Remember When: Nirvana Opened for The Tragically Hip

The Tragically Hip are Canadian rock royalty, and their extensive history was recently covered in a compelling four-hour documentary The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal available now on Prime Video. Over their 33-year career, the Canadian quintet sold over 10 million albums and also developed fan bases in Europe and the United States. Their first album, Up to Here, was reissued with demos, four bonus tracks, and live cuts on Friday (November 8). It will no doubt please ardent fans who want to hear more from them, especially as the group disbanded following the untimely death of singer Gord Downie in 2017.

Before they became Canadian superstars, The Tragically Hip were out on the road supporting their debut album, having built a buzz from the single “New Orleans Is Sinking.” The quintet had a reputation for intense live shows as they set about crisscrossing the States. Little did they know that when they arrived in Wisconsin their opening act would become grunge royalty a couple of years later.

“It Was Mind-Boggling”

“We were playing one night in Madison, Wisconsin, at this s–thole called O’Cayz Corral,” Hip bassist Gord Sinclair recalls to American Songwriter. “So we arrive and the opener that night, believe it or not, was Nirvana. They opened for a date. It was mind-boggling, completely eye-opening for us. They had literally just driven from Seattle to start demoing with [producer] Butch Vig, and the only reason that they took the gig was literally for gas and food money. We arrived, and they’re sound asleep on the tables and chairs in the club. They had literally driven all night.” (Fun fact: Nirvana’s drummer at the time was Child’s Play’s Chad Channing.)

Continues Sinclair, “Obviously the underground American scene being what it is, everybody in the bar was there to see them because the kids had been hip to how great these guys were on Sub Pop. They took the stage and you could have picked our jaws up off the floor. We realized in that one moment, ‘Wow, everything’s changed.’ The way these guys played, the energy that they projected. It was super heavy, but it wasn’t metal. It was just something different. Turned out it was grunge rock.”

The bassist notes he and his bandmates looked at themselves—they were still wearing cowboy boots and dungarees. “We were that latter wave of Americana, heartland rock, and we were still trying to find who we were going to be,” Sinclair adds. “That was a really influential night. Like most young bands, we set off our conquest of the United States. Then we realized very, very quickly how big the country was, but [also] how much the game had changed. It literally was overnight when Nirvana came along.”

When asked what Nirvana were like, Sinclair recalls, “They were nice but bushed, having driven all night to get to the gig. Life on the road. I remember Gord [Downie] having a long visit with Kurt [Cobain]. Three-quarters of the crowd were there to see them and they all filed out once they were done. We seemed like a country act by comparison, even though we left our acoustic songs out of the set that night. It was an eye-opener. They blew us off the stage.”

Things certainly turned out well in the end. The Tragically Hip would open for Plant & Page and The Rolling Stones in the 1990s, and Midnight Oil would open for them. The Hip ultimately released 13 studio albums and two live albums, sold millions of units, and their total Spotify streams have passed 600 million in the U.S.

“New Orleans Is Sinking”

The Tragically Hip had a timeless sound and didn’t chase trends, but they were also aware they couldn’t stagnate, a point certainly hammered home when they watched Nirvana.

“Our first record really did represent where we came from, and our songwriting represented that as well,” Sinclair explains. “We’d been playing for three, four, maybe even five years before we got the chance to make it to here, and we were primarily playing blues-based rock and roll. Our heroes were groups like The Yardbirds and the early Stones and The Who. They were basically just reinterpreting American R&B, and that really influenced our songwriting.

“’New Orleans Is Sinking’ got us a lot of traction in the States, enough to have MCA keep us around and give us a chance to make another record,” Sinclair continues. “But we were very aware of what was happening around us too. We knew we couldn’t expect to have a long career if we were just going to do 12-bar [blues], right? It would have been easy for us to rewrite ‘New Orleans Is Sinking,’ but I don’t know evolutionary-wise whether that would have been the best for the band.”

They ultimately showcased their diversity throughout their career with tracks like “Ahead by a Century,” “Grace, Too,” “In View,” and “Nautical Disaster,” and they left a musical legacy that will endure and live on through the surviving members and their solo careers.

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Photo by Anthony Pidgeon/Redferns