Ten years to the day. Three fans who were in the building for opening night in Victoria tell the story - the tickets, the silver suit, and the night the Man Machine Poem Tour began.

Episode Summary

First stop. July 22nd, 2016. The Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre in Victoria, where The Tragically Hip opened the Man Machine Poem Tour and, as jD puts it, tore the place up. Ten years later, Yer Hipstories: Reflections From The Final Tour gathers three fans who were there - Chris from Kelowna, Dave from Campbell River, and Jay from Edmonton - to take it from soup to nuts: hearing the news, chasing the tickets, and living the night.

The ticket stories alone are worth the price of admission. Dave had seen The Hip 19 times and never sweated a ticket - until dynamic pricing and the bots turned this on-sale into the most stressful of his life. Chris dumb-lucked into fabulous seats through a venue voucher he had to drive to Victoria to redeem - and ended up on CBC, Global, CTV, and CNNalong the way, posting his mileage in a very Canadian unit: 12 Tragically Hip songs per hundred kilometres. Jay stared down 45 minutes of "sold out" on Ticketmaster before row four on the floor appeared for him, his wife, and his two-year-old daughter - then did it again and landed row two for Vancouver.

Then the lights went down and 'Boots or Hearts' opened the night. The panel remembers the acoustic-style start, the deep cuts up front, Gord Downie's glittering silver suit and feather - and Chris's reading of it all: this was the band flipping the bird at cancer and controlling the narrative. Jay's daughter got a wave from Gord during 'Blow at High Dough' - a moment you can spot in the documentary. Dave got 'The Luxury', played for the first time since 2000, at his 20th show.

There's real talk about the four "Man Machine Poem" songs played each night - 'In a World Possessed by the Human Mind', 'Machine', 'What Blew', and one more with a title we can't print here - plus where everyone was on August 20th, 2016, from inside the Kingston barn to packed small-town bars in Dorintosh, Saskatchewan, and Vanderhoof, BC. The word the panel lands on: gratitude.

The Panel

• Chris from Kelowna - longtime search and rescue volunteer, then living in Vanderhoof. Drove 1,000 kilometres to the show with his brother and an iPod co-pilot, and became the national media's favourite Hip fan for a week.
• Dave from Campbell River - joining from Halifax on the other end of the country. Victoria was his 20th Hip show; he carried on to Ottawa and Kingston, and he has never said goodbye.
• Jay from Edmonton - then in Calgary, tent trailer in tow for a family vacation on the island. His two-year-old daughter is the little girl in the headphones in the documentary. Victoria was show 39 of 40.

Timestamps

• 00:00 - Welcome and panel introductions
• 02:01 - Ticket stress: bots, dynamic pricing, and pure persistence
• 08:27 - Chris's media tour: CBC, Global, CTV, and CNN
• 11:16 - The opener: 'Boots or Hearts' hits different
• 13:51 - 'Blow at High Dough' and a wave from Gord
• 16:29 - The silver suit, the feather, and flipping the bird at cancer
• 22:14 - The "Man Machine Poem" songs live
• 28:09 - A farewell party and the beginning of a goodbye
• 35:47 - August 20th, 2016: Kingston, and the bars that held the rest of us
• 41:34 - News: the live record and the National Celebration rebroadcast
• 42:46 - Final thoughts on Victoria
• 50:42 - Gratitude and what comes next

Resources & References

• Setlist and play-count data: hat tip to Hipbase and setlist.fm
• The documentary moments discussed come from Long Time Running
• National Celebration returns: a live record on August 21st, and the CBC rebroadcast on August 22nd
• Related listening: The Tragically Hip On Shuffle - Live Stream: The Darkest One

Join In

This series is a living audio time capsule, and it only works if the community brings the goods. Were you at a stop on the Man Machine Poem Tour? Share your Hipstory and be part of the record. Want more from the network between episodes? Subscribe to Yer Letter, the monthly newsletter from jD.

Closing

Huge thanks to Chris from Kelowna, Dave from Campbell River, and Jay from Edmonton for opening the vault on opening night - the nerves, the tears, the feather, and the wave. The takeaway this week is the word Chris found and everyone kept: gratitude. They chose the stage. We got to be there. So there's that.

In two days, the series crosses the Strait to the mainland: Vancouver, July 24th, 2016. Get after it.

Connect

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