WINNIPEG -- Gord Downie doesn’t need Ry Cooder to sing his eulogy.
He’s getting to sing it himself, as his band, the iconic Tragically Hip, maps its way across Canada one final time.
All goodbyes should go so well.
Downie, the front-man and face of the Kingston, Ont. quintet, has been diagnosed with incurable and terminal brain cancer, a death sentence for a man many Canadians look to as the voice of their nation, his music providing a window into the country’s soul.
The 15-date tour, announced in May, sold out almost instantly, the Hip’s legions of fans desperate for one last chance to pay homage to the 52-year-old Downie and his bandmates – guitarists Paul Langlois and Rob Baker, bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay.
On Friday night they made their final stop in Winnipeg, a city where the band was infamously fired from six gigs early in its career.
It’s OK, Downie told an MTS Centre crowd that included more than its fair share from Thunder Bay. It’s time to forgive and forget.
The audience, one of the loudest ever to descend on the Manitoba capital, was there to remember.
There may have been five musicians on stage, but make no mistake, this show was all about Downie, who alternated wearing green, gold and blue metallic suits throughout the night, accented with a feather-rimmed top hat and matching scarf.
If there was any doubt of the type of show they planned to deliver, they erased it almost instantaneously, barging through the opening At the Hundredth Meridian, lowering the crowd not slowly and sadly into a 26-song retrospective of the Tragically Hip’s three-decade career, but rather rapidly and gleefully.
It was a modular show of sorts, the group breaking up its set into four-song chunks from some of the Hip’s most popular albums.
After racing through Pigeon Camera, Courage and Wheat Kings – a song that includes the line “Let’s just see what tomorrow brings,” a question on the mind of every single person in the crowd – they turned to the songs of their latest offering, 2016’s Man, Machine, Poem.
Machine, Tired as Fuck, What Blue and In a World Possessed by the Human Mind are all good songs and this tour could be Downie’s only chance to play them live.
He deserved the indulgence, though one fan seated next to me received a text that included just four words: “Worst. Set. List. Ever.”
Those expecting a greatest hits montage may have left disappointed. Full albums, including Day for Night, were ignored. But Downie and company have been digging into their vaults on this tour, dragging out deep cuts not heard live in years. And 2:45 is hardly enough time to play everything.
Winnipeg was no different.
Those who were just looking to be entertained got what they paid for (even if it was triple face value from scalpers with no soul).
After a short break they returned with four songs from 2012’s Now for Plan A, dropping Streets Ahead (a tour first), The Lookahead, Man Machine and At Transformation.
In between songs, the emotionally charged masses chanted, “Gord, Gord, Gord!” or “Hip, Hip, Hip!”
Next up was 1998’s Phantom Power.
It was two songs in that the audience took to its feet for good, never to sit down again.
If Poets set the crowd’s heartbeats pounding, it was the soulful Bobcaygeon and its checkerboard floors that took them to ecstacy.
“I thought of maybe quitting, I thought of leaving it behind,” crooned Downie, the words never ringing more true than they do this summer.
Road Apples, the Hip’s third album, got five songs, Little Bones and Twist My Arm pounding home the Tragically Hip’s rock and roll roots, The Last of the Unplucked Gems, The Luxury and Long Time Running showing they can slow things down and not skip a beat.
Throughout the night, Downie just did what’s he done best since the Tragically Hip formed in the early 1980s – he went out on stage and delivered.
The quirky mannerisms and facial gestures he’s become famous for were there – though the mid-song rants were mostly missing, a slight disappointment for sure for many long-time fans.
The 16,000-strong crowd had its chance to say farewell just prior to the first encore as Downie, alone on stage, took it all in for a full three minutes, the rafters at the MTS Centre shaking from the noise.
The rest of the Hip returned and it was back to business as usual.
With their fans singing in lockstep, they offered up Boots or Hearts from 1989's Up to Here, followed with a rare version of Opiated from the same disc and the rip-roaring New Orleans is Sinking, a song once pulled from American radio in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
The second and final encore consisted of Springtime in Vienna from Trouble at the Henhouse and closed with Ahead By a Century.
“We love you. We love you. Thanks for all the years. Thanks for all the years,” Downie shouted, sticking around a few extra moments to soak it all in.
No, thank you Gord and farewell.
We’re going to miss you terribly when you’re gone.
Leith Dunick first saw the Tragically Hip in 1997 in Halifax and has now seen them a total of 13 times, the most recent at First Avenue in Minneapolis last year during the Fully Completely Tour.
