TORONTO: The Canadian power trio Triumph, the biggest rock band to come out of the Peel region, was honoured on Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) with the world premiere of their rockumentary ‘Triumph Rock and Roll Machine’, named after their second album.
Many celebrities and friends from the entertainment and film industry as well as fans were invited to attend the long awaited documentary which was delayed due to the Covid pandemic.
At the chic soiree in the upscale locale of the Lake House terrace and lounge behind the Budweiser stage in downtown Toronto, patrons, including Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie, were dressed to define a new standard of cool and enjoy the celebrations.
Wine, cocktails and beer, enough to impress even Dionysos, flowed freely along with a feast of epicurean appetizers and desserts!
The three band mates from Triumph – Gil Moore (drummer), Rik Emmett (guitarist) and biblical figure Mike Levine (bassist) – posed with guests who wished a complimentary professional photo with them. Triumph T-shirts were handed out as swag.
Then came the moment everyone was waiting for; the documentary on the mighty band directed by Sam Dunn of Banger films, well-known for his documentaries on heavy metal music!
The docufilm stands out for its inherent contemporary style. It has snippets of conversations and humourous anecdotes intercalated with anime (yes a la Osamu Tezuka, the god of manga) and live footage of Triumph’s pyrotechnical concerts to advance the narrative.
Their story of great success is documented not just by the tres amigos themselves but also through their fans’ unscripted interviews. These give us a deep insight into the very fabric and character that the group is made of as these devoted fans of decades open up their hearts, minds and souls, relating how their songs helped them through tough times and how certain lyrics like “fight the good fight every moment” made them relentlessly keep on striding forward!
This exemplary documentary goes on to relate a lot of information available on the net such as how they started playing in schools and pubs ending each act with “Rocky Mountain Way”, before, by a twist of fate, they got to replace top billed Sammy Hagar at a concert in San Antonio, Texas and also performing at Canada Jam in Mosport Park in Ontario to a crowd of over 100,000. After that, there was triumph after triumph as they started playing big arenas!
However, there is a lot of information in there that is not available on the net. It is not a stiff and stodgy documentary nor is it super wild. Instead it is very lively and high-spirited interspersed with lots of hilarious moments that had the three lads in splits again as they guffawed loudly remembering those comical times! There were of course lots of regular happy moments and not so happy musings as well. All in all, it was a very wholesome movie with the protagonists sometimes dropping the f- bomb in regular speech like everyday folk.
To use an old expression, they let it all hang down!
Throughout the rock film, there is a countdown to the Superfan event held in 2019 where the three band mates got together in Mississauga to play for their super fans who came in from all over the world, including Brazil. This gave a feeling that the documentary was dedicated to all the fans and the grand super-charged finale manifests that in all its glory!
There are a lot of bands mentioned in the movie like Beatles, Hendrix, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and more!
I will add one more. One of The Grateful Dead’s immortal lines “What a long strange trip it’s been” certainly defines the lives of these three close friends known simply as Triumph!
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