Arts & Culture

No Dress Rehearsal
Where: Prime Video
What: Miniseries,
When: Fri., Sept. 20
Genre: Rockumentary
Rating: NNNNN (out of 5)
Why you should watch: Honest look at “Canada’s Band,” including great early days, high school footage up to the incredible final tour and devastating passing of lead singer Gord Downie.

FILMMAKER MIKE DOWNIE  has created an honest and revealing look at the Tragically Hip — “Canada’s band” — that his late brother Gord fronted. He led a bunch of buddies who met in high school in Kingston and eventually conquered the country with their raw blues rock songs that tell unapologetically Canadian stories.

Despite being directed by Gord’s brother, it’s not hagiography. With enough rough edges revealed, it creates a compelling narrative that sees high school pals achieve unimagined success that occasionally leads to growing distance — literal and metaphorical — between them until Gord’s illness makes all disputes suddenly incidental.

All four parts were screened as a piece at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), but the bite-sized, one-hour offerings are a more appealing way to consume the series. Though, even with a longer run time than Napoleon or Apocalypse Now, No Dress Rehearsal never drags. The insightful interviews and spectacular archival footage of early iterations of the band all make for compelling storytelling.

Through intimate recording session videos of most of the band’s releases, we see and hear the evolution of their sound as well as the members’ changing dynamics as the music develops and individual roles in the band change. Whether you were a close friend of Gord or simply a fan, watching the singer’s herculean response to his fatal diagnosis is both heartbreaking and profoundly inspiring.

As Mike Downie told me of his brother the night of the final concert in Kingston, “He is certainly going out on his shield.” And yes, from the goodbye concerts to his frantic work on behalf of Indigenous communities in his final days, Gord Downie did “go out on his shield” as this remarkable series so accurately and touchingly shows.

You don’t have to be a mega fan to enjoy this film. It is a revealing look at the brotherly dynamic between band members who go from high school dreamers to the voice of a nation.