After a decade since their final performance, The Tragically Hip will give Canadians the chance to experience the 2016 Man Machine Poem concert once again through a special broadcast on CBC this summer. Scheduled for August 22, fans can tune in to watch The Tragically Hip: A National Celebration concert at 7 p.m. local time on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio, and CBC Music’s YouTube page.
The original concert, held in The Hip’s hometown of Kingston, Ontario, on August 20, 2016, was broadcast on CBC with 11.7 million viewers. This concert marked the band’s final tour before the passing of lead singer Gord Downie, who succumbed to brain cancer on October 17, 2017.
In honor of the event, the band will also release a new live album on August 21, titled The Tragically Hip: Live July 22 – August 20, 2016. The album, mixed and mastered by the band’s veteran audio engineer Mark Vreeken, will include live renditions of songs like Ahead By a Century, New Orleans is Sinking, and more from their last nationwide tour.
Already available are the live versions of Fifty-Mission Cap from the Edmonton recording and Locked In The Trunk Of A Car from the final Kingston performance. Following this, the band will be officially inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame at Toronto’s Massey Hall in September.