The Tragically Hip Podcast Series

'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]

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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
JD — host, Your Hipster's Reflections from the Final Tour
Kirsten (Edmonton) — roughly 20 Hip shows deep; attended both Edmonton nights and Calgary night one. First saw the band on the third Another Roadside Attraction tour.
Chris (Edmonton) — about half a dozen shows, going back to an Up to Here–era gig at the old Edmonton Convention Centre. Brought his brother to night two.
In This Episode
The Icebreaker: One Song That Puts You Back in the Room
Kirsten picks "Scared" — she was up in the stands when the lights came down and the neon tubes took over. The song and the staging landed at exactly the right moment.
Chris picks "Ahead by a Century," and explains why the line "disappointing news getting me down" hit like a freight train that night. He also names "Scared" as a shock — a deep cut he had never heard live and never expected to.
A running theme starts here: how far into the catalogue the band was willing to reach on this tour.
Hearing the News, and the Fight for Tickets
Kirsten on the diagnosis: devastating, and immediately followed by a desperate need to be in the room to honour the band.
Her Ticketmaster ordeal — bounced three separate times — and a side story about how organizing an unplugged Headstones gig for a Pledge Music drive led to a friendship with Courtney, from the Hip's management side. Shout out to Courtney for the patience and the eventual tickets to Edmonton night one and Calgary night one.
Chris rewinds much further: his first Hip show at the old Shaw/Edmonton Convention Centre, when his buddy won the last pair of tickets on the radio and took someone else. Chris went down anyway, watched people offer $200 for a $20 ticket, walked back toward the LRT station, and got face value from the fifteenth person he asked.
The beer jug legend — paying a bouncer $20 to work the beer gardens, selling jugs at a markup, and Gord reaching down, taking a swig from Chris's jug, and hurling it into the crowd.
The Fully Completely tour show he almost missed: hungover off a flight home from Mexico, picked up at the airport by his dad, who happened to have tickets. They caught it from about song four.
For the final tour, a coworker — Kathy Thompson, ticket savant — tipped him off about the presale three days early. He landed what he calls the worst seats of his life and has never been happier about bad seats.
Who They Went With
Kirsten took her friend Natasha to night two, up in section 201; she had been on the floor for night one with her now-wife, who had never seen the Hip before.
Seeing the tour from two different vantage points meant two different shows — and from the upper level she could suddenly see the teleprompters on stage.
Chris invited both of the buddies from that very first show — one in Victoria, one living in France — and both had to bow out. His brother got the ticket, and the two of them have a lot of Hip history together.
The Set List
Opens with "Blow at High Dough."
Chris on the run of Courage / At the Hundredth Meridian / Wheat Kings / Fifty Mission Cap — four of his all-time favourites back to back. He told his brother he could have walked out happy right there.
The deep-album slot that night: We Are the Same. Kirsten singles out "Now the Struggle Has a Name" — she still remembers the notes Gord hit — and talks about the mood of "Coffee Girl" and "Morning Moon."
Chris is candid that the later records don't sit with him the way the early ones do, and names "An Inch an Hour" as the one that got away.
Both were set-list watching night to night, trying to guess which album would get pulled next — and Kirsten notes what it meant for Gord to rotate the set at all, given how well known his struggles with lyrics were (see: "Cordelia" quietly disappearing from set lists for years).
The Encores
Encore 1: Greasy Jungle → Scared → Grace, Too
Encore 2: Fireworks → Bobcaygeon
Kirsten on closing with "Bobcaygeon" instead of the usual barn-burner — phones and lighters up across the building, and Gord taking long moments to look out and take it in.
Chris connects the "checkerboard floors" line to the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, and reads the closer as the band pointing back at where they started. He still goes to the Horseshoe every time he's in Toronto.
Gord on Stage
The eye contact — a recurring observation across this series. Kirsten notes Gord historically avoided looking at people because singing faces threw him off, and that on this tour the fourth wall came down.
Her impression of him off stage from a brief meeting: quiet, soft-spoken, very funny, extremely thoughtful.
Chris was struck by how minimalist the production was — no big screens, just five guys, a silver suit, the feather hat and the Jaws shirt.
The honest part: Gord was visibly struggling in places, missing notes, with the band filling the gaps — and getting noticeably stronger night over night. Kirsten describes a collective will from the crowd pushing him through.
The Last Night in the Barn
This was the final concert at Rexall Place / Northlands Coliseum before the move to Rogers Place — so the night carried a second goodbye.
Chris and his brother started at the Vinyl Needle downtown (dinner, beers, and a Hip tribute band playing to a very envious crowd), then rode the LRT through pouring rain.
Walking into a building he had been going to since 1980 and finding it stripped and sterile — memorabilia pulled down, replaced with deep-cut oddities like an old Edmonton Drillers photo.
Kirsten on saying goodbye to a venue where she had seen Oilers playoffs, countless bands, and the Hip many times over.
When It Hit
"Courage." Chris looked left, looked right, looked down, looked at his brother — everyone was crying. First time he had ever cried at a concert.
Kirsten describes it coming in waves, every night, over and over: this is it, this is the final tour.
Chris screaming himself hoarse for one more encore — and getting it.
Walking out: heavy, but joyful. The same line over and over on the way to the train — "I can't believe I was here."
August 20: The CBC National Broadcast
Kirsten missed it live — Edmonton Fringe obligations with her wife — caught what she could on CBC Radio in the car, then watched her recording that night and lost it.
Her take on Gord's address to Trudeau and the reconciliation focus of his final chapter, and on the optimism she thinks the country still needs.
Chris hosted a house party for 15 or so, most of them less invested than he was, and had to explain to a room of nieces and nephews why Uncle Chris was crying on the couch.
Both reflect on the outdoor watch parties across the country — and Chris floats the idea of doing one for the 10th anniversary.
What They'd Tell Someone Who Wasn't There
Chris on the Hip as Canadiana nobody else has matched — the loon call in "Wheat Kings," getting away with naming an album Road Apples, the reflexive "Jacques Cartier, right this way" he and his buddy blurted out at a statue in France — and on being unabashedly proud to be Canadian.
Kirsten remembers a spotlit banner behind the stage reading "Canada Loves the Hip," and lands on the privilege of witnessing it: great musicianship, great ambassadors, good people making good art.
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
Venues: Rexall Place / Northlands Coliseum · Rogers Place · Edmonton (Shaw) Convention Centre · the Vinyl Needle · the Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto · K-Rock Centre, Kingston
Songs: Blow at High Dough · Courage · At the Hundredth Meridian · Wheat Kings · Fifty Mission Cap · Now the Struggle Has a Name · Coffee Girl · Morning Moon · New Orleans Is Sinking · Cordelia · An Inch an Hour · Greasy Jungle · Scared · Grace, Too · Fireworks · Bobcaygeon · Ahead by a Century
Albums & tours: Up to Here · Road Apples · Fully Completely · Live Between Us · Music @ Work · We Are the Same · Man Machine Poem · Another Roadside Attraction
People: Gord Downie · Paul, Rob, Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay · Courtney (Hip management) · Kathy Thompson · the Headstones · Robert Plant & Alison Krauss at the Edmonton Folk Music Festival
Plugs & Next Time
Kirsten and Chris both used their plug on this podcast. Take your flowers, JD.
Next episode: Calgary, Night 1 — August 1, 2016.

