It’s been almost exactly seven years since Canadians lost The Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie, and more than eight years since the band played their last-ever show in Kingston, Ont.
Time, elongated and obfuscated by the pandemic, seems cruel. Has it really been that long since we lost one of our country’s most charismatic, beloved musicians? And has it really been almost a decade since the group of guys fondly referred to as “Canada’s Band” ceased to play?
The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, a four-part docuseries streaming on Prime Video starting Sept. 20, provides an incredibly intimate look at the band, from its humble beginnings in small-town Ontario to its glory days onstage.
Directed by Gord’s brother Mike Downie, all four hour-long segments of the docuseries are unapologetically raw, with vignettes from Gord himself and each of the band members as the plucky bunch of boys grow from teenagers dreaming of becoming rock stars into, well, rock stars in their own right.
Jaw-dropping concert footage is featured throughout — even die-hard Hip fans will see things they’ve never seen before (no spoilers here!) — and there are interviews with family, friends and others who knew them during the journey. Canadian celebrities and fans, including Dan Aykroyd, Jay Baruchel and Bruce McCulloch, among many others, express their love and incredulousness about the band, cementing what any fan already knows: The Tragically Hip were something special, and a certain kind of musical magic Canadians may never see again.
Global News sat down with Mike Downie and the remaining members of the band — Paul Langlois, Rob Baker, Gord Sinclair and Johnny Fay — to talk about what the docuseries means to them, what it was like accelerating to national fame at the height of Canadian rock, and life after Gord’s death.
When revisiting all of the archival footage, reflecting on past performances and everything that you’ve all been through together, how did it feel to watch?
Gord Sinclair: It’s like the drone shot in a lot of ways. We always kept a fairly narrow horizon throughout our careers, getting to the next gig and then the next opportunity to make a record, next opportunity to take some time off, writing and stuff. When you step back and look at it, to me, it’s a feeling of gratitude for the opportunity that we had…. We were never sure whether we were going to be able to make another record after the previous one.
Gratitude to the fans that came along and the guys I played music with. Rewatching it made me really appreciate what Mike went through. Mike moved with Gord from Amherstview when we were only 13, and he’s coming at it not only as a friend, but honouring his family and honouring the group. I think he did a wonderful job. Again, it’s a nice look back, for sure.
Why did you decide on now as the time to put this docuseries out there?
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Mike Downie: I think timing was a big part of it, and it’s explained in the film.
I know for the guys in the band, the years after Gord’s passing were… a little bit lost. You just kind of retreat into your own sort of experience, and I had a similar experience as well. You know, trying to figure out what it’s all about. But, when we went into our old high school, it was vacant. It had been sold to Queen’s University. Students were all gone, and in October of 2021, we were able to go in there for four days and really just kind of take it over, use it as our set.
That was almost four years to the day that Gord had passed. And I kind of just realized recently that it was probably the right amount of time, like it was still really close. You see it in the interviews. But there was also enough distance to have some clarity as well, and to start thinking about, or talking about, the band and certainly the early days because it’s what we wanted to do when we were in high school.
Has diving into the film, creating it, looking at everything, having the lump in the throat… has that helped each of you with your sense of grief?
Rob Baker: I think grief is always going to be with you. It never goes away. The good times, you remember them; they’re like a nice cleansing bath or a night out. You have great memories of it. But grief is something that pierces your skin and leaves scars, you have to reform the way you move through life, to accommodate. Time is really just the best way to deal with it. Like we did in the band, you put one foot in front of the other. We never focused on the horizon, conquering the world. It was all about the next gig, the next song we’re going to write. And it’s the same thing with dealing with grief.
We lost a brother. We went through everything that we did together, very collectively and openly together, and then we all went off separately and grieved. Completely alone. And that was really hard.
Watching this footage is just mind-blowing. It’s like you’re right there in the pit. In the ’90s, Canadian rock was such a beast. What was it like to have a meteoric rise during that time?
Johnny Fay: It was fun! I was thinking back to some of the stuff that we had done. We had this one gig we were really excited about, we were opening for 54-40 at the Spectrum in Montreal. And then a year to the day later, 54-40 opened for us at Penguin Park in Saskatoon.
I remember talking to some people and they said to me, “It felt like we were watching a plane take off, and you guys went into the clouds!”
Having a conversation like that afterwards, it was like, “Really?” 54-40, Blue Rodeo, The Northern Pikes… we were all using the same PA companies and stuff. We were touring in the winter, which was pretty treacherous, and the fact that we went through that and lived is a story in itself. It was a pretty exciting time to be a band that was playing rock ‘n’ roll in this country at that time. There were some really, really great bands in this country. And then Great Big Sea out east, and it was like, yeah! We were all doing it and we were all having fun. It was a great time to be making music because it was pre-phones, which at our last show, that’s all you saw. Some people put the phone down and watched it for real, but (back then) was a pretty golden age of people going and listening to music.
Canadian success vs. U.S. success: Does it matter if The Tragically Hip were as popular in the U.S. as they were in Canada?
Mike Downie: Certainly, when I was setting out to do this doc, I really wanted to answer this question once and for all. Because, I feel, for a lot of people, there’s this asterisk about huge success in Canada, but not nearly as much in America. I think we really took a good run at it in the documentary, because the truth is, it really wasn’t about measuring country to country. It was really this idea of validation that Canadians, especially in the ’80s and ’90s, we’re looking at our own artists, our own anything and saying, “Yeah, that’s pretty great, but what do the Americans think?”
Back then it was almost a parental approval kind of thing that we needed. And that’s what happened to the Hip. And then of course, it flipped, because then Canadians were like, “Wait a minute, this means everything to us. We love this.” And we realized it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks because it’s ours. That confidence wasn’t really there before. And I think the band had this inherent confidence because of this brotherhood and this partnership and this collaboration. The band had this confidence in their songwriting and in their performance.
Canadians were coming out of our shells, growing up in the shadow of Great Britain and the United States. It just took us a while to find our footing, and I believe The Tragically Hip helped move that forward in a big way.
One thing that stood out about the doc, right off the top, is that you were all boys with a musical connection, fantasizing about becoming rock stars. And you grew up to be members of one of the biggest rock bands in Canadian history. Looking back, does it ever feel like a dream?
And yesterday we’re sitting there, and here’s Ged (Geddy Lee, Rush frontman) on TV talking about our tunes. The 16-year-old me is like, “Wow.” It’s amazing. I still have problems looking that man in the eye because it’s Geddy Lee! It’s pretty incredible, back when we were playing on tennis racquets as kids listening to the Rolling Stones, and then we’re having a pint with them. It’s hard to believe.
It’s kind of like a dream come true, that level of inspiration. It speaks to the power of music for me, because I still hold those memories really, really strongly. Music was the only thing I wanted to do after seeing Rush play, and as a music fan to be able to do that… to be able to appreciate that on a winter’s night in Saskatoon, or Pigtown, there’s a kid out there who’s maybe thinking the exact same thing. You get that sense of community that music creates. Music is a great force for good.
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‘The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal’ is now streaming across Canada on Prime Video.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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