The small-town band that united Canada

A new documentary series premiering at TIFF explores the legacy of the group adored by millions of Canadians – but largely unknown to the rest of the world.

Canada isn’t immune to creating musical megastars, from Leonard Cohen and Shania Twain to Justin Bieber and Drake. But there’s one less globally well-known band that has encapsulated their home country in a way other artists haven’t: The Tragically Hip.

Over a mammoth 33-year-career, the five-piece, often called “The Hip”, had nine number one albums in Canada. Their lyrics tackled the nation’s history, while the band travelled the length and breadth of the vast country in an effort to play its most remote towns and cities, which involved 12-hour ferries and overnight drives. In return, Canadians bought the band’s music, to the figure of more than six million albums, making them Canada’s best-selling band between 1996 and 2016, and showed up in droves to their gigs, which sometimes sold out within minutes of being released. 

This devotion was cemented in 2016, when The Hip’s lead singer Gord Downie was sadly diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. The band’s farewell tour sold out in minutes and their final show was streamed by 11.7 million people at home, making it one of the country’s most-watched events. In the days after Downie’s passing in October 2017, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wept on television, venues around the country dimmed their lights and audiences at hockey games stood silent.

It’s this journey – of how a small-town band from Kingston, Ontario became national treasures – that is now the focus of a four-part Prime Video documentary No Dress Rehearsal, premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival this month. Directed by the late singer’s brother, Mike Downie, it’s a thoughtfully-curated behind-the-scenes look at the band’s highs and lows.

For Mike Downie, the experience of putting the series together was cathartic. Fighting back tears, he tells the BBC: “It’s really hard to express, but working on it for the past three years, it’s been a companion, it made me miss my brother and it made me appreciate him and the band.” Despite being so well-loved in their home country, The Hip are far less familiar to people outside of Canada. The documentary explores why – starting with lead singer Gord’s dedication to telling the story of the nation, something other Canadian artists have avoided, perhaps out of fear of alienating international fans.

As Downie explains: “Gord had a notebook, and he would be writing down impressions he had from touring the country. He was always reading Canadian literature and newspapers. He questioned what is it that makes a Canadian, Canadian, beyond the clichés of maple syrup and as Gordy would say, ‘donuts and hockey sticks’.”

This approach resulted in songs like Fifty Mission Cap, which tells the true story of Bill Barilko, a Canadian ice hockey player who died when his plane mysteriously disappeared in 1951, and Wheat Kings, about David Milgaard, a Canadian man who served 23 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The same song starts with the call of a Loon – a well-known native bird.

For Mike Downie, it was clear Canadian crowds loved the lyrics. “I just think there was just a sense in the audience of, like, ‘oh, wow, you’re singing about us’. I really felt the audiences were ready to be represented.”

Canadian culture journalist Andrea Warner agrees, saying that the band got the tone right. “They were never a nationalistic band,” she tells the BBC. “They really rejected that sort of fervent patriotism. They wanted to hold the country accountable through their lyrics and to do that you need to address its mistakes, its flaws, its challenging pieces.”

Many artists’ ultimate goal is to break the US, but that wasn’t top of The Hip’s list. It’s something they were criticised for by the press, according to their guitarist Paul Langlois, who describes it as “lazy”. He tells the BBC: “We always felt that way, and you try to let go of things, but it would be bothersome.” He intersperses his recollections of their Canadian achievements with memories of being reminded they hadn’t made it big in America. As No Dress Rehearsal makes clear, the band chose their road to the US in a way that was organic and authentic to them.

The documentary recalls the time The Hip was offered a big US contract, in return for playing on the roof of a large US-owned record store. They declined, in favour of being loyal to their Canadian record label. Instead, they approached local US radio stations and venues independently.

As Langlois explains: “We ended up playing venues all across America and we did that on our own, with the help of really cool radio stations.” He adds: “if anyone looked into it, they would see we played all of the best rooms in America and Europe and we felt those successes, and we were proud of them, because it was kind of like we were on our own.”

Canada is the world’s second-largest country and not the easiest to get around. Just driving across the province of Ontario, home to Toronto and Kingston, takes 18 hours, a journey the band regularly made. “Between most of our locations was a 10, nine or eight-hour drive,” says Langlois. “So we would be leaving after one show and drive through the night because days on the road cost money, so we just had to keep driving, or for Newfoundland we’d get a 12-hour ferry ride.”

For most artists touring Canada, it’s common to play the major cities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, but The Hip made it their mission to go beyond that, much to the delight of their fans. “We felt that appreciation, especially going to places like Newfoundland where a lot of bands and artists have cut it out,” says Langlois. One of the big reasons the band toured so relentlessly was to fulfill their mission towards, as Langlois explains, “becoming the tightest band”. Inspired by 70s and 80s artists like The Clash, it was important that they could deliver in person, Langlois explains. “To do that you have to play a lot. We based everything on our live show, because there’s just something different about being in a club that’s full of people, it’s just a very powerful thing.” It seems the rehearsing paid off, because by 1995, the band were opening for The Rolling Stones, as well as Page and Plant.

Despite being respected by industry greats, The Hip’s catalogue was mostly appreciated back home. Perhaps this documentary will introduce the band to new fans? Mike Downie is hoping their talent will be recognised. “I want people to see that this was a really great band. They went through 35 years of creating a record every couple of years and they were unique,” he explains. “I think audiences will really get a sense of why, along the way, they meant so much to so many Canadians, and why so many Canadians saw something in their own experience up there on stage.”

Warner thinks the documentary will be a reminder of the legacy Gord Downie wanted to leave behind. “In the last years of his life, his focus was Indigenous rights and the environment.” She highlights a moment from the band’s final gig, where Gord challenged Justin Trudeau to commit to helping Canada’s Indigenous communities.

“Things like ensuring indigenous people had the same access to clean water, to basic human rights, getting the services that they deserve and should have. He publicly obligated the prime minister to agree to those things.”

“This documentary will remind us all of that philanthropic legacy.”