Casting a Golden Light

‘The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal’ will touch your heart, and then break it, beautifully

The Tragically Hip.

“Bands… those funny little plans… that never work quite right…” - Mercury Rev, ‘Holes’

Mike Downie was there, for all of it. 

From the hyper-charged early gigs in grungy Kingston, Ontario bars, to the very end, when his brother, Tragically Hip singer and frontman Gord Downie, took his final curtain call alongside his bandmates in a Kingston arena, before the TV eyes of millions. 

Mike saw it all. 

Who better, then, to tell the story of this beloved band of high school pals-turned-national heroes? 

The Tragically Hip. L to R: Paul Langlois, Rob Baker, Gord Downie, Johnny Fay, Gord Sinclair. Photo courtesy of Prime Video.

The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, the 4-part, Toronto International Film Festival award-winning documentary currently airing on Prime Video, finds Mike sharing his lifelong all-access pass to the entirety of the Tragically Hip’s majestic arc of a career with all of us - fans, casual observers, and newbies alike. 

With an almost absurd amount of never-before-seen footage from the band’s early days, fly-on-the-wall perspectives on their recording studio sessions, lovingly curated on-the-road candids, and present-day interviews with band members, friends, mangers past and present, family members, and fans, the documentary offers the deepest of deep dives into Hip-dom over a 5-hour period that somehow feels too short. 

What emerges is a snapshot of long-term democratic creativity fueled by deep and abiding friendship, one that handily avoids the tired tropes of many rock docs, of the sort that bury the harsh realities beneath praise, platitudes, and a tendency to make martyrs out of mere men and women. 

Mike doesn’t shy away from the tumultuous times, which are inevitable in any relationship that endures across multiple decades, to say nothing of creative partnerships between musicians with hearts, minds, and families of their own. No Dress Rehearsal celebrates the highs and the lows, the artistic triumphs, the bickering and in-fighting, the creative missteps, the indomitability of true friendships, and the inescapability of loss, grief and suffering. And it does so with a steady hand, as objective an eye as is possible, and a wide-open heart. 

The Hip, as Mike’s film reminds us repeatedly, captured in an abstract, observational, poetic manner the essence of what it means to be Canadian, and are thus embraced by citizens of that country as national treasure. But, as the Canadian actor Jay Baruchel points out in the film, “There’s not a single moment of nationalism in any of it. It’s just portrayal.”

That’s a significant statement, for it creates a clear line of demarcation between a poet’s-eye view of a country and a culture, and what in clumsier hands can become a jingoistic, ‘My country, right or wrong’ stance, one that’s better left to lesser lights in the world of nationalistic country music. 

Though it’s not really a criticism of the film, it must be said that non-Canadian fans of the band - people like myself and so many others here in Buffalo and other Canadian border cities, where the Hip played arenas and theaters, often across multiple night stands, to a wholly devout audience, year in and year out - might feel a little bit left out when watching the likes of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau claiming the band as a wholly Canadian phenomenon. 

I can attest that one needn’t be a Canadian national to have deeply loved this band and experienced the music in a wholly intimate, personal and meaningful way. 

Gord Downie. Photo courtesy of Prime Video.

Watching the film, I was reminded of words I penned in 2017, upon learning of Gord Downie’s death from brain cancer.

“He was a poet, an artist capable of turning abstractions into universal statements, and though he was rightly claimed as Canada's pre-eminent son, the impact of his writing, his stage presence, and his unflagging faith in the power of the concert ritual did not stop at the border to be frisked, fingerprinted and detained. Downie was ours, too. And what turns out to be the Hip's final performance, in Kingston, Ont. in August of last year, is a memory that acknowledges no artificial national divides. That concert, that triumph – Gord's triumph – belongs to all of us.” 

I still feel the same. 

Even if you don’t think you’re a fan of the Tragically Hip, or are unfamiliar with the band, please carve out some time to watch No Dress Rehearsal - yes, even the heart-wrenching final episode, which details Gord’s illness, his death, and the huge hole that death left in the lives of those who loved him.

And feel free to cry, even if Gord and his bandmates are strangers to you.

There’s so much that is beautiful, cathartic, and transformative about this story, about this music, and about these men who shared their lives with each other, and their music with all of us. 

And if you are a fan? Well, then you already know…