R.I.P. 2020
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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.
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@JC By-Tor was one of the earliest songs that I liked, as far as 70s prog goes it’s an amusing fun song. They supported Kiss on a number of tours, played quite a few dates when Kiss exploded ‘74-76. In the Rush documentary Simmons talks about how they were always trying to get Rush out to party and score females, but were dismayed ‘cos they just wanted to go back to their hotel rooms and read books.
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@Bovidae The Washington Post published it’s 4th tribute yesterday, a story by one of their columnists about how Peart saved a relationship with his father. But that’s beside the point. What boggles my mind is that number. The Washington Post published FOUR tributes to a drummer of a Canadian metal band.
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage - Wikipedia
