This piece comes as close to explaining the Hip/Downie phenomenon as anything I see or heard.  

"An entire generation of Canadians had finally, collectively and unambiguously hit middle age.'

There it is.  What the crowds in Kingston and millions watching the tube were acknowledging was not the love of the man, nor his music.  They were simply acknowledging their own vulnerability and mortality. Especially when so many in the audience have loved ones suffering from the same disease--In one form or another--as Downie. And wouldn't we all choose to go out like him? Passionate, emotional and loved?

It's even easier to "love" the victim that when dying are young (or, in true 21st century way, "younger," 53 being history's 23 or 33) James Dean, Otis Redding, Buddy Holly, Jim Croce, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix...all so young!  Taken too soon!  

THAT is what it was all about.  

The music?  Not so much.