In what’s known as the definitive documentary on The Tragically Hip, The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal (now on Prime Video) chronicles the full story of the beloved Canadian band. Directed by Mike Downie, brother of the late band member Gord, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, and notable Canadians including Will Arnett, Dan Aykroyd and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, sat down with the director to talk about the band’s legacy.
Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal is largely organized chronologically, beginning with the band’s humble roots in Kingston, Ont. From there we explore their rise to success, diving deep into key elements of the band, like Gord’s unique performance style and body movements on stage.
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‘What do the Americans think?’
But there’s one longstanding debate that Downie tackles in the docuseries, and that’s discussions about the band’s success in Canada versus the U.S. While The Tragically Hip have performed sold out concerts at notable and iconic U.S. venues, and have performed live on shows like Saturday Night Live, there’s been a particular belief that the band never “made it big” with Americans.
“When I was setting up, I really wanted to answer this question once and for all, because I feel like for a lot of people there is this asterisk about, ‘Oh huge success in Canada, not nearly as much in America,'” Downie said in an interview during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). “I think we really took a good run at it in the documentary, because the truth is, it really wasn’t about measuring it country-to-country. It was really this idea of validation.”
“In the ’80s and ’90s, we were looking at our own artists, our own anything, and just saying, ‘Yeah that’s pretty great, but what do the Americans think?’ We were sort of going to back to almost a parental kind of approval thing that we needed. And that’s kind of what happened to this really important band in Canada. And then of course it flipped because then Canadians go, ‘Oh, wait a minute. This means everything to us. We love this.’ And now we just realize it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks, because it’s ours. But that’s a country kind of coming into its own a little bit and that confidence wasn’t really there before.”
Downie added that he believes the band had a confidence in themselves, because of the strength of this “brotherhood” and their “collaboration,” which extended to their songwriting and performances.
“The other part of it is, as Paul said, ‘Come on tour.’ … Go to these sold out important clubs and … arenas in the States and see for yourself, because people are there having a hell of a good time, and people are lined up and people are waiting to get in,” Downie said.
“So I really feel like it was this moment of time, and not a short amount of time, where Canadians were, I think, kind of coming out of our shell a little bit. Growing up in the shadow of Great Britain and the United States. … I believe that The Tragically Hip helped move that forward in a big way.”
Time to talk about Gord Downie’s death
While Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal provides really interesting and entertaining insight into the band as a whole, there’s of course significant interest in how the docuseries tackles Gord’s death in 2017, after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. These are particularly heartfelt and emotional moments in the documentary, with the band and Gord’s family recalling his final days.
Downie stressed that finding the right timing to talk about his brother, with some time having passed from his death, was a key element of making this docuseries happen. But he highlighted that, especially in the early days of filming, it felt like there was a lump in his throat when talking about his brother.
“I think timing was a huge part of it,” Downie said. “I know for the guys in the band the years after Gord’s passing were a little lost, just kind of retreat into your own experience, and I had a similar experience as well, just to figure out what it’s all about.”
“But when we went into the high school, [Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute (KCVI)], it was vacant, then sold to Queen’s University, but 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 a our set. That was almost four years to the day that Gord had passed, and I kind of just realized this recently, that was probably the right amount of time. It was still really close, you see it in the interviews, but there’s also enough distance to have some clarity as well, and to start talking about the band.”
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Watch The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal on Prime Video with a free trial, then $9.99/month
In an extraordinarily intimate docueseries, Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal really captures this uniquely inspiring essence of the band, giving Canadians something to feel particularly proud of.