Vancouver musicians pay tribute to Gord Downie
This past year marked the deaths of a number of influential musicians, including Tom Petty, Chris Cornell and Chuck Berry. For many Canadian music fans, though, the loss in October of Gord Downie weighs heaviest.
David Cotton performed in a tribute to the Tragically Hip singer over a year ago, when the diagnosis of Downie’s brain cancer was made public. For New Year’s Eve, the Vancouver musician is organizing another tribute to the late musician.
“We played six songs and people just loved it,” Cotton said of the 2016 tribute. He performed with fellow musician Sage Davies, who is co-organizing the upcoming event. “So we brainstormed the idea of doing it again, and asked, ‘Why not on New Year’s (Eve)?’”
They contacted the Rickshaw’s Mo Tarmohamed, who suggested that they contact Vancouver metal act Bison. That band’s James Farewell then put together a band featuring members of local groups Black Mountain, Needles//Pins, and Pride Tiger.
“Everyone seems to think it’s a cool idea to have some accomplished musicians on board,” Cotton said. “This is the kind of show that I would go to — Black Mountain and Bison jamming on Tragically Hip songs. I’m excited to see what guys of that calibre can do with Tragically Hip songs because their own bands are so great.”
The evening will also feature a group made up of members of Cotton’s band Sevens Nines and Tens, and from Davies’ The Waning Light. Cotton and Davies are calling their makeshift outfit “the Hugh MacLennans” after the Montreal writer.
Cotton promises more than just the hits.
“I saw the tunes that James and the Bison/Black Mountain camp picked, and they were deeper cuts,” he said. “Not obscure songs, but regular album tracks. But they made some really good choices. So we decided to tack a few on as well.”
All proceeds will go to the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund. Downie formed the organization with the family of Chanie Wenjack to improve the lives of First Nations peoples. (Wenjack was an Anishinaabe boy who died of exposure after running away from an Ontario residential school. Downie released an album about Wenjack called Secret Path in 2016.)
Metropolis Noir is a lyric in the Tragically Hip song Greasy Jungle. Cotton’s own band, Sevens Nines and Tens, is named after a lyric from mid-’90s Chicago shoegaze band Hum. But he is a dyed-in-thewool Hip fan too.
“I saw them in 1997 at Maple Leaf Gardens for the Trouble in the Henhouse tour,” he said. “For a 15-year-old kid that was a pretty big deal. That really resonated with me. And I saw them on their farewell tour. I got tickets the day of. We were right at the back in the nosebleeds. I don’t think I’ve experienced anything like the energy in that room. Personally, in my own band, I’ve dropped a lot of references to the Hip.”
Metropolis Noir is not going to be a ramshackle affair, Cotton said. “It’s going to be very organized.” Local band The Blackout Lights are scheduled to play first, followed by the Hugh MacLennans. Then the (so far nameless) supergroup will come out.
Cotton just isn’t sure what’s going to happen at midnight.
“If I could run the show seamlessly, I would say that the Black Mountain/Bison camp will be onstage, they’ll pause between songs, we’ll do a countdown and then they’ll do another number.”