“When a band lasts as long as we have, people begin to ask the question: ‘What is it about this band that enables it to stay around for four decades?’”
In a downtown hotel suite, Geddy Lee, with Alex Lifeson at his side, speaks about the career of Rush. A documentary, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, is set for limited screenings across the country beginning June 10, followed by a DVD release on June 29. The film is the work of filmmakers Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn, who collaborated on the Gemini-winning Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey.
As well, a new book is out. Rush: Rock Music, and the Middle Class was written by Chris McDonald, an ethnomusicologist at Cape Breton University who assesses the progressive rockers’ place in popular music and its impact on its suburban North American fan base.
Both the book and the film attempt to come to grips with a band that has had the most unusual career trajectory, defying age and the loathing of critics to fly high for decades, with no end in sight.
“We just do what we do,” shrugs guitarist Lifeson. “We’ve been doing it since we were 15 years old. It’s a way of life – it’s not a great mystery to us.”
Asked why pop culture has recently (and finally) taken a shine to Rush, Lee also shrugs: “We’re the last to know why.”
Rush is tough to figure. While some get the band, others don’t – at all. In the documentary, which is rich with archival goodies, a yellowed old unattributed concert review is introduced as evidence of the band’s complicated relationship with its critics and followers. It reads: “Their quasi-political lyrics are an unusual feature, but it was difficult to hear them with Geddy Lee’s high-pitched shriek. [The concert] was a routine celebration of deafening anglicized rock and I found it dull, depressing and dated. But they did ignite the two-and-a-half thousand denim-clad youngsters into head-shaking frenzy and physical distortion.”
It’s not in the film, but a line from Rolling Stone magazine’s David Fricke, in his review of the Rush album Permanent Waves, is often used to explain the band’s spiteful critics. “It's easy to criticize what you don't understand,” Fricke wrote in 1980, “which at least partly explains why Canadian power trio Rush have suffered so much at the hands of rock journalists since the band's debut album in 1974. Critics find bassist-lead singer Geddy Lee's stratospheric wails and drummer Neil Peart's lyrical excursions into philosophy, science fiction and fantasy easy targets, and usually dismiss Rush as a head-banger's Genesis.…”
Fear leads to hate – an old and recurring story.
I once owned a cat, Boopers, who was the least neurotic animal I’ve ever come across. He was strikingly untroubled, except when it came to airships. One afternoon a dirigible floated high above us. Boopers slouched low to the ground as he skeptically watched the sky. The thing was at least 2,000 feet away, and yet the cat felt the need to put three more inches between himself and that floating monstrosity.
My point? Rush is the mother airship of rock music.
Like my cat with that dirigible, there are those who just can’t get far enough away from the veteran Canadian trio. Airships are unwieldy relics – polite but impractical, and full of hot air. And when they crash – I’m looking at you Hindenburg! – all humanity breaks loose.
Yet they still operate, against all reason and physical laws.
