Reflecting on six-year anniversary of Hip frontman Gord Downie’s death

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“It doesn’t go around you. It goes through you. It doesn’t go around you, it blows right through.” — Gord Downie, The East Wind

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About halfway through a lengthy sit-down interview with Rob Baker in downtown Kingston over the weekend, The Tragically Hip guitarist was talking about what he was keeping busy with these days.

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He paints. (He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at his hometown Queen’s University.) Recently, he gifted fellow Hip guitarist and lifelong friend Paul Langlois a beautiful portrait of his bandmate for his birthday.

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He writes. As my Sun colleague and one-time tennis partner Jane Stevenson detailed in a story about the guitarist and the band in 2021, Baker has been working on a book that will feature light-hearted musings about the iconic Canadian band’s life on the road.

“I’m not rushing at all. Just plugging away with it and we’ll see what happens,” he told me on Saturday afternoon, adding he does most of his writing for the book when he travels by train.

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The 61-year-old also continues to be entrenched in his hometown’s music scene, lending his musical chops to Kingston-based bands such as The Wilderness and Kasador (featuring his son Boris.)

On most days between May and October, the musician with perhaps the nicest hair known to man also plays his acoustic guitar on the front porch of his home in the Limestone City.

Make no mistake, Baker has kept busy since the death of frontman Gord Downie on Oct. 17, 2017 — six years ago.

Still, apart from Downie, the country’s poet laureate who cruelly was taken by brain cancer, something very obvious has been missing.

“I certainly don’t want to be on stage,” Baker said.

I wanted to ask him why he hasn’t returned to performing since The Hip’s final, legendary concert on Aug. 20, 2016, at what was then called the K-Rock Centre in Kingston.

The purpose of our meeting was for a forthcoming, unrelated story, however, so I opted against the natural follow-up question. It felt too personal in the moment, too irrelevant.

And deep down, the answer seemed obvious to me.

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When Downie died, so did The Hip.

Just as Baker has surely struggled with myriad issues since his Kingston friend and bandmate’s death, so too have Hip fans such as myself.

In the six years since Downie’s death, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve purposely thrown on a Hip album. For a band that has shaped my life and relationships for three decades or so — been in my bones all of those years — Downie’s loss has made the Hip sound different.

What it meant to me before, it doesn’t mean now.

So I tuned out. It was easier that way. To borrow a lyric from the 2009 Hip single Love is a First, “Love is a curse.”

Yet here I was on the anniversary of Downie’s death and without a doubt sparked by my weekend conversation with Baker, diving back into the band’s immense and excellent catalog. Cranking the hits (Little Bones, Gift Shop, Three Pistols, Cordelia) while also getting lost in lesser-known personal favourites like Summer’s Killing Us, Something On, The Depression Suite and The Lookahead.)

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No, it didn’t sound the same, didn’t invoke anything close to those same feelings as when Downie was alive, when my wife and I were mapping out our next Hip show or final Hip concert.

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But it felt good to give the songs a spin again, to give the Hip a go again, to give something that meant so much, then hurt so much, a chance to mean something once more.

They say to never meet your heroes and after meeting Baker for the first time — save for a quick handshake during a Now for Plan A album promo concert in Toronto’s Kensington Market more than a decade ago — I know that’s a lie.

The man with the big smile is as friendly in person as you’d assume he’d be.

And I hope that one day soon — if he’s so inclined, that is — Baker might want to return to the stage to perform in some capacity.

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To borrow another Hip lyric from Plan A‘s The Lookahead, “It’s a power of, power of, power of free and easy.”

And the power of free and easy, a tough place to get to sometimes, just might be all we can hope for in this no-dress-rehearsals life.

POWER BACK ON

Hip fans looking to add to their collection will want to mark their calendars.

The 25th anniversary box set for The Tragically Hip’s iconic album Phantom Power — known for such hits as Bobcaygeon, Poets, and Fireworks — will be released on Nov. 3.

Additionally, The Tragically Hip ABC picture book, featuring the work of several Canadian illustrators, will be released on Oct. 24.

