In what’s referred to as the clear-cut docudrama on The Tragically Hip, The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal ( at the moment on Prime Video) narrates the entire story of the cherished Canadian band. Directed by Mike Downie, bro of the late band participant Gord, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, and important Canadians consisting of Will Arnett, Dan Aykroyd and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, took a seat with the supervisor to talk about the band’s heritage.
Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal is especially organized chronologically, beginning with the band’s easy origins in Kingston,Ont From there we uncover their improve to success, diving deep proper into essential parts of the band, like Gord’s particular effectivity design and physique language on section.
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‘What do the Americans believe?’
But there’s one historic dialogue that Downie offers with within the docuseries, which’s conversations concerning the band’s success in Canada versus the UNITED STATE While The Tragically Hip have truly executed supplied out performances at important and legendary united state areas, and have truly executed reside on applications like Saturday Night Live, there’s been a sure concept that the band by no means ever “made it big” with Americans.
“When I used to be organising, I actually wished to reply this query as soon as and for all, as a result of I really feel like for lots of people there may be this asterisk about, ‘Oh huge success in Canada, not nearly as much in America,’” Downie claimed in a meeting throughout 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 actually this concept 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 included that he thinks the band had a self-confidence in themselves, as a result of stamina of this “brotherhood” and their “collaboration,” which included their songwriting and efficiencies.
“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 claimed.
“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 fatality
While Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal presents truly intriguing and fulfilling understanding proper into the band unexpectedly, there’s definitely substantial fee of curiosity in simply how the docuseries offers with Gord’s fatality in 2017, after he was detected with thoughts most cancers cells. These are particularly wholehearted and psychological minutes within the docudrama, with the band and Gord’s members of the family remembering his final days.
Downie emphasised that finding the best timing to talk about his bro, with time having truly handed from his fatality, was a vital aspect of constructing this docuseries happen. But he highlighted that, particularly within the very early days of recording, it appeared like there was a swelling in his throat when discussing his bro.
“I think timing was a huge part of it,” Downie claimed. “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 very free take a look at, after that $9.99/ month
In an amazingly intimate docueseries, Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal truly catches this distinctively motivating significance of the band, offering Canadians one thing to actually really feel particularly happy with.
