Brother of Gord Downie recounts emotional final tour of 'The Tragically Hip'

crowds would get so loud that you couldn't hear anything happening on stage they put on a monster show they were loud and tight and forceful and gourd was mesmerizing they made it cool to be Canadian I feel silly being sort of emotional about it the songs that we wrote matter a lot that's a look at The Tragically Hip no dress rehearsal the four-part series pulls back the curtain on the band's rise to fame their deep connection to Canada and the emotional journey of their final tour and joining us this morning for more on the brand new documentary is Gordon's brother Mike and the hips longtime manager Jake gold nice to see you both good morning good morning yes congratulations on the documentary uh want to actually show you this uh this happened yesterday the band serated by fans with a special public performance and hip songs led by choir choir choir just give us your reaction to this scene uh it was joyful it was um incredible I mean to come out of the screening which was was emotionally charged and then to create this community out on the street in this parade down King Street it was it was beautiful um and I I think it was just the perfect way to sort of come down from this you know 4 and 1 half hour experience of immersing yourself back in the world with all its power and magic of The Tragically Hip it was really special yeah and it was it was um in in the in the film there's a near the end of the film there's a scene where choir choir choir is joined by two members of the band leading the crowd in Grace 2 and we thought let's reenact that let's have the people who watch it then go out in the theater and feel like oh I just experienced that and for the people that came down to be a part of it when they go watch the film they'll be like oh now I see the film is still going yeah that was the idea and and um and and it's a testament to the to the band but as much it's a testament to the fans that showed up we put a call out say come join us and sing with choir chir choir and they showed up and they always do and they always do for this band so loyal so Mike what was it like to uh delve deep into the passing of your brother but also deep into his rich life like to go into the archives both as a brother and a director um yeah it was complicated uh but just so gratifying um and to look at like we have uh my brother Patrick and I have all gourd's old notebooks gourd always had a mole skin before that he had little pocket books and so he was always pulling it out and writing things down if he was in a conversation and you said something that just it and it struck him as being kind of a different take on something he would jot it down so all these years later and he did it through his entire adult life there are I mean 50 or or 60 of these books there's actually I think 80 now if I remember from Pat yeah there's a ton and but to go through it uh as a brother is one thing but then to be have a professional eye for like what is going on here because you're there's shards of little moments it's not a diary so to have the opportunity to go through that um but with an eye towards you know trying to tell a story from it was really amazing and as we were wrapping up um I kind of started to really grieve the end of that process because it was something that I you know was doing if not daily all the time but again you know if I was just doing it out of my own personal interest that'd be one thing but to try to understand some of the little what was going on and you know other parts of it You' you'd see something and it's like oh that's a uh sorry you'd see something and it'd be like that's a line of a song that would to merge for five or six years that have been recorded written down on one you know car ride that's what songwriters do yeah absolutely Jake take us back to the first time you met the band and did you have a sense of what was to come yeah yeah yeah um no you didn't yeah no no no no actually I did Mike because I uh I had been a manager for 5 years already and I thought I knew what where the bar was and uh I met the them we had set up a gig to see them and I met them before in the dressing room at Larry's Hideaway and went down and sat in my seat cuz back then it was all Cabaret style seating it was not a standing venue and uh they went into the first song and it was lightning in a bottle and I went oh this is the bar like it was explosive and I turned to my partner Allan I said we got to sign these guys tonight uh we I was so uh guaranteed that this was going to be something and there was a lot of NOS along the way a lot of people would say no and a lot of people would say oh I don't get it and I said I don't care like I believed and I just kept at it and that's what's so neat about this is just is seeing the journey that they went on and yeah not everyone gets it and you're in the minority if you don't because most of us do a lot of us got it a lot of us do but took convincing none of the Canadian labels wanted to sign and was a guy out of New York out of MCA in in the US that saw it and looked at me and said why isn't this band signed by Jake every time somebody walked into a bar and saw this band on stage they had the same viscal reaction which is like what is this what is going on here and that's another individual Mike you speak of reactions I'm curious what is the reaction you get from Canadians when they meet you they find out your connection to gourd and uh you know obviously uh the band wow uh it's um it's heartwarming I mean anytime uh I am acknowledged of being gourd's brother and people say h you know I hate to ask you a question or hate to bring it up and I usually say well if you want to talk about gourd how much time do you have um you'll never I'll never Tire of talking about my brother I'll never um Tire of um enjoying hearing stories I mean Gord he touched so many people with his music and his live performance but he also just met so many people he was inexhaustible and so I you know my my siblings and I were always meeting people that say you know I was at a show and uh saw your brother and I saw the band and then afterwards um I hung around and you know he looked really tired and everything and then we talked and he talked to me for 15 minutes and this is so common um so yeah I I um anytime um anybody brings up my brother to me I it just it it warms my heart um I'm so proud of gourd our whole family is obviously so proud of gourd um and he changed my life like he was chasing his dream and um as his older brother um I kind of recognized that he was creating a life that you know for a small town you know coming from a small town you don't always feel like these things are within reach and he showed um me and and countless other people that no things are closer than you think you just have to really got to chase it and you have to be really you know um single-minded um as you go after that but well he changed a lot of lives impacted a lot of lives for sure yeah well yesterday on the carpet someone said to me you know if you had one thing to say about gourd what would you say and I said he cared and you know like he really cared and he if you were in the room with him you were the only person in the room talking no matter if there was 50 people in the room well you can watch it all it's called The Tragically Hip no dress rehearsal it is out SE September 20th on Prime video thanks for stopping by thanks for having us you guys thank you