As Canadian rock icons The Tragically Hip cross the country on what could be their final tour, many die-hard fans have already been overcome with emotion and nostalgia at their concerts.
For Sheldon Wolfe, those old memories rose to the surface on Thursday as the band arrived in Edmonton to play their first of two shows – the first time they perform in the city since it was revealed frontman Gord Downie has terminal brain cancer.
READ MORE: Gord Downie, The Tragically Hip lead singer, diagnosed with terminal brain cancer
You see, Wolfe appeared in the music video for The Hip’s hit song Locked in the Trunk of a Car off their seminal album Fully Completely. The video even won Best Video at the 1993 MuchMusic Video Awards.
“It’s the old grandstand that’s not there anymore – and my baseball,” Wolfe said as he watched the video on a computer with Downie on the screen, sitting in the grandstand.
The video was shot in Champion, Alta., located about an hour-and-a-half drive south of Calgary.
Wolfe, who was just a kid when the video was shot, says his chance to be involved came at the very last minute.
“I was just at school and the principal came up to a bunch of us kids and said, ‘We’re looking for some kids to be in a video after school and play some ball,'” he said.
“A man comes in with long, curly hair and little glasses… and he comes up to us and says, ‘Hey guys, I’m the manager for The Tragically Hip,'” Wolfe said with a wide grin. “‘Wow, OK, this is legit.'”
According to Wolfe, the manager played the song the band was shooting a video for and then pointed to an old car and the man sitting in the driver’s seat and said, “That’s Gord Downie, the lead singer from The Tragically Hip.”
Wolfe said Downie chatted with him and some other kids who would also be involved in the shoot and later played catch with some of them. At that point, Wolfe unpaused the video for “Locked In the Trunk of a Car” and looked at a clip of a child throwing a baseball pitch.
“There I am,” he said.
Wolfe said in the days before YouTube and when music videos weren’t as accessible, he often had people not believe him that he played a starring role in the video. He also said it was a pretty big deal and not just for him.
“It had a really big impact on our town,” he said. “It was something really big for a small town. It was something that people talked about and something that people still remember.”
The unique small-town experience seems to play into the band’s reputation for being obsessed with Canadiana and using songs to reference little-known communities like Bobcaygeon, Ont, Golden, B.C., Thompson, Man. as well as countless more.
“It’s pretty cool that we had The Hip right there in our town and that we had Gord Downie there.”
READ MORE: Tragically Hip set to play Edmonton’s Rexall Place Thursday night
The Tragically Hip will play the second of their two Edmonton shows on their summer tour on Saturday.
-With files from Todd Merkley, Global News
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