A Brief One from Doug Draper
Posted October 18th, 2017 on Niagara At Large
Since first hearing the sad news last year that Gord Downie was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, we all new this day was coming – Gord Downie dies this Tuesday, October 17th, at age 53.
One’s mind almost immediately flashes back to that last heroic cross-country tour he and the Hip went on last summer – what Gord and all his friends and and fans knew at the time was a farewell tout – and here in Niagara, to the thousands of people who packed the Meridian Centre in St. Catharines on August 18th, 2017 to view the last show, fed in on giant screens from the band’s hometown in Kingston, Ontario.
I recall being across the border in Buffalo, New York earlier that August day, visiting a few of my favourite haunts, including my friends at Record Theatre where they were playing a bit of Tragically Hip music on the intercom, and I was blown away with how many people said they were going to gather at places in that city where that were going to offer live feeds of the show, to celebrate the band and its front man in concert one last time.
Justin Trudeau, just another of millions of Tragically Hip fans at the last show of the Farewell Tour in Kingston, Ontario on August 18th, 2017
Justin Trudeau, just another of millions of Tragically Hip fans at the last show of the Farewell Tour in Kingston, Ontario on August 18th, 2017Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and a fan of Gord Downie and the Hip who was in that huge audience in Kingston, Ontario for that last show, could barely keep it together as he spoke about the passing of Gord Downie this October 18th morning in Ottawa – “He loved this country with everything he had … and he knew that, as great as we are, he wanted to make it better … We are less as a country without Gord Downie in it.”
Amen.
NAL will have more on Gord Downie later. Share your thoughts.
NIAGARA AT LARGE encourages you to join the conversation by sharing your views on this post in the space below.
For more news and commentary from Niagara At Large – an independent, alternative voice for our greater binational Niagara region – become a regular visitor and subscriber to NAL at www.niagaraatlarge.com .
Niagara At Large 