", were also featured on the film's soundtrack.

On October 10, 2002, the Tragically Hip performed two songs, "It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken" and "Poets", as part of a command performance for Queen Elizabeth II. In 2003, the band recorded a cover of "Black Day in July", a song about the 1967 12th Street Riot in Detroit, on Beautiful: A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot.

Left to right: Gord Downie, Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker performing in Aspen, Colorado, 2007

In Between Evolution was released in 2004 in the No. 1 position in Canada. It has since sold over 100,000 copies.

At the 92nd Grey Cup held November 21, 2004, the band provided the halftime entertainment in front of a packed house at Frank Clair Stadium in Ottawa.[16]

In 2004, in episode 15 ("Rock On"), season 2 of Canadian comedy TV series Corner Gas, the Tragically Hip gave a cameo appearance as an unnamed local band rehearsing in Brent's garage. They play a rough version of the song It Can't Be Nashville Every Night from their In Between Evolution album until interrupted and asked to leave by Brent, Wanda, and Hank. As they disappointedly go, Wanda demands that Gord Sinclair and Rob Baker leave behind their amplifiers.[17]

In October 2005, several radio stations temporarily stopped playing "New Orleans Is Sinking", out of sensitivity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, which had devastated the city in early September of that year.[18][19][20] However, it received considerable pirate radio and relief site play and gained some notoriety and praise in New Orleans due to its attitudinal proximity to the city's culture.

On November 1, 2005, the Hip released a double CD, double DVD box set, Hipeponymous, including all of their singles and music videos to date, a backstage documentary called "Macroscopic", an animated Hip-scored short film entitled "The Right Whale", two brand new songs ("No Threat" and "The New Maybe"), a full-length concert from November 2004 That Night in Toronto, and a 2-CD greatest hits collection Yer Favourites (selected on-line by 150,000 fans). On November 8, 2005, Yer Favourites and That Night in Toronto were released individually.

In 2006, another studio album, entitled World Container, was released, being notably produced by Bob Rock. It produced four singles, and reached the No. 1 spot on the Canadian rock music charts. The band toured concert dates in major Canadian cities, and then as an opening act for the Who on several US dates. A tour of Eastern Canada, Europe, and select cities in the United States occurred late in the year.

On February 23, 2008, the Hip returned to their hometown of Kingston, Ontario, where they were the first live act to perform at the new K-Rock Centre.

In 2009, the band again worked with producer Bob Rock, and We Are the Same was released in North America on April 7, 2009. It produced three singles. To promote We Are the Same, the band invited The Hour's George Stroumboulopoulos for a live interview at The Bathouse Recording Studio in Bath, Ontario (where most of the album was recorded), and they played seven new songs as well as unique versions of five other songs. The interview and performance were broadcast live in more than eighty theatres across Canada.

On January 22, 2010, the band performed "Fiddler's Green" at the "Canada for Haiti" telethon to aid earthquake victims in that country. This was broadcast nationally on all three of Canada's main networks (CBC, Global, and CTV).

Performing "The Wherewithal" at the House of Blues in Boston, Massachusetts, 2015.

On May 12, 2012, a 90-second clip of the song "At Transformation", the first single from the band's new album, premiered during Hockey Night in Canada. The full song premiered on Toronto radio station CFNY-FM (102.1 The Edge) on May 16. The song was released to radio stations on May 17 and was officially released on iTunes on May 18. Band member Johnny Fay revealed that the title for the album is Now for Plan A. The second single, "Streets Ahead," was released on August 24. The album (their 12th studio album), produced by Gavin Brown, was released on October 2, 2012. The band played several live "Nashville" style shows that week at the Supermarket bar in Kensington market to promote the release of this record. On the evening of October 2, they played a full set to a packed bar with a live webcast through tdsmultimedia to livestream, and an audio simulcast on Sirius XM.

The Tragically Hip re-entered their studio in July 2014 to begin work on a new album. The following October, Fully Completely was re-released as a remastered deluxe edition, including two bonus tracks, a vinyl edition and a recording of a live show.[21] To celebrate and promote the re-release, the band toured Canada and the United States from January to October 2015.[22]

On May 24, 2016, the band announced that Downie had been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.[23] The band also announced that, despite his condition, they would tour that summer.[2]

The Hip's thirteenth album, Man Machine Poem, was released on June 17, 2016.[24] The album featured songs such as "In a World Possessed by the Human Mind", "In Sarnia", and "Machine".

