The Tragically Hip Podcast Series

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

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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
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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

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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

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/tthtop40/donations

Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/tthtop40/donations

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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
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