'The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal' makes world debut

no dress rehearsal this is our life that's what you got to do you got to make the most of Ito Canada my friends that tragically if any of us were in another band I don't think we'd be able to do it because we wouldn't be in another band with our friends 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 to people it came at its cost well the much anticipated docu series The Tragically HIIT no dress rehearsal made its World premiere at Tiff on day one yesterday it really serves as a love letter from the band to the country they call home joining us this morning here on cb24 breakfast are Mike Downey the filmmaker and older brother of gour Downey and the manager of the hip Jake gold good to see both of you this morning really appreciate you being here to talk about this nice to see yeah Jake Mike uh either one of you can pick up on this yesterday at the premiere at Tiff what was it like sitting in the audience as people were sort of seeing this for the first time I'll let Mike answer that I think uh he he has his own a lot of feelings about it so um well you know I think after three years of working on this in complete isolation to watch it in a full house at the Royal Alex was it was mind-blowing um to hear to actually just feel the reaction in the theater hear the laughter U and then feel the emotion some of the sniffles um it was really powerful and you know I I think the thing about the hip is they already kind of pluck our heartstrings you know um they always have and then to put it all together into this 4-Hour documentary um yeah it it we could we could tell it was getting to people we could tell that they were having a visceral reaction to it it it was great I I I like to say it's a champagne and tissue kind of series it's a good descriptor you but uh we were we were talking about it in the car on the way over is like you know when you think about a live concert there's an immediate reaction um Live Theater there's an immediate reaction but when you're sitting in an edit room making this a film um you don't know what's going to land and Mike and I were sitting a couple of seats over from each other watching it and uh and we're like oh the laughs are landing oh that's good you know like you're realizing people are picking up on it yeah you get that range of emotions don't exactly and you know the archival footage I mean pictures from the first time they played in a high school gym uh to of course the last show in Kingston Jake you were there for so much of this band's history what was it like going through your archives and going oh my gosh I don't think people have seen this or this is going to blow people's minds kind of so there were two kinds of archives that we actually put together um one is um I brought in this team from from Boston who works with all these really big artists and they're archivists this is what they do okay and we went into everybody's basements and storage lockers and cubby holes and that was not includ not just mine but all the band members and friends and people that knew gourd stuff everything and they moved everything to this Warehouse in G and they spent nine months scanning and building this digital and physical archive um on the other side Mike's team was busy finding all this old video footage and audio uh stuff like that and then Universal Music was also digitizing all the old stuff that was on tape that that you know uh we couldn't access in addition to you know stuff from this building because a lot of it was uh wasn't digitized but the digitization process had already started here so we're able to get you know the old much music stuff and all the old like different network stuff um so uh Mike had a great research team out there finding stuff he did call outs and then he also knew um friends that he knew had a camera in the room that day yeah you know or in the bathroom it's even a couple of intering bathtubs and things like that Mike what was it like getting the band members kind of back together again to talk about this because it was pretty clear in some of those interviews you know they struggled after your brother's death that tragic death they were struggling they weren't sure they really wanted to unpack you know what they didn't want to look back they want to look forward how difficult was that and then for you as his brother being so close to the subject matter for all of you like how was that well Nick the first interviews we did uh were in the our old high school which was vacant it it's bought by Queens and we were able to get in there uh after all the students were gone before uh Queens took it over and I think those interviews were 2021 and in October and it was like almost four years to the day since gourd's passing right I think that was kind of the right amount of time um for the guys to start to open up a little bit about it like the emotion was still very very real but the dust had settled and there was I think maybe some clarity so it was kind of a chance to talk about some pretty pretty charged emotional content yeah and you know I I think the guys in the band were um very private um in general overall yeah for sure they were for sure they were so I think it was just and you know I I could tell the difference we did I would say four major interviews like all day interviews with each member of the band and you could see the difference between the first one and the second one and the third one because it just became the trust was being built by the time we got to perhaps the third one there was a rough cut of episode one so they was like oh we kind of see what you're trying to do here and it and they opened up even more but it was just like they were long interviews and it was just you know we needed to kind of go deeper and deeper as much as we could and I had come back in 2020 and uh cuz I had worked with the band for 17 then I didn't work with them for 17 I came back in 2020 and I think at that point they were ready to start looking back I think so right because we started finding these old tapes and we put out we put out an EP called sasad Delphia and then we put out a box set and that was in 2021 and we made videos and all of a sudden they're like oh we're back doing things and we were having regular meetings every couple of weeks and uh so Mike and I at that point had approached them about okay this is what we want to do and uh but it has to be warts and all mhm and it's definitely warts and all and they opened up and they said okay we said we can't do puff piece we're not here to do you feel that as you're watching it and and I want to also talk to about yesterday you know that sing along on John after the screening here it's so clear how much the hip is still resonating with people today right I mean the fact that crowd was out there singing along choir choir choir bringing songs out members of the band there as well in that crowd like take me there what was that like for for both of you it was exciting it was like we sort of like following the pi Piper out of the theater and down King Street and onto John it was absolutely supercharged and I think also like it allows people to participate you know what I mean like so we've all been sitting there watching this and having this sort of wave of emotion and Nostalgia come over us and then you could actually be a part of it and create another you know new new tragically hit memory it it was super powerful yeah and and and uh you know um there's there's a part in the in the film where this actually happens so the idea was well let's recreate it let's have the fans that have seen the film because we took them out of the theater and then we invited everybody else to come down right so the people that were in the theater was like oh I just saw that in the film and the people that weren't in the theater are going to go home watch the series when it's on Prime on the 20th and they're going to see the series and go oh that's why we did that like it all makes sense you know listen Jake Mike congratulations on this uh no dress rehearsal the tragical hip fantastic docu series drops on Prime September the 20th I really appreciate your time this morning thanks for sharing all of this thanks for collecting all of this and putting it together it's AB wonderful thanks for the great questions yeah sure Jake so to see you to see you again Mike nice to meet you thank you so much