‘SNL’ at 50: The Tragically Hip’s potent mix of weed and improvisation on live TV

By Canadian Press on February 13, 2025.

As “Saturday Night Live” marks its 50th anniversary, The Canadian Press looks back on some of the sketch comedy show’s most notable Canadian musical performances.

Musical Guest: The Tragically Hip

Song: “Grace, Too” and “Nautical Disaster”

Host: John Goodman

Date: March 25, 1995

THE SHOW: Due to scheduling conflicts with his TV sitcom “Roseanne,” host John Goodman appeared in only a few sketches, so special guest Dan Aykroyd stepped in. The Kingston, Ont.-native, and former “SNL” cast member, leaned heavily into impressions, including U.S. politician Bob Dole and “Unsolved Mysteries” host Robert Stack. He also joined Goodman in the opening monologue to reprise his Blues Brothers persona.

THE REHEARSAL: Fellow Kingstonians the Hip were in the midst of a club tour when they rolled into NBC Studios and got a rude awakening on the mechanics of live TV. “We’re told just before dress rehearsal that we’ve gotta be four minutes (a song), or something like that,” recalled bassist Gord Sinclair. The problem was the Hip was in “full jam mode” at the time, playing seven-to-10-minute versions of many of their songs each night. They needed a quick solution, so rather than carve out portions of Gord Downie’s lyrics, they decided to trim the intros and outros of each song and share visual cues to smooth out the process. “That really added to the nerve factor,” Sinclair said.

BACKSTAGE: Feeling the pressure, the band decided to take the edge off with a few puffs of marijuana before showtime. “We got this cool dressing room, and it’s got a nice little vent,” Sinclair remembered. “You were allowed to smoke inside still in those days… (We thought,) ‘Let’s just get high and try to relax.’” Did the weed calm the band down? “I was relaxed, let’s put it that way,” Sinclair said. “Gord was pretty relaxed as well.”

LIVE ON AIR: They may have been too relaxed, Sinclair acknowledged in hindsight. Downie flubbed the opening line of “Grace, Too,” replacing, “He said, ‘I’m fabulously rich’” with “I said, ‘I’m Tragically Hip,’” which he delivered with a dazed smirk. “On Gord’s part, it was probably a response to the nerves, to the weed, and to the very fact that he just repeated the last thing he heard Dan Aykroyd say before we started to play,” Sinclair said. “Afterwards, he said, ‘Did I really mess up that first line?’”

THE LEGACY: From then on, Downie replaced the opening lyrics of “Grace, Too” in practically every Hip performance. However, little else changed. After “SNL,” the band headed to St. Louis to play a venue they didn’t recognize the name of. They thought it might be an upgrade from the “dumpy club” their tour manager usually booked. “We drive all night only to realize it’s the same club,” Sinclair said. “They just changed the name.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 13, 2025.

David Friend, The Canadian Press