Paul Langlois, Rob Baker and Gord Sinclair of The Tragically Hip jammed on stage Saturday at Rockin’ The Big House – a benefit concert held at the Kingston Penitentiary.
The musicians joined Hugh Dillon and The Headstones to perform The Hip’s track “Little Bones” and then did “Wheat Kings” and “Ahead by a Century” with Tom Cochrane as well as members of The Trews and The Pursuit of Happiness.
Also on the bill was Kasador, a band that includes Baker’s son Boris. It was the first public concert at the historic penitentiary.
Langlois, who organized the show, told the Kingston Whig-Standard it’s no longer awkward to play Hip songs without frontman Gord Downie, who died of brain cancer in 2017.
“Of course I’m sad, I’ll always be sad about Gord, but it’s a tribute, it feels good,” he explained. “I wouldn’t want to make a show of it or a night of it or anything, but it’s a good feeling.
“And people don’t mind. It’s not like they think, ‘What are you doing? That’s sacrilege.’ Gord wouldn’t feel that way, either. Songs are songs, and we were all involved in writing them.”
The Hip played their last show in Kingston in August 2016.
Check out highlights from Rockin' The Big House below: