![]() We’ve been going down there for almost ten years now, and each record has sold more than the one previously. I enjoy the work of being in a band I enjoy touring in America. But I don’t really think that way, is the bottom line. I mean, the weird thing is, Steve, is I can think with the other side of my brain, and I can do this interview. I don’t know, you know, I don’t really know. “Aww, jeez,” he started out, sounding exasperated. So I like to think I was doing him a favour, prodding him to release some demons. At the time I was a little bummed that I’d ticked him off so much, but when I look back on it now, maybe he just needed to vent. And when I asked whether he thought the Hip’s recent performance on Saturday Night Live had helped push sales down south, that set him off on a ten-minute rant about how he views his art and his band’s ultimate goals and aspirations. ![]() Being you is a two-man job!” But when I explained to him what the proposed theme of the cover story was, he described it as “dull”. The conversation started out great, me informing Gord that since we’d last talked I’d gotten married and bought a house, and he replying, “Well done. When I did my interview with Downie in 1996, it was for a Tragically Hip cover story in the Georgia Straight, and my editor at the time wanted the main focus of the story to be on the chasm that existed between the band’s success in Canada and its success Stateside. Here’s what I sent in to the publisher–C-Word and all–which is hugely different from what wound up in the book, at the tail end of Chapter 3: Canuck to the Core. The whole focus of my writing was to convey how great the Tragically Hip was during the years I’d interviewed Downie, from 1989 to 1996, and how they were a truly Canadian phenomenon.Ībout the only time I felt like I was being censored too much was when I covered my final interview with Downie, in 1996, and how the angle I took during that conversation got under his skin. Not that I had much negative to include, anyway. But the executive editor at Sterling made it clear that the book was meant to be a glowing tribute to Downie, and that anything negative or controversial was not what they were looking for. Don’t get me wrong–it’s a beautifully designed coffeetable book packed with amazing photos of Downie and the Hip, and being asked to provide the text for it was an honour and a privilege. I had interviewed Downie five times, and was a huge fan of his band, the Tragically Hip.īut as writing progressed, I realized the finished product wasn’t going to be exactly what I had in mind. The striking album artwork is sequential to the Road Apples 30th Anniversary Deluxe art sure to be a favourite of any collection.īuy or stream Live At The Roxy, Los Angeles May 3rd, 1991.When New York’s Sterling Publishing first contacted me about writing a book about Gord Downie, I was obviously thrilled. Live At The Roxy offers a timeless experience of this sensational night as never before released. The Tragically Hip fans brought this release to fruition after countless requests for the deep cut versions of some of the band’s most celebrated songs. ![]() Together we took things to another level.” ![]() Listening back 30 years later and I’m transported to that hot, sweaty, and very special night. The captivating adlibbing throughout the entirety of the record creates the experience for the listener and as Sinclair describes: “A great show is something you just have to experience to understand. With all tracks completely remastered in 2021 by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound in Nashville, the album features the fan favourite “Killer Whale Tank” version of “New Orleans Is Sinking.” The nine-minute track is characterized by mid-song story from the late frontman Gord Downie about a job cleaning an aquarium and inadvertently causing friction between the two whales held in the tank, fact or fiction, fans listen in wonderment. Live At The Roxy is the second standalone live record for the band and it’s been 25 years since their first, Live Between Us, released in 1997.
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