New readers of mine on The Memory Cache, and now on Substack, may not be aware that as a lifelong amateur rock musician and music fan myself, I love reading about and watching videos about bands and rock stars that I like. When I discover a new gem of music lore, whether book, movie or TV, I devour it, and if it’s good, I’ll share it with my readers.
I’ve recently read two important and excellent rock biographies, and I hope to review them soon. But today I want to focus on an unexpected rock documentary I discovered by accident about a band I’d almost never heard of before.
The documentary (in four episodes) is about a Canadian band called The Tragically Hip. When I saw it on the Amazon Prime show lists, I was really curious, since it’s not often that you hear of a major rock documentary about a band that’s never even been on your radar.
This documentary pulled me in right from the start. It begins by tracing the five band members as teenagers in their homes in the modest-sized Canadian city of Kingston, Ontario in the early 1980s, and describes how the eventual members met and started playing music together in high school. We are introduced to each of the members, including Gord Downie, the lead singer; Rob Baker, lead guitar; Gord Sinclair, Bass; Paul Langlois, rhythm guitar; and drummer Johnny Fay.
As the documentary unfolds, we meet other incidental characters, such as their several managers and producers, family members, and a variety of their devoted fans offering commentary, including famous Canadian actors like Dan Akroyd and Will Arnett, and even former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was a dedicated fan.
We learn the whole story of how the Tragically Hip slowly started learning how to write songs, record best-selling records, and build an intensely loyal following by playing great live shows in an endless string of small clubs and venues in towns across Canada. As their music began to gain a larger following across Canada, they gradually played larger and larger venues, eventually becoming a huge super-group that played arena tours, and ultimately was widely recognized as "Canada's band".
In the course of the four episodes, there are of course interview clips with all the band members, offering reminisces and perspectives on everything they went through together. In many ways, it’s similar to documentaries I’ve seen about other great bands and rock artists, like Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Pearl Jam. Long-lived epic rock bands tend to go through many similar stages in the life cycle of the bands and their members, starting with their youthful experiences and early creativity, the deliberate processes and the flukes of band formation, the recording, songwriting, touring, the eventual families and friendships that develop and sometimes fall apart, and so on. The Hips’ long career together from the early 1980s through 2016 has all of those familiar rock star story elements.
But I also noticed some special and unique aspects to the Tragically Hip’s story that were especially moving and appealing. Perhaps the most important part of the story was about love: their love for each other, and the close friendships of the five band members, the love they showed for their fans, and the love the fans and the Canadian nation ultimately felt for them.
Nothing drove that home like the sad and surprising twist in their story, which was Gord Downie’s diagnosis and losing struggle with brain cancer. As the lyricist and charismatic front man of the band, after thirty years in the Canadian public’s spotlight, he was a truly beloved figure, who was suddenly stricken much too early with a disease that would come for his mind, his memory and his ability to write and perform, before ultimately taking his life in 2017.
Astonishingly though, after a surgery that left him with his memory and his ability to perform seriously impaired, he and the band made the incredibly brave decision to do one more tour across Canada. Through an almost unbelievable act of will, he managed to relearn the songs and endure the rigors of a final tour of sold-out arena dates. The final performance was broadcast nationally, and played to crowds in venues across Canada.
Once I had seen this story, I had to immediately go track down their albums and catalog, to get more of a sense of their music. And it’s really good! It sounds like mainstream classic rock in style, with the idiosyncratic and intriguing lyrics and voice of Gordie Downie. If I were to try to capture what it’s like, I’d say it sounds most reminiscent to me of R.E.M., with some Pearl Jam and Rolling Stones mixed in. But really, they’re their own unique sound and style.
Downie was particularly likely to choose stories from Canadian history and culture for his lyrics, part of what so endeared him to his nation’s people. In his last years, he also wrote about and made connections with the people from some of the First Nations (indigenous) Canadian tribes.
Although the Tragically Hip did perform many times in the United States, including at Woodstock ’99, the documentary discusses a common refrain the Hip heard throughout their long career, which was “why couldn’t you make it in the States?”. Even though the members must have grown very tired of the question, in the end it didn’t seem to matter to them that much. They were a giant success in their own land, and that would seem to have been enough. And fortunately for those of us in the U.S.A. who missed them during their long career in Canada, we can still hear their music recordings and watch some of their performances on YouTube.
The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal is a truly worthwhile rock documentary about the greatest rock band you’ve never heard of. On Amazon Prime. Highly recommended.
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