The Tragically Hip were the important band of the ’90s. I have just finished watching the four-part documentary The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, which came out in 2024. 2026 also marks the 10-year anniversary of their last show, which was broadcast nationally across Canada.
So, right off the bat, whatever I am going to write here feels stale, perhaps already stated, at least tacitly, by many great Canadian music journalists. As a spoiler alert, it is almost impossible to comment on The Hip’s legacy without living in Canada for the duration of their 30-year career.
So, while what I am going to write is really a distillate of the musical, cultural, and spiritual influence that was so magnificently portrayed over four hours of footage, my perspective is, to be blunt, more important than any of the people who were interviewed about the band.
If that’s not a hot fuckin’ take, I do not know what is.
That even includes the likes of Dan Ackroyd, the actor, George Strombolopoulos, the great Gen X journalist, and some guy named Geddy Lee. All had powerful and poignant observations about the true currency of the band.
How and why does my voice raise the bar on the band’s already elevated status in Canadian music lore? Let me explain.
If we are given one ego card in life, I am going to play mine now. And I have a picture to accompany it. This is Jeff Woods, telling rock ‘n’ roll stories to two of my friends back in 2022 in Toronto.
He wrote the foreword for my book, Sonic Seducer. He has also interviewed artists like Jimmy Page, Rush and Bowie, to name but three. He knows a fuck ton about rock ‘n’ roll.
A few minutes after this picture was taken, I was quietly eating my steak frites, ordered by all of us. Our attractive bartender comes over and starts talking to Jeff about tattoos and his background as a Canadian radio personality.
I then get this really hard jab in my right shoulder by Jeff, obviously trying to get my attention.
As he gets it, he starts trading looks between myself and her and says, “This guy here knows more about fucking music than anyone I have ever met in my life.”
Music is Jeff Woods’ life. He had the enthusiastic humility and audacity to publicly state this when he clearly did not have to. Ego card being played. Obsession can be “blamed” for the truth of his statement.
Like millions of Canadians, I adored The Tragically Hip. Like several hundred thousand Canadians my age, we experienced the height of the alternative/Seattle/grunge scene. Probably a pretty strong Venn diagram in terms of the intersection between those two.
However, things drop off rapidly if a circle of Metal like Metallica, Slayer, and Judas Priest is introduced in terms of overlap. And things continue to shrink with crossover obsession into its subgenres of the Metal-rap phenomenon of the early ’90s, with bands like Rage Against The Machine, Faith No More, Biohazard, and Downset. Luckily, I saw most of these hybrid bands in dingy clubs.
And I also possess a fourth circle, which is basically the Trojan horse thesis for my book. It was a small circle 30+ years ago, the whole underground world of stoner/doom, which began in the same era as The Hip’s rise to fame.
In 2026, that circle is massive, with the others having disappeared or being relegated to dad rock status, including Metallica.
So while no offence to the great celebrities in the documentary, they are, generally speaking, purveyors of all things Dad rock. They did not really experience the full plate of everything that came out musically in the’90’s.
I did. I saw bands like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, and Jane’s Addiction in their early days.
I saw Rage Against The Machine several times, including a show where fans jumped from the balcony right after Bombtrack kicks in after the iconic bass intro.
I saw Shoegazer bands like My Bloody Valentine and Lush.
Parallel to all this was my early experience with the stoner rock scene. I saw Monster Magnet touring on Spine Of God. I saw Fu Manchu on every tour of their ’90s albums.
And I was fortunate to see the original lineup of Kyuss in 1994, living up to their cult status and beyond. As Dave Grohl commented on seeing them in 1992 in Seattle, “They blew my fuckin’ mind.”
My observations about The Tragically Hip just carry more weight. I simply listened to more, saw more, and experienced more. Words matter. Celebrity endorsement of those words, especially without having seen the full vista of ’90s music, does not. Dave Grohl’s words are immune from such an audit. He worships Voivod, another Canadian band. Enough said.
Like most of Canada, I also saw The Tragically Hip. That first time, boy, did they live up to the hype and mystique.
It was 1991. Gord Downie would be sporting his long hair for the last time. We all arrived late and drunk. There was a palpable tension in the air at the intersection of rising fame and crowds that seemed to be liberally sprinkled with bikers, frat boys, and fans who grew up on ’70s fight-filled hockey.
Their live shows easily competed with the best of music at that time. I saw Pearl Jam and Jane’s Addiction around the same time in this same venue. Each of these bands was tapping into the swell of revolutionary change in music, ignited, of course, by Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.
Without this kind of beginning to the band, I am not writing this article. They still could have gone on to be a great band, but to be vaulted to the top of the ’90s pyramid of music, they had to possess the aura/magic/energy of Pearl Jam, Jane’s Addiction, Rage Against The Machine, Monster Magnet, and Kyuss.
And, if you are going to write about this apex of ’90s greatness, you also had to have seen all these bands, in small clubs, to make such a claim about the still beloved The Tragically Hip.
No offence, Geddy. But, you were busy with Rush to even have listened to this music, nevermind seen it live.
But, thankfully, The Tragically Hip became more than just a great live band, flirting with the energy of an impending bar brawl.
They ended up writing some of the greatest music ever made, with the lyrics, penned by the consummate poet Downie, being the clarion call for a country always struggling with its nebulous identity to find it.
We may all debate who was the best band of the ’90s. But, in terms of importance that stretches into the domains of musical, cultural, and political for a whole country, no band in that decade accomplished as much. They continually gave to charities. They told Tower Records to “fuck off” when they were asked to play a show on the rooftop of their Toronto store. They hated performative publicity. They sang about Canadian things that only Canadians would know.
And their last gift to the country was bringing attention to the plight of our indigenous people and the lasting trauma of residential schools.
School chums, playing with the loving support of parents, is a beginning that defined the end of that band–love. They loved each other. They loved their parents. They continue to love their kids.
They loved Kingston, their hometown. They loved Canada, and we loved them right back, until that end. A third of the nation watched the last show, appropriately in Kingston, in 2016. I watched the whole show with my parents.
They had only heard about the band because of the national attention that was given this show and the ailing Downie. My parents, proud Canadians, who came to this country in 1970, felt it was a duty to watch this national treasure for the last time.
If you want to know what it was like across Canada that night, this is it. Ahead By A Century had become our unofficial second national anthem.
Usually the motto is You Had To Be There. For The Tragically Hip, it is You Had To Live Here.
I did. I do. They were the absolute best. And, of course, in typical Canadian fashion, I will go Elbow Up if you fight me on this.
Call me when a band’s name is abbreviated and sits atop a country’s flag. You don’t get that kind of legacy without earning every possible stripe/badge of influence.
I would be remiss without leaving you with my favorite Hip song, with Feist on vocals. Sometimes our most powerful moments are the quieter ones.
Some of my favourite Hip lyrics are in this song.
“Let’s get friendship right
Get life day to day
In the forget, yer skates dream
Full of countervailing woes”
Who the fuck wrote with such poetic precision, including something so Canadian, yer skates dream! Nobody. The Tragically Hip were always going to be fiercely and uniquely Canadian.
The Tragically Hip’s mark on our country was anything but that. You made a whole country dance, sing, and cry together. There is no disputing the worldwide fame of Rush. But, even they would admit that the powerful idea of Canadian identity must be awarded to the Kingston quintet of childhood friends.
In The Hip we trust. Forever.