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.

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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 Summary
Edmonton, 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
Britain from Wainwright - 40 shows and counting, equidistant from everywhere and willing to drive. Video-recorded the entire night from his seat on a monopod; the footage lives on YouTube under his handle, Britstones, and the audio lives in his iTunes library.
Dave from Edmonton - the returning fan who got to say goodbye in the same barn where he saw The Hip as a younger man. Now the commissioner of the great Hip song bracket running daily in the Facebook group - 128 songs enter, one leaves.
Timestamps
00:00 - Welcome and panel introductions
02:00 - Dave: a lapsed fan hears the news and is instantly all in
04:44 - Amber's presale: eighth row floor, witnessed by a seniors' exercise class
05:58 - Britain's Ticketmaster upgrade trick: row 17 becomes row 11 centre
09:20 - Rexall Place over Rogers Place: one last night in the old barn
12:25 - The set list: album by album, a stroke of genius
15:30 - The In Between Evolution set and 'Gus: The Polar Bear'
19:14 - The vibe: celebration, church, and levitating through 'Scared'
23:21 - Production: the tight circle, the dark stage, the thunderstorm interlude
28:31 - When did you start saying goodbye?
33:14 - Encores: the 'Courage' singalong, and 'Flamenco' into 'Ahead by a Century'
38:19 - August 20th, 2016: watch parties, basements, and CBC pausing the Olympics
43:18 - Long Time Running and the Mansbridge interview
44:56 - The catalogue: Bob Rock albums, reissue wish lists, and no duds
49:54 - The songs that take them back: 'Gus' and 'Scared'
57:44 - Final thoughts: once in a lifetime, for good and sad reasons
59:49 - Plugs: Britstones on YouTube and the song bracket
Resources & References
Setlist and tour-debut data: hat tip to setlist.fm - 'Flamenco' made its tour debut this night
Audience recordings of the tour live at The Tragically Hip Archive
Britain's five-part video of the show: search Britstones on YouTube
The Escape Is at Hand origin story (and the Neu! 'Hallogallo' connection) comes from This Is Our Life by Michael Barclay
The documentary discussed is Long Time Running
Dave's 128-song Hip bracket runs daily at facebook.com/groups/tthpods - round two is going to be brutal
Related listening: Yer Hipstories - Victoria, July 22 2016
Join In
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.
Closing
Huge 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.
Connect
Facebook group: community.tthpods.com | Instagram: @tthpods | YouTube: youtube.com/@tthpods | Email: jd@tthpods.com
#TheTragicallyHip #TheHip #GordDownie #ManMachinePoem #InGordWeTrust #YerFavourites

