The Tragically Hip talk ‘No Dress Rehearsal’ and their final concert

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As they settled into their seats for the world premiere of No Dress Rehearsal, a four-part docuseries that looks at the career and legacy of The Tragically Hip, bandmembers Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay, Rob Baker and Paul Langlois were gripped by a mix of emotions.

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“It was a tough one,” Sinclair, who was the band’s bassist, said the morning after The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.  “We’re an insular group. Throughout our career, it was five or six of us travelling around in a bus and we’re private people.”

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Directed by Mike Downie — brother of the band’s late singer Gord Downie — the expansive docuseries, which won TIFF’s People’s Choice Award for best documentary, traces the quartet’s early years in Kingston, Ont., through to their last-ever live performance in 2016 following Downie’s brain cancer diagnosis and beyond.

“We’ve known Mike forever, but to do the band justice and the documentary justice, he wanted to go deep and talk about family stuff and personal stuff,” Sinclair said. “He knows our history together and our ups and downs. He coaxed that out of us. He was very upfront about it and got us to talk about things we might not have felt comfortable about in front of folks we didn’t know.”

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Baker, the Hip’s lead guitarist, called the band’s portrayal “honest,” but was quick to add how sitting through its nearly five-hour runtime and watching some of that early footage served as a reminder for how much fun the quintet had around one another.

“When I think about the band, I just want to think about how much laughing we did. We laughed a lot,” he said, smiling.

Hip drummer Fay and the band’s rhythm guitarist Langlois said they left the screening shortly after it had started.

“There are some moments that are still pretty raw. For me, I just felt that leaving would be a good idea,” Fay said. “It was the same with our last gig. I haven’t been able to get through that again. I know it’s on TV every now and then, but it’s a hard one. Bringing back those memories.”

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When he spoke to Postmedia about the project after it was announced in 2022, Downie said the film would not only chart the rise of one of Canada’s biggest rock bands of all time, but also tell the story of the country itself.

“My objective is to not just tell the story of the band, but I think in many ways tell the story about what’s been going on in the country for the last 40 years because I think in many ways, the band reflects that,” Downie said.

Downie, who documented the band’s 1993 Another Roadside Attraction tour in Heksenketel, sifted through the Hip’s vast archives to craft a film that would appeal to viewers unfamiliar with any of the band’s 13 studio albums.

“This is a story about what happens when you believe in yourself and you believe in your friends,” Downie said. “The Hip is a great example of sticking to it, getting through the storms and coming out the other end.”

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Not only does the docuseries show the Hip’s meteoric rise in the 1990s after their 1989 debut Up to Here, it delves into their bid to attract new fans and build an audience across Canada and the United States.

But it also doesn’t try to stray away from the group’s periods of strife.

“To get five creative people to agree or strike a compromise is not easy to do,” Sinclair reflected. “But we found our way. We always tried to not go to bed angry. The laughter was a big part of it. I think of the times we’d play a place like Hoboken, New Jersey, and it would go from two people in the crowd to zero, and 15 minutes after we left we’d be laughing.”

The series, which features never-before-seen footage and performances, is being released this month to mark the 40th anniversary of the 17-time JUNO Award-winning band’s formation.

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The morning after the foursome were serenaded by hundreds of people following the rapturous screening of No Dress Rehearsal at TIFF, the Can-rock icons contemplated the band’s legacy, their future, and answered perhaps the most important question of all: have they said all there is to say when it comes to the Tragically Hip.

After participating in No Dress Rehearsal, what was your biggest takeaway from your time in the band?

ROB BAKER: “Watching it was like seeing your life flashing before your eyes or a near-death experience that lasts four-and-a-half hours. It was quite a journey. But when we were in it, we never thought about any of that. It was always about putting one foot forward.”

JOHNNY FAY: “We had a commitment to each other. We knew that each guy brought something to the table that was incredibly unique. That’s beautiful. That doesn’t happen in today’s music.”

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PAUL LANGLOIS: “We all respected each and trusted each other … We got lucky that way.”

GORD SINCLAIR: “I remembered how when we were putting the band together it was aspirational. As the band grew older, there were hurdles we faced —  just like life. We lost people that we loved and we endured. But the music was the centre of it. Gord says in the documentary that the two hours you’re onstage everyday, that’s the joy. The other 22 is the work.”

The doc addresses some of the tensions that existed between the bandmembers. It wasn’t always harmonious. What was it like to revisit those fractures?

BAKER: “I don’t like to concentrate on the fractures. We concentrated on them a lot at the time. Being in a band is a five-way marriage with no sex. Love creates tension and sex relieves it. There was a lot of love and no relief (laughs). It just built and built over the years and (the tension) was just a natural thing I think.”

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SINCLAIR: “When you’re in the creative industry, not only is there a business side of things, but you’re trying to make your voice heard, whether that’s musically or lyrically. We had strong opinions.”

At one point in the doc, we learn that the band had an opportunity to get a big global push with Tower Records. They wanted the Hip to perform at its new downtown Toronto store and they were offering to push (1996’s) Trouble in the Henhouse worldwide. But the four of you didn’t take the offer because you were loyal to Canada’s Sam the Record Man.

FAY: “I had completely forgotten about the Sam the Record Man thing … That decision, which was kind of made by Gord (Downie), was a good one. It had to do with loyalty. Back in the day, Sam the Record Man only put you in the front rack of their store on Yonge Street if they believed you were a career band. We bought our music at Sam the Record Man and respected this Canadian chain and that was it. We could have been all over the world with Tower Records … But was it the right decision? Yes.”

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What was the secret to your success?

