the Time Stands Still docu was on last night and great insights into the decision to stop.
To paraphrase, if Neil can't meet his own or fan expectations, ie 'worlds greatest drummer' then it's not fair to him or fans. His quote was 'At 70, I too could play Charlie Watts' parts, I just wouldn't be able to play mine'.
Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit
You don't think they ever 'doctored' any of the live releases?Originally Posted by NeonKnight
I understand that view, and like I said in that post, what they did output musically as a trio on stage was impressive, I just thought the lack of variety of instrumentation and having Geddy trying to do so much was a limiting choice on the overall sound palette and complexity. I realize some people liked it that way though and for the more straight ahead tunes like Tom Sawyer and Limelight etc, it obviously worked.
I agree. They'd have to come up with something better than either album. I suspect they could though.
Amen. Saw the band 27 times since the 1982 Signals tour. Huge part of my teen and adult years, my all time favorite band. Thrilled that they produced such great music and live shows over the years and went out on a well deserved high note. Well done indeed.
This makes me think of the song Losing It, which they didn't start playing until after I saw them on the 40th anniversary tour. Not that they lost it, but I think Neil sees the writing on the wall before he does lose it. I knew this day was coming, but it doesn't make it any easier. I am just glad I go to see them across four of the five decades they were playing live. They have been a huge influence on my life and will continue to be, hell I am wearing a CA tour t-shirt right now and that was before I read this thread.
As for those who say that they haven't done anything great for sometime, I respect that opinion, but must disagree. It may be the fanboy in me talking, but last weekend I watched the CA tour DVD, actually for the first time, and was blown away by how great the CA material came off live. I saw the tour and thought the same thing, but the DVD more than reaffirms it. The energy and enthusiasm, not to mention the virtuosity, they play those songs with is amazing.
I know how polarizing CA was on its release, especially around these parts, but for me they surely went out at the top of their game with it. Not many bands, active for 40 plus years can claim that. I can't think of any.
This fanboy is sad, but that is minor compared to the joy the music of Rush has brought me in my lifetime.
Eric: "What the hell Hutch, it's all Rush, what if we wanted a little variety?"
Hutch: "Rush is variety, Bitch! Rule number one: in my van, its Rush! All Rush, all the time...no exceptions."
From "Fanboys" 2009.
What we need is for each of them to have a couple of expensive divorces, that'll get them back to work!
Last edited by JKL2000; 01-23-2018 at 05:20 PM.
Yeah, I have a feeling Peart will come out of retirement and tour with Bruford before that happens...
No, after!
One of the best band names ever: RUSH! Put that with the coincidence that it happened to be one of the best bands, and there you have it.
Very bittersweet. I saw them on their very first US tour, with Uriah Heep, I believe. I was stunned. What happened to their drummer? Suddenly he can really PLAY!
That was right after Neil joined them. I've seen them countless times since. It's sad when something like this comes to an end, but it's the right thing to do.
Bittersweet. That's the best word I can think of. Thanks, guys, for the music, the inspiration, the laughs, and the ringing ears...
Gnish-gnosh borble wiff, shlauuffin oople tirk.
First real concert I ever saw was on the "A Farewell to Kings" tour.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
I used to have a shirt from the Hold Your Fire tour - a white shirt with RUSH in huge letters down the front, in the HYF logo type in red and black. I wore it a lot in the early 90s, and SO many people asked if it was a Rush Limbaugh shirt. Really? Like a 30-year old was going to be wearing a Rush Limbaugh shirt, in NYC?
One Rush guest appearance I particularly like is Lee's appearance on Euphoria's 1999 eponymous debut.
As for Rush, they have given me such joy -- not that anything after Roll the Bones contributed to that ;-) -- and they can choose to do whatever they want. I'm sad Peart is finding performing so difficult and I'm interested in what any of the three of them do outside Rush.
Henry
Where Are They Now? Yes news: http://www.bondegezou.co.uk/wh_now.htm
Blogdegezou, the accompanying blog: http://bondegezou.blogspot.com/
It's sort of interesting to me that Neil hasn't even seemed to consider switching to jazz as a way to continue playing the drums with far less abuse to his body. He was quite public about his fondness for big band jazz and jazz drumming back in the 90s right up through his retirement, which tells me that when he decided to retire from Rush it really meant he wanted to retire from drumming period. Sort of like Billy B, in that regard.
IMO he never did embrace jazz as a musical form, only the techniques as a means of expanding his rock vocabulary. I know there are more than a few who thought his attempts at jazz drumming were less than authentic, and from what I've seen his default jazz approach had a pretty heavy attack, so maybe playing jazz wouldn't do his body any favors either!
I'm holding out for the Wilson-mixed 5.1 super-duper walletbuster special anniversary extra adjectives edition.
