“When I was in my twenties, I loved them. Now that I’m in my forties, I don’t know what I’d do without them!”
-George Stroumboulopoulos
My very first conspiracy theory may have been that my dad was attempting to slowly drive my sister and I insane by repeatedly playing the discography of Blue Rodeo on our many family road trips. He would occasionally slip some Gordon Lightfoot or Kashtin into the rotation, but it wouldn’t be long before the opening harmonica strains of “5 Days in May” would warble through the 1989 Crown Victoria sound system to haunt us once again.
In hindsight, I may have ascribed malicious intentions to what for my dad was simply genuine fandom. But in any case, the experience kept me at arms length plus a 10-foot pole from one of Canada’s greatest country-rock bands well into adulthood. It wasn’t until about a decade ago when I stumbled across “Till I Am Myself Again” that I let the band into my life on a limited basis. As of this writing, that song’s 1990 parent album Casino is the only Blue Rodeo record to adorn my record collection.
So it is with this cautiously casual fan status that I come into what may be director Dale Heslip’s first non-Rush music doc, Blue Rodeo: Lost Together. Assembling founding (lead singers and guitarists Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor), current (bassist Bazil Donavan, drummer Glenn Milchem), and former members (drummer Cleave Anderson and keyboardist Bob Wiseman), the doc capably and artfully illustrates the story of a band that spawned out of Toronto’s early-80s music scene, grabbed onto the rocket that was MuchMusic, and propelled themselves into national stardom and an assured place in the Canadian music canon.
There’s plenty of success stories, from the group’s break into the mainstream via heavy video rotation on MuchMusic, to their multiple Juno wins, breaking into the US with Casino, and the unexpected success of their 1993 album 5 Days in July which had been conceived as a “side project”.
Then there are the pitfalls of fame, including the effect of relentless touring on their bands personal lives, to outgrowing some of their founding members (Bob Wiseman’s wacky onstage antics were frowned upon by the band’s label), to Keelor developing tinnitus in the 2010s which made touring especially difficult. Ups and downs, the band ultimately avoided the breakup or “hiatus” that have destroyed many a rock group before them and remain together as of this writing.
The film’s biggest asset is being able to get the band in one place for some live jamming which proves positive that their musical skill has not diminished one iota from their heyday with Cuddy amazingly still able to hit the same high notes he did on their first hit “Try”. Heslip expertly mixes new interviews with tons of archival footage from the band’s concerts and media appearances. Curiously, I was furnished with a screener that seems to be an earlier version of the film as none of the new footage is properly colour-graded and the b-roll comes with burned-in timecode. Tsk, tsk…
Lost Together proves an entertaining and stirring watch for both rabid and casual Rodeo fans alike. Heslip does right by the band in his portrait and may have gone a long way to alleviating this reviewer’s long simmering post-road trip stress disorder and that alone is worthy of several maple leafs.
8/10
Blue Rodeo: Lost Together screens as part of the 2024 Whistler Film Festival on Friday Dec 6, 7pm @ The Rainbow Theatre