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The Triumphantly Unhip >> Canada is what it listens to by CHRIS YURKIW
But has this ever been said about the Hip? The only thing that's ironic about them is their name. Think about it: these five guys from Kingston (could there be a more quintessentially Canadian place?) are the exact opposite of being "tragically hip." What they are is triumphantly unhip, and in Canada that can make you huge--as long as you're consistent and consistently good. Some day I'll speak with singer-lyricist Gordon Downie and he'll be deadly serious about analyzing the business of being an artist and then all quirky and poetic just like someone who's only business could be being an artist. But for once I'm happy to be talking to a band's drummer, because Johnny Fay is ever so slightly cantankerous today--you know, in a measured Canadian kinda way--and I like how that rubs up against my image of the Hip being as good off stage as they are on. First of all, Fay's got nothing to do on this day in Saint John that's leading up to the start of yet another Canadian tour in support of yet another multiplatinum album, Phantom Power. Secondly, he's in New Brunswick. Fay hates the "sheer boredom" of these days off, which might be one reason the Hip agreed to add a show to the tour in Moncton, after fans there got together a petition. Still... "I hope it sells out," says Fay. "We were wondering if it wasn't just one guy who went through the phone book... I have an American friend who once said to me, 'You Canadians take no for an answer too fast.'" I guess that chap's never been to New Brunswick. But don't say that it was me who brought up the bogeyman of the Hip's relatively modest Stateside success. Then again, this wouldn't be a Hip article, or very Canadian, if we left this out. "If you ask the five people that it doesn't bother," says Fay, "you could save yourself a lot of newsprint. I mean, who wants to be Hootie and the Blowfish? Are they a band anymore? Or Soul Asylum. They put a record out, it became huge, it was all driven by MTV, and their next record sold like 20,000, copies. What kind of a follow-up is that? What kind of a fanbase is that? "I think that Canadians appreciate us for the music, and not really anything else. And that's the way you want it." With By Divine Right at the Molson Centre, Friday, February 5, 6:30pm, $31+t/s
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Have I ever said that the Tragically Hip are the quintessential Canadian band? Because they're consistent and they're consistently good. Because they play a solid rock music that can't really be qualified. Because they're not sexy. Because they're megastars in this country but there's maybe one of them who might get recognized on the street. Oh, I have? Well, you can stop me any time.