R.I.P. 2020
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@sparky said in R.I.P. 2020:
English Conservative philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton died of cancer aged 75 today.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/01/roger-scruton-a-man-who-seemed-bigger-than-the-age/
Damn .
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As a longtime Rush fan I was shocked to hear the tragic news over the weekend because, frankly, no one apart from family and close friends even knew he had been suffering from this horrible disease in recent years. When Rush called time on their career in 2015 we were all expecting Peart to enjoy his well-earned retirement with his wife and young daughter. For those who don't know he lost his first daughter (car accident) and wife (cancer) within the space of 10 months in the late 1990s.
I was fortunate to see Rush live once in 2007 in Milan. It cost me a lot of money to change my return flights to be able to attend the concert but it was well worth it.
There have been plenty of tributes about Peart the drummer but equally he was one of the best lyricists in modern rock music. So in Neil's own words:
Suddenly, you were gone
From all the lives you left your mark upon (Afterimage)When we are young
Wandering the face of the Earth
Wondering what our dreams might be worth
Learning that we're only immortal
For a limited time (Dreamline)RIP The Professor
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I don’t know that I can properly call myself a diehard Rush fan, but I am a fan. I saw them three times from late 70s through to mid 1990s (Hemispheres, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows tours), mostly as a tag-along to a gang of rocker excellent friends who were enormous devotees and had probably seen the band at least 25 times apiece. If you hang around rockers and musicians long enough, you’ll discover the Rush freaks. They’re a cult band, an acquired taste, and for years I laughed at them, I thought my friends were goofy, but in the End they won. Rush has as passionate and loyal and devoted a fan base as any band in rock — ever — and the nerdiness of it is contagious. And boy, they can play! Hard rock, psyche, prog, fusion. They nail it. The tributes this past weekend have been incredible. I haven’t seen as many tears from grown men over the death of a rock artist like this for decades.
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Yeah, a good description of the band and Rush fans. They never toured NZ or Australia so for many down here they won't be that well known, although I have seen a few people wearing Rush t-shirts. I became a fan in the mid-1980s and have followed them since then.
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I'm not a fan (not in a "i don't like them", i just don't listen to them) but it says something that all the dudes in bands i like, love Rush.
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He was an astonishingly accomplished drummer. And one that continued t learn and expand his craft. A musician's drummer.
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@Bovidae I know people who were at the last shows who told me they met a pile of Aussie fans who shelled out big dollars for the final chance to see them. I recall the last time I saw them (about 25 years ago) there was a small tour group seated nearby from Japan who flew explicitly to follow them around. I remember thinking at the time, WTF, is this becoming like the Grateful Dead cult?
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@antipodean One of the things I’ve read in several tributes that never really dawned on me before — since Peart wrote all the lyrics, he knew where the drum parts were supposed to go before the other two musicians were even handed the lyrics. He’d said a number of times in interviews that he pitied the drummers who didn’t write the songs (meaning: nearly every rock drummer, ever) because he couldn’t image receiving a song with so little time to prepare and solve where the fills were supposed to go and when to get out of the way of the lyrics.
And it makes me smile reading stories about how he passed the audition to be their new drummer, and they immediately asked him to be their songwriter too, because they hated writing lyrics and saw his nose buried in a book all the time. He’d never written a song in his life, they already had a recording contract under their belt, he was trying to concentrate on developing his impossibly high standards on his kit, and he agreed to start writing songs! Amazing.
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Friends have been sending me links to photos of billboards along freeways across the U.S. commemorating Peart. Fans with big wallets are forking out to honour their guy.
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Am I weird in that I have never heard of Rush?
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I’d say not. I seem to recall hearing “Closer to the Heart” played on Hauraki, maybe once, in 1978, and that was it.
Although they released a ton of records (incl. many, many live records), they were really a touring band. They made it a point of their identity that they didn’t want to make studio records that the three of them couldn’t replicate live on stage, so they were touring constantly — but they never made it to NZ or Oz.
It’s also notable that critics hated them for the first decade of their existence, and Geddy Lee’s voice was certainly a part of that. They didn’t get accepted into the mainstream until the Moving Pictures album in ‘81, and then they kinda exploded. I believe there was only 5 platinum-selling rock records in the USA that year, the worst year for rock record sales since the birth of rock, and Rush fully accounted for three of them (new fans who discovered them started buying the earlier releases). As far as hard rock meets prog at the time, Bonham was dead and Yes became The Buggles v2, which left Rush holding the bag.
Critics still weren’t on board, but the kids were, and the more the critics lambasted them, the more it galvanized those kids and made them intensely loyal. Nobody gave critics the middle-finger the way Rush fans did. And then they started dominating the musicians polls, Peart especially. He was treated like he was superhuman philosopher-king, which was why he retreated from public life. The fandom was suffocating him. How many times can a man hear “You’re the greatest ever” before he wants to climb into a hole, and he was hearing this from the time he was 24 years old.
