The Tragically Hip are set to perform with singer-songwriter Feist as part of the 50th Juno Awards broadcast on Sunday, June 6, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) announced today. This will be the legendary Canadian rock band’s first televised performance since the death of lead singer Gord Downie in 2017.
“We’re really happy to be performing on the 50th annual Juno Awards,” the band says in a press release issued by CARAS today. “It’s been such a difficult year for our fellow musicians, we wanted to do something to honour them in a way that would make Gord proud and smile. Having a little live music back will be a really good start.”
“I had a chance to tour with The Hip early on in my touring life, for something like a year,” says Feist in the press release. “Getting to be a fly on the wall of a camp that operated with such warmth and community by day, and then watch them transform and transcend every night to touch so many people was my first big education. I was a kid in their midst and I’m touched to be invited into the clan now, to play alongside them. The only way I’m making any sense of it is to imagine I’ll be singing backups for Gord, and know my 20-year-old self wouldn’t believe it. Like the rest of Canada, I’ll be so happy to hear these kings of song play again, and am very honoured to join them as they receive their Humanitarian Award.”
The 15-time Juno Award-winning band is also recipient of the 2021 Humanitarian Award, which will be presented to the band members by Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush. The Humanitarian Award “recognizes outstanding Canadian artists or industry leaders whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced the social fabric of Canada and beyond.”
The band has donated to, and helped raise funds for, various social and environmental causes, including Camp Trillium, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Sunnybrook Foundation, the Special Olympics and more. Prior to his death from glioblastoma, a terminal form of brain cancer, lead singer Gord Downie was instrumental in raising awareness about reconciliation with Indigenous communities. Downie’s 2016 multi-media project, Secret Path, told the story of Chanie Wenjack, a 12-year-old boy who died after escaping a residential school in 1966.
Wherever you are in the world, you can tune in to the 2021 Juno Awards on Sunday, June 6. You can watch live on CBC TV and CBC Gem, listen on CBC Radio One and CBC Music and stream globally at CBCMusic.ca/junos.
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