The final concert of the Man Machine Poem tour was held at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in the band's hometown of Kingston on August 20, 2016.[3] The concert was attended by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.[25] The concert was aired by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a live cross-platform broadcast on CBC Television, CBC Radio One, CBC Radio 2, CBC Music, and YouTube.[26] The concert featured 30 songs and three encore sets, with the band finishing with a performance of "Ahead by a Century".[3] The CBC's broadcast and live streaming of the concert, uninterrupted by advertisements, was watched by 11.7 million people (roughly one-third of the Canadian population).[27]

On October 13, 2016, Downie gave an interview, his first since his cancer diagnosis, to the CBC's Peter Mansbridge, in which he reported experiencing memory loss.[28] Downie also told Mansbridge that he was working with the Tragically Hip on new studio material,[28] and that the band have up to four albums worth of unreleased material in the vaults.[28]

Downie released his fifth solo album, Secret Path on October 18, 2016. The album is a concept album about Chanie Wenjack, a First Nations boy who escaped from a Canadian Indian residential school in 1966 and died while attempting to make the 600 km walk back to his home.[28][29]

On December 22, 2016, Downie was selected as The Canadian Press' Canadian Newsmaker of the Year and was the first entertainer ever selected for the title.[30]

On June 15, 2017, all five members of the Tragically Hip were announced as recipients of the Order of Canada by Governor General of Canada David Johnston.[31][32] Downie received his honour on June 19;[31] the other four members of the band were invested on November 17.[33]

The band and the tour are the subjects of Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier's documentary film Long Time Running, which premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.[34] It was slated to have its television premiere in November 2017 on CTV, but following Downie's death the network moved the broadcast up to October 20.[35]

Gord Downie died on October 17, 2017.[4] His death was widely mourned throughout Canada.[36] Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is a fan of the Tragically Hip, released a tribute statement on his official website the morning after Downie's death.[37] Later in the day, he held a press conference at Parliament Hill at which he eulogized Downie as "Our buddy Gord, who loved this country with everything he had—and not just loved it in a nebulous, 'Oh, I love Canada' way. He loved every hidden corner, every story, every aspect of this country that he celebrated his whole life."[38]

Following Downie's death, many of the band's albums climbed the Billboard Canadian Albums chart, which is compiled by Neilsen Music. In the week ending October 19, 2017 (the day following the announcement of Downie's death), Yer Favourites rose to No. 2 in the chart, with another 10 albums moving to the Top 200. Streaming also increased 700 percent, and many of the Tragically Hip's top hits remained on the Spotify Canadian Viral 50 as of October 23, 2017.[39]

Before his death, Downie indicated in interviews that the band had unreleased material that may still be issued as one or more new albums;[28] when accepting Downie's posthumous awards at the Juno Awards of 2018, his brothers Patrick and Mike also stated that more unreleased music is likely to be issued in the future.[40]

A National Celebration, a concert film of the Tragically Hip's final concert, was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 8, 2017.[41]

In July 2018, guitarist Rob Baker told Entertainment Tonight Canada that the Tragically Hip were no longer active as a touring or recording entity following Downie's death. He stated "When I say The Tragically Hip doesn't exist as a performing unit anymore because a key member is gone, I think [fans] understand that. We wouldn't be The Hip without Gord [...] The Hip has played their last note."[5] Baker also revealed that Downie had encouraged the group to audition replacement vocalists, but the other members did not seriously consider the idea.[5] With the legalization of marijuana in Canada, the remaining band members became investment partners in Newstrike, a cannabis company which has named several of its products after Tragically Hip songs.[42]

In a July 2018 interview with the Toronto Sun, Baker confirmed that at least three albums' worth of unreleased material was recorded with Downie before his death, but stated that the band had yet to decide how it would be released.[43]

On October 11, 2018, six days before the first anniversary of Downie's death, Fay and Baker joined Choir! Choir! Choir! at Yonge-Dundas Square for a live performance of the Tragically Hip's "Grace, Too".[44]

On October 17, 2018, one year after Downie's death, a previously unreleased studio recording of the song "Wait So Long" was played on CIKR-FM, a radio station in the band's hometown of Kingston.[45]

On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed the Tragically Hip among hundreds of artists whose material was reportedly destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.[46]

On September 14, 2019, Langlois, Sinclair and Baker performed a set at Rockin' the Big House, a benefit concert on the grounds of the former Kingston Penitentiary, with guest vocalists Hugh Dillon and Tom Cochrane.[47]

In January 2020, Sinclair announced that his own debut album as a solo artist, Taxi Dancers, would be released on February 28.[48]

In June 2020, the band and manager Jake Gold announced that they were undertaking an "archaeological dig" to select music and memorabilia from the band's archives for future release.[49]