My favorite prog drummers are Bruford, Collins, Palmer, Peart from the classic prog era. I loved Pearts powerful drumming in Rush, but what always seperated Bruford and Collins from him imo were their forays into jazz/fusion areas. Both of them really ventured beyond their seminal prog bands and played on a lot of different albums with a wide spectrum of musicians, and seemed willing to explore more. Like you point out Peart never really ventured far beyond his prog rock comfort zone with any real exploration or commitment.
Great documentary about the last tour. Quite interesting to hear how Peart maps out the areas around shows so he could take a nice motorcycle ride preshow. Also incredible how they traveled for gigs in the old days via station wagons and vans for years and years till they got nice buses and trucks.
From the article in the o.p. - ** Peart enjoying retirement, and Lifeson and Lee both working on a variety of other new projects **
I'm sure Neil will be happy riding and writing around the country and Alex and Geddy continue making music for several more years. I'd defo catch either/both of them should some shows pop up in the future.
"Henry Cow always wanted to push itself, so sometimes we would write music that we couldn't actually play – I found that very encouraging." - Lindsay Cooper, 1998
"I have nothing to do with Endless River. Phew! This is not rocket science people, get a grip." - Roger Waters, 2014
"I'm a collector. And I've always just seemed to collect personalities." - David Bowie, 1973
Well I remember a friend of mine who worked at a pastry chef for a high-end restaurant downtown said she saw Geddy Lee walk-in and have dinner with someone who was clearly his boyfriend.
That was over a decade ago, so I presume he must’ve weathered that storm.
I grew up with Rush, 2112 was the first album I bought of theirs the week it hit the stores. It was amazing and I then got their back catalog. I remember how visceral their "All the World's a Stage" album was. Then they just blew us all away with A Farewell to Kings. Then Hemispheres was up another notch of amazement. Permanent Waves was right there also, with the same technical brilliance but actually had better songs. Then the ground breaking Moving Pictures. It was then they really broke through with mainstream audience and there were now girls at parties that knew who Rush was and even loved them. It was becoming an amazing world and it felt like the human consciousness was really evolving into something prophetic.
Like many hard core Rush fans of that time, they were our band and we just could not see them doing any wrong. I can't explain how disappointed many of us were with "Signals". It was the first time that the clearly DID NOT outdo themselves. In no way was it as good an album as Moving Pictures. We hoped it was just a hiccup and they would come back with another mind boggling album, but then the did Grace Under Pressure which was not what any of us were hoping for. We tried to rationalize it as being artsy, experimental etc. Neil on an electronic kit. It was just horrible. We still went to the tours and watched them play a Medley of Hemispheres and they would still do tracks like Jacobs Ladder or La Villa etc.... but it was clear they were not really going to make those great records anymore. When I heard Big Money it was over for me. It was cheezy, trite, and Power Windows was just a lot of keyboard layers with guitars that now sounded like keyboards and the drums sounded sampled, gated, processed. It was just horrible.
Like most great rock groups, once they make a bad album... they might as well just call it quits. I think everything they have done since Moving Pictures has to some degree tainted the band. Had they quit knowing their next album was not as good (Signals) it would have been way cooler if they had just hung it up then and moved on into solo projects or formed new bands from there. It would have been cool to find out years later why they broke up after Moving Pictures when some demo bootleg tapes came out and played stuff off Signals and we would all go... yup, it was over and they knew it.
Sure, they milked a career out of new music. Sure, they played some classics from their golden age of greatness for decades later..... amazing new music audiences, but like Rush ended with MP, so did Yes with Going for the One and Genesis with Wind and Wuthering.
I just saw Rush as a band that truly found themselves, then lost themselves and it was just too painful to watch and listen as they moved farther and farther from their musical peak.
Power Windows blows most of their '70s albums out of the water. Rush didn't really hit their stride until Hemispheres, IMO.
Like many hard core Rush fans of that time, they were our band and we just could not see them doing any wrong. I can't explain how disappointed many of us were with "Signals". It was the first time that the clearly DID NOT outdo themselves. In no way was it as good an album as Moving Pictures. We hoped it was just a hiccup and they would come back with another mind boggling album, but then the did Grace Under Pressure which was not what any of us were hoping for. We tried to rationalize it as being artsy, experimental etc. Neil on an electronic kit. It was just horrible. We still went to the tours and watched them play a Medley of Hemispheres and they would still do tracks like Jacobs Ladder or La Villa etc.... but it was clear they were not really going to make those great records anymore. When I heard Big Money it was over for me. It was cheezy, trite, and Power Windows was just a lot of keyboard layers with guitars that now sounded like keyboards and the drums sounded sampled, gated, processed. It was just horrible.
[/QUOTE]
Signals is probably in my top ten albums of all time. Don't understand why some people don't like it - what's wrong with keyboards??
(sorry - copying quote went a bit wrong!)
