Over the summer the missus and I saw Simple Minds for the first time. They were touring on the 40th Anniversary of their signature hit, "Don't You Forget About Me", from The Breakfast Club (which they ironically didn't want to record because they didn't write it). It was a good show and made us want to hunt down this 2023 BBC documentary about the band.
After finally finding it on the high seas (it may be available thru the BBC iPlayer app, but we don't do that here in the former Colonies), Simple Minds: Everything Is Possible is merely an adequate 20,000 foot overview of the band's history beginning with singer Jim Kerr and guitarist Charlie Burchill meeting as young boys on a construction site sand pile in 1967 Glasgow, Scotland.
The sole consistent members of the band, the doc zips through their forming a band in 1978, getting and losing record deals as they struggled to find their sound, but gradually finding success, appearing on Top of the Pops, becoming a successful band everywhere but America, then launching into superstardom thanks to John Hughes the same way The Psychedelic Furs were boosted by Pretty In Pink (which Hughes copped the title from them). Eventually rock star excesses started peeling away members of the band and by the early-1990s they were burned out from 15 years of constant activity.
The intervening years are given short shrift as Kerr apparently moved to Italy and sponsored the local soccer team. We spend some time with him wandering the pitch, but what does this have to do with Simple Minds? They makers also bafflingly omit the roles of the musicians interviewed, presumably presuming the audience already knows so-and-so was the kazoo player? Various producers and presenters are tagged, but there is one woman whom I have no idea is.
Simple Minds: Everything Is Possible falls in between being useful for people who know nothing about their history and those who are familiar, but want more. Basic details like just how much older Kerr's wife, The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde, was than him (A: nine years) aren't spelled out though mentioned. While passingly informative, it falls short for both audiences.
Score: 6/10. Catch it on cable/streaming.
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