brainsplotch

The Tragically Hip played what was likely their final concert ever last night. In front of a sold-out crowd at the K-Rock Centre in the band's hometown of Kingston, Ontario, and also witnessed by a national television audience watching a commercial-free broadcast on the CBC. I gave up luxury box/corporate suite seats at the Lansing Lugnuts baseball game in order to stay home and watch the concert--alone in my living room with only two cats and a dog for company (my wife and my two sons went to the ballgame). There you have it, the life of an American Hip fan. I know I've probably been driving my Facebook friends crazy over the last several days with all my Hip-related posts. But this has simply been "the Summer of the Hip" for me, ever since that terrible morning in late May when the world received the news about Gord Downie's cancer diagnosis. A month after that, I bought the Hip's new album Man Machine Poem and have watched the band's tour unf...

(The third in my series of Tragically Hip album overviews, in which I investigate the discography of this criminally undervalued Canadian band). I'm beginning this overview of the Tragically Hip's Road Apples with a warning that this ended up being a much deeper dive than even I anticipated, but the Hip deserve the full attention of my (dubious) analysis. So don't say I didn't warn you. For the follow-up to their debut LP Up to Here , the Tragically Hip headed down south to record in New Orleans. Don Smith was once again behind the desk as producer. The resulting album, Road Apples , refines the barroom and heartland rock of the first album. But while the Hip perfect the sound that they'd developed on their first two records, they also close the chapter on this phase of their career. The Hip would change course on their next album, Fully Completely . But back to Road Apples . In 1990, the band convened at Daniel Lanois' Kingsway Studio with the for...