SINCLAIR: “We were committed to each other and committed to the music … We always strove to give people the best show we could … I don’t think we ever phoned in a gig. When we were coming up in the bars, we’d look out and see there’s the bike gang guys, the college kids and the RMC kids and there were smiles on their faces. Everyone was there together … that was never lost on us.”

BAKER: “We always knew we were no different than people in the audience. If we played something that was interesting to us then other people would find it interesting and have fun.”

No Dress Rehearsal touches briefly on how the media covered the Hip’s lack of success in the United States. I always thought it was cool that the band had a huge following here. It made me feel like you were our own thing. 

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SINCLAIR: “My most proud moment of being a Canadian artist came when we were in Australia and I heard k.d. lang’s Constant Craving on the rooftop of the hotel we were staying at. It made me think, ‘I don’t feel that far away from home.’ Everyone was singing it and she did it on her own terms. That’s what you want to do. Rush and Gordon Lightfoot, did it on their own terms. I’m mentioning three groups of people and artists that stayed in Canada. It’s important for musicians to stay in Canada. So many people make a little bit of money and take off. Gord sang about Canadian cities and stories and people in Canada appreciated that. He used to say, ‘The U.S. isn’t the brass ring. It’s right here.’”

LANGLOIS: “No one was interested in living anywhere else … It was rather unfair this assessment that we didn’t make it in the States. We worked our way up in so many cities. We sold out the Filmore in San Francisco two nights … We worked our way up .. We never stopped with the States, even though Rolling Stone was never going to mention us.”

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FAY: “Until the end. They mentioned us at the end. It was a little paragraph that said, ‘Iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip play their last show’ … they neglected Rush. They panned every single record Led Zeppelin put out, and then backpedaled when they became famous.”

What do you hope the legacy of the Hip is?

BAKER: “I can’t worry about our legacy. We put a lot of worry and care into the music and we cared about our fans … If people watch the film, I hope they see that it wasn’t about the pursuit of conquering the world or gaining riches. It was about five friends sharing a lot of laughs and love and respect for each other, with a mutual love of music. That’s really all it was at the beginning and end of it.”

More than 11 million Canadians watched the live broadcast of the Hip’s final show. What do you remember most about the band’s last concert in Kingston back in 2016?

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SINCLAIR: “I was pleasantly distracted so the emotion and the poignancy of it being the final show didn’t settle in until a couple of weeks afterwards. Had I really stopped to take the time to appreciate how far we had come, it would have been a lousy night. But we just approached it like another day at the office.”

LANGLOIS: “We just played the show … and when we got off the stage, Gord Downie said, ‘That felt like the last show.’ I think we all heard him say that and knew that was it. But I haven’t really watched it … We had a long great career and it was all we could do.”

FAY: “The thing I remember about the last show was we came offstage and it felt like the end. I went to go see Gord and I saw him in his dressing room with his mom and his kids. He was having this private moment and I remember walking away and leaving him. We had so much history and so much time together on the road … That was the end. Processing that was heavy.”

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BAKER: “At the end of that final show, my thought was it’s over. I packed up. Over the course of the next few weeks afterwards, that’s when it settled in. It was hard. I had a slow motion meltdown and I lost my way for a few years. The dream was over; the bubble popped. I wondered, ‘What am I now? What do I have left?’”

How did you find your way back to yourself?

BAKER: “I think I needed to come up with another act. I was asking myself, ‘What’s the third act of my life going to be?’ … While I was trying to figure that out, I just poured myself into writing songs and painting. After several months of doing that, I realized I don’t need another act. This is what I do. This is what makes me happy. If I write songs no one hears, that’s fine. If I paint paintings that no one sees, that’s fine. I enjoy it. I had a great public career with my friends and I still have most of my friends.”

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Is there a possibility that you guys would make music again as the Hip?

BAKER: “I don’t see the four of us getting up onstage because it wouldn’t be the Hip — it would be the Hip minus one and it would instantly draw that attention to it. I think we’re better to leave that be.”

A few years ago, the band unearthed, Saskadelphia, which featured never-before-heard songs from the Road Apples session. Is there more unreleased material to come?

SINCLAIR: “There’s tons of stuff that we road tested and tried to record that didn’t make it onto an album for whatever reason. Johnny has been going through the archives and finding old material. Now we’re rediscovering all this new stuff and some of it really stands up. You can hear how we played and evolved as songwriters and musicians over the course of time.”

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The band released 13 studio albums over the course of your career. What are your favourites?

SINCLAIR: “It’s (1994’s) Day for Night. It was early in our career … it was a singles-driven business where we were told, ‘You gotta write a hit.’ There’s a funny quote in the film where (industry vet) Alan Gregg describes Day for Night as, ‘Nothing but B-sides.’ But we’ve always been B-Side guys. Even when we were a cover band, we wouldn’t play (the Rolling Stones’) Jumpin’ Jack Flash, we’d play Child of the Moon. Those were the songs that resonated with us because we were album guys. When we were putting Day for Night together, we wrote that record to create a mood … we weren’t concerned with singles.”

BAKER: “I would say my favourite experience was making (1991’s) Road Apples. My favourite album is Up to Here, just because we were going to make a real record with a producer (Don Smith) that we loved and respected. We were in Memphis, in a studio … I was in heaven.”

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FAY: “We’ve just done the box set for Up to Here. It has some extra tracks that we recorded … and we’ve included those in this new box set. I was always a big fan of our sound when we were really young in Memphis. So I would say the new box set. But I would also throw in an honorary Road Apples.”

LANGLOIS: “I would say Day for Night. I think it’s a crazy record. And I would say (1998’s) Phantom Power. It sums up a lot of our styles. ”

The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal makes its Prime Video debut on Sept. 19.

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