Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour - Edmonton Night 2

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 [email protected].

This has been a presentation of the Tragically Hip Podcast Series.

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