Soundtrack

February 26, 1995 was my first Hip concert. I was going to UVic, the concert was at Memorial Arena. I went with my friends Shaun, Dave, and Preston. I wore a shirt and a sweatshirt and bought a Hip shirt. It was hot. Gord sweated more.

August 31, 1997. I was a co-op student living in Hawaii, sitting on the lanai of a Dutch astronomer who hosted other students. One brought out a guitar and started playing 38 Years Old. I remember the date because Lady Diana died that night and Mike and I watched the news on TV.

Shaun and I would email each other lines from Hip songs and get the other to guess the song. He was always better at it than I was.

Calgary, visiting Martin and Laura. Walking from the train to the Saddledome with hundreds of my new best friends to see The Hip. We sang O Canada along the way.

Vancouver, Pacific Coliseum. I went with Martin. The Hip played Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin’ Man. I yelled in his ear, “This music speaks to me.”

Vancouver, Rogers Arena, Fully Completely tour. Alice got me tickets. They played our favourite songs.

Rogers Arena again, and this time for their last tour. I don’t remember much of it except for an overwhelming outpouring of love from everybody to everybody. Band to crowd, crowd to band. Band to band too, we were all witness to the love on stage.

We all knew the day was coming, but we all hoped that day would be far in the future. For a while there we thought you beat the inevitability of death to death just a little bit.

Thank you, Gord, for supplying the soundtrack to our lives.