After 11 days of watching films from around the world, movie fans selected The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal as a favourite at the 49^th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). The film’s producer-director Mike Downie was actively spreading the word and responding to notes of congratulations after garnering recognition for his filmmaking.

When I told him that I saw the Hip on their cross-country concert tour about 30 years ago, his face lit up. He stopped scrolling on his cellphone for a second and took a quick glance at my face. He was carrying a People’s Choice Award plaque in his hand, a rather prestigious gift from moviegoers, but he seemed equally pleased to be talking to someone who had witnessed his late brother in action on stage some decades ago. He thanked me for telling him about my experience and said it meant a lot to him.

Toward the earlier days of their career, The Tragically Hip went across Canada, performing in Montreal on a tour labelled Another Roadside Attraction, for the first time in 1993, an event that Mike covered in his award-winning documentary.

The 2024 People’s Choice Award-winning film in the documentary category went to The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, a four-part series that blasted off over a week of festival madness, opening TIFF at the Royal Alexandra Theatre on Sept. 5 and setting in motion a celebration of global filmmaking and Canadian culture too. 

The music of The Tragically Hip is loved by people from across the country for its ability to cross social, cultural and geographic boundaries. You’re likely to hear their music on college campuses, in underground bars, in parks at arts and culture festivals, or on your car radio at night while driving through the Alberta prairies.

The film brought back memories of travelling on a lonely road on the way back home to Toronto from the Banff Film Festival, no less, under the spectral skies of the aurora borealis. Far away from the urban lights, you can see the stars that blanket the night sky. An unforgettable evening complete with Neil Young’s Harvest Moon, shooting stars, and then The Tragically Hip’s Bobcaygeon. Gord Downie’s wounded voice singing “It was in Bobcaygeon, I saw the constellations/Reveal themselves one star at a time,” was magic. I felt like a speck of dust floating across the universe, part of everything and nothing at the same time.

“The sky was dull and hypothetical/And fallin’ one cloud at a time.” This song can be sung by anyone at any time, in any province or territory and the singer or the listener will feel the same indescribable feeling. A belonging. The Tragically Hip have a way of communicating that feeling. 

They have a way of making poetry out of mundane words and everyday life, essentially creating a soundtrack to the Canadian, provincial and territorial geographic experiences. The song, Get Back Again, from the end credits of the film climbed the charts after being featured in No Dress Rehearsal and the film itself is being streamed on Prime, as announced to the crowd at the world premiere. 

Looking deep into the lives of Hip members Gord Downie, Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois and Gord Sinclair, we hear stories from former band members like saxophonist Davis Manning who was a slightly older member of the band in its heyday. Manning was the Clarence Clemons of The Tragically Hip. They were trying to find their sound and looked to Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band for direction. After a few years Manning was replaced by Langlois, the band’s rhythm guitarist. 

Their story unfolds through rarely seen archival film footage before 1984 when they became The Tragically Hip. Director Mike — (The Hockey Nomad (2003), Invasion of the Brain Snatchers (2013), Finding the Secret Path (2018), and The Covid Cruise (2020) — mixes early footage with interviews with the band, stories from family members giving deep insight into the Hip experience and their formative years in Kinston, Ont.

He tells us how they met, formed a unique friendship and became a family over decades, even how they came close to dissolving their personal and professional relationships. Mike shares the details behind the stories, explores the need for individuality when you’re known as a member of a popular group, of the jealousy, depression, and isolation that many artists experience in private. 

He captures the deterioration of relationships and the coming together of estranged family and friends to support his brother Gord after his brain cancer diagnosis, the process of preparing for that final concert in 2016 that was streamed and televised across the country, even the mourning that took place before his brother’s passing.

The moral of the telling of his brother’s story – Life is not a dress rehearsal. It is to be lived fully, completely and without regrets, a sentiment taken from the Tragically Hip song Ahead by a Century. 

Mike had unfettered access to producers, musicians, fans and friends in the spotlight such as the band’s manager and the film’s Executive Producer Jake Gold (Canadian Idol), entertainment show hosts Laurie Brown, George Stroumboulopoulos, indigenous musicians from communities in the northern territories where the Hip spent time recuperating and contemplating their purpose, Arkells lead singer Max Kerman, actor and Great Big Sea singer Alan Doyle, Barenaked Ladies bassist Jim Creeggan, actor Will Arnett, Dan Aykroyd, Jay Baruchel, Sarah Harmer, Geddy Lee, and Justin Trudeau, the prime minister. 

Most of the artists and musicians were there in the audience to celebrate the opening of the film. Trudeau appeared onstage at the end of its premiere at the Royal Alex to say a few words in memory of his friend Gord Downie. The band members joined Mike onstage before and after the screening of The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal. The event got underway at noon and culminated into a vigil that saw audience members guided along King Street West, eventually gathering in front of the festival mainstage for a touching sing-along directed by Choir! Choir! Choir!

by Cherryl Bird – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
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