It was the only thing besides my cell phone that was always in my bag.” “I'd purchased a book of poems he'd written earlier that year and, like the cool kid I was, I carried it with me pretty much everywhere that year. “I'd been a great admirer of their music, especially of his brilliance as a lyricist,” she says. When Bianca Bruni first came to Kingston to study at Queen’s, one of the items on her ‘Kingston bucket list’ was to meet Gord Downie. “It’s about the special connections that form through the shared experience of live music.” “Every Hip show I’ve been to has been about more than just the songs,” says Kerr. Of course, the show did not disappoint it previewed all the songs from the album Phantom Power, which was released 12 days later, as well as old fan favourites like New Orleans is Sinking and Courage. More than that, though, I didn’t want to miss out on our chance to see Canada’s biggest band in a tiny club that held a couple hundred people at most.”Īs it turned out, the IDs worked. “I was nervous about breaking the rules for the first time in my life. They took a chance and borrowed the IDs of older friends, praying they would fool the bouncer. While they were able to get tickets, one small problem remained: Kerr and his friend were both underage. On a leap of faith, he and a friend got up bright and early to secure concert bracelets for that evening’s mysterious show when they arrived at the Ironhorse (now the Giant Tiger on Princess Street) at 5 a.m., a line had already formed. “The band hadn’t played a hometown show in more than three years after vowing never again to set foot in the echo chamber that is the Kingston Memorial Centre.” He had heard through the grapevine that the band was going to play a ‘secret show’ the next day at the Ironhorse Saloon.

Mark Kerr’s favourite Tragically Hip memory began, appropriately, on a Canada Day nearly 18 years ago. It felt like the whole city came out to these special shows!' Gord Downie was clearly entranced (see what I did there?), rambling on like a poet and dancing like a mad man and I, along with all the teenaged kids of Kingston, was enthralled. 'This is what I keep thinking about today after the sad news: those iconic concerts. 'That means you probably saw The Hip play at Fort Henry and/or Richardson Stadium,' she wrote on Facebook. Megan Joslin attended high school in Kingston in the early-mid '90s, around the time the albums Road Apples and Fully Completely came out. It is a connection that is intangible but as strong as steel.” “I know them in the same way that I know in my gut that the Limestone City is my home no matter where I am in the world. Muise says that when she moved to BC in 1996, she was terribly homesick she would play the Hip and remember her hometown. Years later, when she took her wedding vows, the inside of her groom’s ring was inscribed “fully, completely.”

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