I remember many observers being gobsmacked in the mid 1980s when Los Angeles radio station KROQ, at the time the pre-eminent classic-rock and contemporary rock FM station in America, was having annual listeners “Battle-Of-The-Bands” tournaments and it was coming down to Rush vs Zeppelin, and Rush was winning!!
My own preferences for hard rock-prog-fusion in the 70s/80s were more for Crimson, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever etc., I didn’t really rate Rush. But some of their songs were guilty pleasures, and I’ve come to appreciate them over the years simply because there was nobody touring like them.
Check out youtube some time, search for “Billy Corgan” + “Rush” and you’ll get an insight into the intensity of the band; He claims if they came out now “Pitchfork would be all over them, because they’re strange-as-fuck.” And if you want to see one of the best rock documentaries ever, download “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage.” After I saw that, I surrendered. I couldn’t help but like the band and their values.
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@Salacious-Crumb said in R.I.P. 2020:
I’d say not. I seem to recall hearing “Closer to the Heart” played on Hauraki, maybe once, in 1978, and that was it.
Although they released a ton of records (incl. many, many live records), they were really a touring band. They made it a point of their identity that they didn’t want to make studio records that the three of them couldn’t replicate live on stage, so they were touring constantly — but they never made it to NZ or Oz.
It’s also notable that critics hated them for the first decade of their existence, and Geddy Lee’s voice was certainly a part of that. They didn’t get accepted into the mainstream until the Moving Pictures album in ‘81, and then they kinda exploded. I believe there was only 5 platinum-selling rock records in the USA that year, the worst year for rock record sales since the birth of rock, and Rush fully accounted for three of them (new fans who discovered them started buying the earlier releases). As far as hard rock meets prog at the time, Bonham was dead and Yes became The Buggles v2, which left Rush holding the bag.
Critics still weren’t on board, but the kids were, and the more the critics lambasted them, the more it galvanized those kids and made them intensely loyal. Nobody gave critics the middle-finger the way Rush fans did. And then they started dominating the musicians polls, Peart especially. He was treated like he was superhuman philosopher-king, which was why he retreated from public life. The fandom was suffocating him. How many times can a man hear “You’re the greatest ever” before he wants to climb into a hole, and he was hearing this from the time he was 24 years old.
I remember many observers being gobsmacked in the mid 1980s when Los Angeles radio station KROQ, at the time the pre-eminent classic-rock and contemporary rock FM station in America, was having annual listeners “Battle-Of-The-Bands” tournaments and it was coming down to Rush vs Zeppelin, and Rush was winning!!
My own preferences for hard rock-prog-fusion in the 70s/80s were more for Crimson, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever etc., I didn’t really rate Rush. But some of their songs were guilty pleasures, and I’ve come to appreciate them over the years simply because there was nobody touring like them.
Check out youtube some time, search for “Billy Corgan” + “Rush” and you’ll get an insight into the intensity of the band; He claims if they came out now “Pitchfork would be all over them, because they’re strange-as-fuck.” And if you want to see one of the best rock documentaries ever, download “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage.” After I saw that, I surrendered. I couldn’t help but like the band and their values.
I only know them from this
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They were Spinal Tap, if Spinal Tap were virtuoso musicians.
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If you watch any of the concert footage you will always see flags from various countries in the audience. I knew a Kiwi who flew to LA to take in multiple shows every tour. I regret not seeing them myself when I lived in the US.
That photo must be the billboard on the I95 near Philly that I read about.
Beyond The Lighted Stage is available on Netflix NZ.
As to local radio airplay, you still hear Tom Sawyer and Limelight on The Sound. For those that haven't heard Rush before Tom Sawyer is their biggest "hit". Even if you don't like the song you will enjoy the video intro they have used on recent tours.
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The other thing I will add is that Neil Peart also wrote some well-received books detailing his travels around the world. I haven't read them myself but those people that have enjoyed them.
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I found Rush by accident. My Mum went into Musicor record shop in Whangarei and asked the owner for something for me for Christmas, random 17 year old who liked The Led Zeppelin. He had an import of “Archives” that he convinced her I would love. I did, but funnily enough it was “Working Man” from their first album (that Peart wasn’t on) that grabbed me first. Soon loved the weirdness of By-Tor though, and loved them ever since. I can’t remember where I read it but I recall they toured with Kiss when they were at their debauched worst, and Gene Simmons said the Rush boys were very straight and nice. They would go out and play volleyball instead of getting wasted and laid.
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Rush are a bit musicians musician.
I’d only heard of them in the same way as Grateful Dead- knew they were legendary US musicians with hardcore fans but that’s it. When I first saw “I love you man” I enjoyed what I heard so did some Spotify of them and found a lot of it recognisable. Similar to Led Zeppelin you hear a lot of their riffs / timings in other music.
Real artists.
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage - Wikipedia