I think some people like their guitar oriented bands to stay guitar oriented. Rush changed things around int he 80's, by pushing the synths up in the mix. Yeah, they'd been using them since 1977, but on that second quartet of studio albums, they were used more as just a little colour here or there. Starting with Signals, they started becoming more and more prominent. And starting with Grace Under Pressure, there were songs where Geddy didn't even play Fender bass, just synths (eg Red Sector A).
I think some people, in the 80's, viewed synths the same way they had viewed disco a few years earlier, as if they were "taking over the world", and anyone who suddenly started using synths heavily was considered a "sell out" in some quarters. Some really saw it as a "them vs us" thing.
I know there was a lot of people who were upset when they were heard Van Halen's 1984. Yeah, there's only three songs with synths on that record, but the album opens with a synth solo, which is immediately followed by a song where the guitar doesn't appear until the pre-chorus.
And don't get me started on Judas Priest's Turbo (though I think the songs where they used the synths on that record were rather good, it was the songwriting on some of the other tunes that was the problem, if you ask me).
BTW I recall reading one interview where Geddy implied that one of the reasons that the 80's era albums were so heavy on the synths was because Alex wasn't coming up with as many guitar oriented song ideas. He didn't out and out say it, but they did a tandem interview in Guitar Player circa Roll The Bones, I think, and Alex makes a comment about how the "keyboardist was getting carried on" on some of those records. Geddy responds with something like, "In defense of the keyboardist, the guitarist didn't always have his parts ready when we writing the songs".
For me, it was the "Power Windows" tour. Fantastic show.
Wow.
I'm finding that Skullhead just lives in a different world than I do.
CHANGE = BAD
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
Everyone talks about how physical limitations of Peart (especially), Lifeson & Ged's voice. OK, I'm sure there is some of that & that's going to be the official story it seems. However, I truly feel the real reason for the hiatus (and possible the "end") is Peart's personal life. Think about it... he has always been a deeply private type who shied away from the "limelight". Remember when Kim Mitchell talks about that lyric line in Limelight on the Beyond The Lighted Stage doc & says "that's Neil". And also remember his personal tragedy that almost stopped the band years ago. I think it was this loss of, first his only child in a tragic car wreck & then the death of his wife about a year later to cancer. I'm sure he was just reeling at that time, obviously. Think also that these guys are not just your ordinary rock band who jet set around the world with girlfriends in every town & groupies lined up under the stage (a-la Def Leppard), no, they are essentially devoted family guys.
I'm thinking that Neil just said "Hey guys, I'm not going to miss seeing my new kids grow up like I did the last time because I was touring the world all the time... Hit that mile stone, 65, and I'm done... retired!". He got a second chance with family & he's not going to let it slip away because of work. Happens all the time, whether you're a corporate exec, business owner, rock star, whatever. You get that sudden realization that you're missing what is really important to your in life because you're working all the time. Yeah on the surface it's physical limitations, pain, whatever, because that's what the fans want to believe. If it's for personal reasons then he's being "selfish" in many fan's eyes... "How can he do that to us? We are THE reason why he's made to where he is!".
Even as a rabid Rush fan (since 1975), I gotta respect the hell out of the guy for whatever reason. Hope it's not the official end, but if they want to call it quits, then so be it... I got my fulfillment in at least 40 something shows.
In my case, listetening to "Show Don't Tell" shocked me and the beginning of the end of Rush - for a brief period. I liked the rest of Presto ("The Pass" ain't all that) but only started to apprecciate "Show Don't Tell" two decades later when I heard it on a better stereo at a tiny bar in Tokyo.
Then came "Stick it Out", which nearly brought me to tears. I knew that *now* Rush was truly fininished but low and behold, I really liked 3/4ths of Counterparts. Test for Echo is full of 'B' songs with two 'A' songs and a couple of 'C' songs.
But the mighty Rush was back with the emotional Vapor Trails (no weak remix version within 500 meters of me) where 45 minutes of greatness restored my faith. Such was not the case with the collection of near misses on Snakes and Arrows with 20 minutes of excellence. At the end of the day Clockwork Angels also has 20 minutes I'll listen to and usually only the title track and "The Garden" - if I want to choke up.
But they never should have ended their career with Heaven and Earth whic only contains 5 minutes of excellence scattered throughout that album. Rush going light-FM-in-the-morning? You can barely recognize Peart on the drums! Lifeson's rifts are nowhere to be found. They almost sound like a different group on H&E, a far cry from "Xanadu." I guess all great things really do come to an end. I just wish it wasn't at a screeching halt.
Is this supposed to be a joke?
Eric: "What the hell Hutch, it's all Rush, what if we wanted a little variety?"
Hutch: "Rush is variety, Bitch! Rule number one: in my van, its Rush! All Rush, all the time...no exceptions."
From "Fanboys" 2009.
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