Sunday Sessions – The Tragically Hip

By The Telltale Mind on August 21, 2016 • ( Leave a comment )

Everybody dies. It is a fact of life that cannot be escaped no matter how hard we try or wish it to be otherwise. It happens to the best and to the worst of us and in the end, it matters not just how it happens because after the fact, it will be how a person lived that they are judged or remembered. In a year of many notable celebrity deaths, it almost seems as if we cannot take anymore – the collective tapestry of sounds and sights that helped to shape so many a being, slowly fading away. From Bowie to Prince to Ronnie Corbet, Anton Yelchin, Muhammad Ali and so many more, we have lost a lot of people this year. At the moment, Gord Downie – lead singer of The Tragically Hip, is dying of incurable brain cancer. Instead of letting it get him down and instead of just fading from sight he has gone the David Bowie route and decided to leave his fans a gift. It is not an album of all-new material, but a tour – one final tour which wrapped up last night in his hometown of Kingston, Ontario. For all the fans that supported the band over the years, he wanted to give a little something back and additionally, perhaps to just say goodbye in the best way that he knew how. The tour has been met with rave reviews, no doubt partly due to sympathy from some but mostly because Gord and the band earned them. The tour has been nothing short of phenomenal by all accounts and it truly is a high point in their career, one among many. Yes, it is all right to be sad for the man, but when you think about it, instead of mourning, we could all take a lesson from Downie and live our lives to the fullest and honour him in that way. A singer, a songwriter, a troubadour and a poet Gord Downie may be, but he is also one of the bravest men you will ever see and he will forever be remembered as such.