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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
Released May 7, 1996 — the band's first simultaneous Canada/USA release
Winner, 1997 Juno Award for Album of the Year
Record 5 of 13
Self-produced with Mark Vreeken — the only time the band worked without an outside producer
Recorded at the Bathhouse

"700 Ft Ceiling" live stats (via The Hip Base and setlist.fm)
Played live 130 times — 3 times as an opener, 7 times as an encore
First played October 21, 1995
Last played November 27, 2004 (retired; not performed on the final tour)
Ranked #76 in the Tragically Hip Top 169 countdown — did not crack the Top 40

This week's poll: 47% / 47% split, with 6% "tolerating" it.
Songs & Albums Mentioned
Tragically Hip songs
700 Ft Ceiling · Membership · Morning Moon · Coffee Girl · The Depression Suite · Summer's Killing Us · You're Not the Ocean · Ahead by a Century · Gift Shop · Springtime in Vienna · Don't Wake Daddy · Flamenco · Butts Wigglin' · Apartment Song · Coconut Cream · Let's Stay Engaged · Sherpa · Put It Off · New Orleans Is Sinking · Little Bones · Titanic Terrarium · Emergency · Fireworks

Tragically Hip albums
Trouble at the Henhouse · Day for Night · Fully Completely · Road Apples · Phantom Power · We Are the Same · In Between Evolution · Live Between Us

Other references
Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy — source of "Butts Wigglin'"
Rick Beato's interview with Billy Joel — the "vowel movements" idea Joel credits to Keith Richards
Grunge-era touchstones: Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Creed
Lou Reed — Tracy's comparison for Gord's vocal delivery on this track
It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken — the stage adaptation, seen in Hamilton, now touring
Tom Green's interview with Paul Langlois, filmed in the Bathhouse jam space

People Mentioned
Gord Downie · Paul Langlois
Billy Ray — Bathhouse caretaker and keeper of the stories
Niles Spencer — Bathhouse engineer
Mark Vreeken — co-producer, Trouble at the Henhouse
Patrick Downey — filming Billy Ray for the documentary
Greg — JD's co-host on the earlier podcast series

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.

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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 Summary
Uncharted 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
Craig from Langley - 18 shows deep, first one in 1993 with his buddy Gord. Went to both Vancouver nights, predicted the Fully Completely opener in writing, and reunited with Dan, his old drummer, before the show.
Tina from Prince George - Day For Night-era fan with the deep-cut lyric tattoo to prove it. Brought her daughter to the show the day before her first birthday; that kid is now a proud Gord Downie fan.
Jay from BC - then working at the BC legislature in Victoria, now in Ottawa (no further questions). Walked out of Rogers Arena and bought Calgary night two, because this couldn't be his last.
Timestamps
00:00 - Welcome: officially into uncharted waters
01:59 - The person you think about: Tina's daughter, one day shy of her first birthday
02:47 - Craig reunites with Dan, his old drummer
05:30 - Hearing the news: gutted at work, glued to the Sunnybrook press conference
06:25 - Craig's on-sale: four coworkers, four wins, zero problems
07:44 - Tina's Amex presale and the row-seven trade from Ryan
09:57 - Jay: a muted newscast, a missed Victoria date, and dad grabs the last row of the lower bowl
15:50 - Songs that hit different: 'Daredevil' both nights, 'So Hard Done By' not funny anymore
18:27 - Tina: earmuffs, the crashing-waves interlude, and realizing this is the last time
22:45 - Jay: the 'Fiddler's Green' surprise, 'Fifty Mission Cap', and 'Toronto #4'
28:36 - The outfits, the set-list formula, and touching all 13 albums
30:56 - Gord's memory, the lyric monitors, and showing up how he wanted to show up
34:14 - The SNL performance, the Sheldon Cooper theory, and the emoting
37:25 - When did it dawn on you? The goodbyes inside the show
39:37 - Rowdy going in, stunned coming out: tears and the emptying arena
44:05 - The 'Grace, Too' moment: three minutes of screaming
48:03 - The one last tour that was actually one last tour
49:08 - Ten years later: how Long Time Running rewrote Jay's memory of the night
53:28 - Craig: full circle since 1993, and the Spirit of the West parallel
56:54 - Tina: Kingston, the challenge to Trudeau, and the Downie Wenjack legacy
01:00:08 - Final thoughts and a song from that night on the way out
Resources & References
Setlist and song-count data: hat tip to setlist.fm - roughly 71 different songs across the tour, touching all 13 albums
The rehearsal and monitor moments discussed come from Long Time Running
The first-ever live 'Fiddler's Green': MacEwan Hall Ballroom, Calgary, on the World Container Tour
Learn more about Gord's Kingston challenge and its legacy at the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund
Related listening: Yer Hipstories - Victoria, July 22 2016
Join In
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.
Closing
Huge 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.
Connect
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