[email protected]

X: IanShantz

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“It doesn’t go around you. It goes through you. It doesn’t go around you, it blows right through.” — Gord Downie, The East Wind

Article content

About halfway through a lengthy sit-down interview with Rob Baker in downtown Kingston over the weekend, The Tragically Hip guitarist was talking about what he was keeping busy with these days.

Article content

He paints. (He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts at his hometown Queen’s University.) Recently, he gifted fellow Hip guitarist and lifelong friend Paul Langlois a beautiful portrait of his bandmate for his birthday.

Article content

He writes. As my Sun colleague and one-time tennis partner Jane Stevenson detailed in a story about the guitarist and the band in 2021, Baker has been working on a book that will feature light-hearted musings about the iconic Canadian band’s life on the road.

“I’m not rushing at all. Just plugging away with it and we’ll see what happens,” he told me on Saturday afternoon, adding he does most of his writing for the book when he travels by train.

Article content

Article content

The 61-year-old also continues to be entrenched in his hometown’s music scene, lending his musical chops to Kingston-based bands such as The Wilderness and Kasador (featuring his son Boris.)

On most days between May and October, the musician with perhaps the nicest hair known to man also plays his acoustic guitar on the front porch of his home in the Limestone City.

Make no mistake, Baker has kept busy since the death of frontman Gord Downie on Oct. 17, 2017 — six years ago.

Still, apart from Downie, the country’s poet laureate who cruelly was taken by brain cancer, something very obvious has been missing.

“I certainly don’t want to be on stage,” Baker said.

I wanted to ask him why he hasn’t returned to performing since The Hip’s final, legendary concert on Aug. 20, 2016, at what was then called the K-Rock Centre in Kingston.

The purpose of our meeting was for a forthcoming, unrelated story, however, so I opted against the natural follow-up question. It felt too personal in the moment, too irrelevant.

And deep down, the answer seemed obvious to me.

Article content

When Downie died, so did The Hip.

Just as Baker has surely struggled with myriad issues since his Kingston friend and bandmate’s death, so too have Hip fans such as myself.

In the six years since Downie’s death, I can count on one hand how many times I’ve purposely thrown on a Hip album. For a band that has shaped my life and relationships for three decades or so — been in my bones all of those years — Downie’s loss has made the Hip sound different.

What it meant to me before, it doesn’t mean now.

So I tuned out. It was easier that way. To borrow a lyric from the 2009 Hip single Love is a First, “Love is a curse.”

Yet here I was on the anniversary of Downie’s death and without a doubt sparked by my weekend conversation with Baker, diving back into the band’s immense and excellent catalog. Cranking the hits (Little Bones, Gift Shop, Three Pistols, Cordelia) while also getting lost in lesser-known personal favourites like Summer’s Killing Us, Something On, The Depression Suite and The Lookahead.)

Article content

No, it didn’t sound the same, didn’t invoke anything close to those same feelings as when Downie was alive, when my wife and I were mapping out our next Hip show or final Hip concert.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

But it felt good to give the songs a spin again, to give the Hip a go again, to give something that meant so much, then hurt so much, a chance to mean something once more.

They say to never meet your heroes and after meeting Baker for the first time — save for a quick handshake during a Now for Plan A album promo concert in Toronto’s Kensington Market more than a decade ago — I know that’s a lie.

The man with the big smile is as friendly in person as you’d assume he’d be.

And I hope that one day soon — if he’s so inclined, that is — Baker might want to return to the stage to perform in some capacity.

Article content

To borrow another Hip lyric from Plan A‘s The Lookahead, “It’s a power of, power of, power of free and easy.”

And the power of free and easy, a tough place to get to sometimes, just might be all we can hope for in this no-dress-rehearsals life.

POWER BACK ON

Hip fans looking to add to their collection will want to mark their calendars.

The 25th anniversary box set for The Tragically Hip’s iconic album Phantom Power — known for such hits as Bobcaygeon, Poets, and Fireworks — will be released on Nov. 3.

Additionally, The Tragically Hip ABC picture book, featuring the work of several Canadian illustrators, will be released on Oct. 24.

[email protected]

X: IanShantz

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