News from Brock University
Posted August 18th, 2016 on Niagara At Large
Niagara, Ontario – The Tragically Hip’s final concert tour has been less emotional than a Brock University pop culture professor expected. Instead, the iconic Canadian band is doing what it does best: putting on amazing shows.
Gord Downie and the whole band in full tilt at the August 8th, London, Ontario show. Photo courtesy of Kelly Robson of Niagara, Ontario.
“They’ve made it about the music,” says Scott Henderson, associate professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film and executive director of the Popular Culture Association of Canada. “They’ve been coming out and doing what they love to do, which is playing the music.”
The Hip play a concert in Ottawa this Thursday night (August 18th) and then wrap up the Man Machine Poem tour in their hometown of Kingston this coming Saturday night (August 20th). The band’s final concert — a result of lead singer Gord Downie’s diagnosis of an incurable form of brain cancer — will be broadcast live, commercial-free by the CBC.
It will also be streamed live in countless public gatherings across the country, including at the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines, Scotiabank Convention Centre and at Queen Victoria Park in Niagara Falls, and at Civic Square in Welland.
“The last time we saw something like this was maybe the Summit Series in 1972, where schools were rolling out TVs and everyone wanted to see it,” Henderson says. “The Tragically Hip concert is already a live, commercial-free broadcast on the CBC, but still people want to watch it in unfold in groups. People want to share the energy.”
He says the final tour is bringing people together.
“There has been a lot of people that have been thinking about what it means to be Canadian and it has made people think about Canadian pop culture.”
For information on how to watch the final Kingston, Ontario show on CBC venues this Saturday, August 2o, click on – http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/how-to-watch-tragically-hip-concert-aug20-1.3724916 .
There are at least two venues in Niagara, Ontario where the final August 2oth show in Kingston will be streamed live on the big screen. The following links give details for two of the free big screen offerings of the August 20th show being offered in Niagara, Ontario –
https://voiceofniagara.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=20374&action=edit .
https://voiceofniagara.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=20374&action=edit .
FINALLY, here is a link to a moving article by Buffalo News music writer Jeff Miers on a recent Tragically Hip show he saw in Hamilton, Ontario where at the end of the concert, he quotes Gord Downie saying to the audience; “It was a lot of fun. That is the main idea. None of it will last much longer than the particular phone you’re shooting it on. And that is OK. I’m not anti-phone or anything. But, uh, it will be the little feelings here and there that pop up, OK?” Wow. It is a great piece by Jeff Miers, whose stories on popular music are almost always well worth the read. Here it is – http://buffalo.com/2016/08/17/news/music/concert-reviews/tragically-hips-hamilton-show-poignant-affair/ .
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