There aren't any words, really. Just a lot of love and not enough time. Like life in general.
Took Ian and Rachel to the Hip concert in Edmonton - the extreme nosebleed seats were awesome, a small block of chairs up under the roof, surrounded by grandmas and bikers and teenagers and dads and little kids (wearing industrial headphones like workmen wear when jack hammering) and it was super loud and we were so elevated that we had a bird's eye view of a bird's eye view. (I promise, that's the only lyric reference for this one, but it came into my head when we sat down and watched the stadium fill to ultra-capacity.) I had to close my eyes, at one point, partly because they were filled with tears and partly because I wanted to feel the music in my body, hand over my heart, so close to them inside.
It's the music of my adult life. I first heard Boots or Hearts when I was 21, walking on the estuary behind our trailer, and fell in love instantly with the music, Gord's voice, the line about fingers and toes. In a way Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip have been like a bubble around me, my second self, in parallel to the first, whispering and shouting in my ears through everything that's happened to me in between, and I colour and filter all my experiences through them. Driving down the steep road from the spiral tunnels, shouting the words to Smalltown Bringdown with the kids, dancing in the kitchen with them to Fireworks (they always called it the 'hockey song'), Wheat Kings the story of my high school reunion, Cordelia of course, Bobcaygeon and Nautical Disaster for late night depressive episodes, and going to two spectacular concerts that were peak experiences leaving me deaf and with new admiration... I love how they play a song live and it gives you a new take on it - Long Time Running at the Queen Elizabeth theatre, Bobcaygeon at BC Place, Membership in Edmonton (I needed more concerts. Never got them) and you carry that along with the recording. The words, the key shifts and tempo changes that I know off by heart, the changes in the lyrics when Gord is performing, the ecstasy that I can't explain to anyone. Serendipity.
And I don't care that so many other people in Canada love them. I can share. I'm not jealous with my bubble. Everybody in Edmonton that evening was in the same space, both physically and emotionally. How must it feel to have 20,000 people chanting the words to your songs? I don't care that it's probably not cool to be 'their biggest fan' as Miguel described me the other day. If you think less of me, so be it.
My sorrow at this time is shot through with joy, that they were in my life all this time. That I got to see them again through some amazing act of God. Ian said he lost count of how many people said, "HOW did you get tickets?" and he said, "My mom got lucky." I totally did. For 28 wonderful years....
Took Ian and Rachel to the Hip concert in Edmonton - the extreme nosebleed seats were awesome, a small block of chairs up under the roof, surrounded by grandmas and bikers and teenagers and dads and little kids (wearing industrial headphones like workmen wear when jack hammering) and it was super loud and we were so elevated that we had a bird's eye view of a bird's eye view. (I promise, that's the only lyric reference for this one, but it came into my head when we sat down and watched the stadium fill to ultra-capacity.) I had to close my eyes, at one point, partly because they were filled with tears and partly because I wanted to feel the music in my body, hand over my heart, so close to them inside.
It's the music of my adult life. I first heard Boots or Hearts when I was 21, walking on the estuary behind our trailer, and fell in love instantly with the music, Gord's voice, the line about fingers and toes. In a way Gord Downie and the Tragically Hip have been like a bubble around me, my second self, in parallel to the first, whispering and shouting in my ears through everything that's happened to me in between, and I colour and filter all my experiences through them. Driving down the steep road from the spiral tunnels, shouting the words to Smalltown Bringdown with the kids, dancing in the kitchen with them to Fireworks (they always called it the 'hockey song'), Wheat Kings the story of my high school reunion, Cordelia of course, Bobcaygeon and Nautical Disaster for late night depressive episodes, and going to two spectacular concerts that were peak experiences leaving me deaf and with new admiration... I love how they play a song live and it gives you a new take on it - Long Time Running at the Queen Elizabeth theatre, Bobcaygeon at BC Place, Membership in Edmonton (I needed more concerts. Never got them) and you carry that along with the recording. The words, the key shifts and tempo changes that I know off by heart, the changes in the lyrics when Gord is performing, the ecstasy that I can't explain to anyone. Serendipity.
And I don't care that so many other people in Canada love them. I can share. I'm not jealous with my bubble. Everybody in Edmonton that evening was in the same space, both physically and emotionally. How must it feel to have 20,000 people chanting the words to your songs? I don't care that it's probably not cool to be 'their biggest fan' as Miguel described me the other day. If you think less of me, so be it.
My sorrow at this time is shot through with joy, that they were in my life all this time. That I got to see them again through some amazing act of God. Ian said he lost count of how many people said, "HOW did you get tickets?" and he said, "My mom got lucky." I totally did. For 28 wonderful years....
