Tell me about Rush

[Goldentony]

The thing about Rush and it's Ayn Rand nonsense is the three of them are fucking dweebs so you aren't intimidated by it and know if it came to it you could rinse the lot of them one handed, so the music is easier to handle

[Nice Relaxing Poo]

I likes me some prog and I have plenty of favourite bands with vocalists that are an acquired taste but there are two I can't abide and can't bring myself to like:

Wayne Coyne and Geddy Lee.


I reckon Rush would be right up my street otherwise.

[sirhenry]

My all-time favourite Rush track is Mission from 1987's Hold Your Fire album (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If9gFVnmQ8c). I've lost track of the number of times I've been fighting with something and when it all gets too much, it's this song that pushes me to see it through.

Screaming this song in the middle of nowhere, on top of a hill in Scotland, building a shelter out of the rocks scattered around when it was so cold I could hardly feel my hands any more - that's one that will last a long time.

[Goldentony]

Spirit Of The Radio also goes hard as fuck, highly recommend that even with the REGGAE BIT

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Geddy Lee's greatest performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jm4LoOaAWI

[sirhenry]

Throughout their time, Rush noted the lack of female fans and never seemed to work out why.

My sister was a fan when we went to see them for the 2112 tour, so bought a t-shirt. Which she only ever wore in public once because this was the logo on the front:

[idunnosomename]

Spirit Of The Radio also goes hard as fuck, highly recommend that even with the REGGAE BIT

i will say the same for roll the bones with the rap bit

[Endicott]

Throughout their time, Rush noted the lack of female fans and never seemed to work out why.

My sister was a fan when we went to see them for the 2112 tour, so bought a t-shirt. Which she only ever wore in public once because this was the logo on the front:

When I was 16 I waned to embroider that onto my denim jacket. Luckily I got over it.

[Bently Sheds]

I'm always in awe of Alex Lifeson's guitaring. For a supposedly ROCK guitarist, even in their most dense prog epics he can be jangling away like Peter Buck, or playing Andy Summers style offbeats or huge compressed open chords. Then he'll dive-bomb and widdly-squee like a proper metaller, or noodle like a old bluesman.

I was hooked by Peart's drumming, but Lifeson made me persevere with them. Ironically I started with Signals - their first real synth heavy album - and worked backwards from there.

[Twonty Gostelow]

I'm another one who thinks the Yes comparison doesn't stand up. I think it comes from prog + Rickenbacker bass + potentially alienating high lead vocals.

A definite influence on Neil Peart was Kevin Ellman from Utopia. He only played on one album - 'Todd Rundgren's Utopia' - but the influence on him and Rush from that sounds obvious to me. (I think he said it was Ellman's use of concert toms in particular.)

This long Rolling Stone article about Neil Peart has just gone up in the last few hours. Insightful and very moving: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/neil-peart-rush-dead-cover-story-1110496/

[Shaky]

I'm another one who thinks the Yes comparison doesn't stand up. I think it comes from prog + Rickenbacker bass + potentially alienating high lead vocals.

A definite influence on Neil Peart was Kevin Ellman from Utopia. He only played on one album - 'Todd Rundgren's Utopia' - but the influence on him and Rush from that sounds obvious to me. (I think he said it was Ellman's use of concert toms in particular.)

This long Rolling Stone article about Neil Peart has just gone up in the last few hours. Insightful and very moving: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/neil-peart-rush-dead-cover-story-1110496/

Good article, that. For me, it gets to the heart of the sort of bloke Peart was and easily eclipses any of that Rand rubbish from decades ago.

EDIT: Should have said "Closer to the Heart...."!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jockice]

Anyway, I've taken a listen to some of the stuff that has been posted and although it's (as suspected) not really my thing, they do have a certain something. There's been nothing so far that's made me think 'yuk, that's rubbish.' I'll keep investigating if only to shut Jason and Jonathan up. I'm not going to buy all their albums immediately though. I'm in no rush. See what I did there, eh?

Cheers everybody.

[Magnum Valentino]

The first album is really, really solid and then after that they have a habit of taking anything that might rock for a few minutes and adding some horseshit or something fucking stupid, but the first album!!!!!!! listen to the first album!!! WORKING MAN!! they DON'T fuck up working man! they don't fuck anything up on the first album!

I have to disagree - the way Neil plays Working Man live fucks it up rightly. Too much going on. Far better just leaving it as it was.

Jesus that is a HEAVY riff.

[popcorn]

Not the biggest fan of their music. This is tremendous though.

https://youtu.be/EndaI-okEIc

This moment is the dorkiest thing I've ever seen a professional band do.

[Pete23]

This has to be close: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZQzVPI-kzg

[Endicott]

There is what looks like a miniature stonehenge on Geddy's keyboard. @1:35 if you want to look. Spinal Tap ref I assume.

[Dropshadow]

There's been nothing so far that's made me think 'yuk, that's rubbish.'

Right....... so download (don't buy!) one of, most or all of their post-1981 albums and try - hard - to listen to them (Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, Presto, Roll the Bones, Counterparts, Test for Echo, Vapor Trails, Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels). You'll be thinking 'yuk, that's rubbish' a lot.

[Shaky]

Right....... so download (don't buy!) one of, most or all of their post-1981 albums and try - hard - to listen to them (Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, Presto, Roll the Bones, Counterparts, Test for Echo, Vapor Trails, Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels). You'll be thinking 'yuk, that's rubbish' a lot.

Clockwork Angels is great!

[bgmnts]

Probably the best band of all time.

[bgmnts]

Right....... so download (don't buy!) one of, most or all of their post-1981 albums and try - hard - to listen to them (Signals, Grace Under Pressure, Power Windows, Hold Your Fire, Presto, Roll the Bones, Counterparts, Test for Echo, Vapor Trails, Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels). You'll be thinking 'yuk, that's rubbish' a lot.

I'd say Vapor Trails is the only album there I wouldn't listen to again, but even that has One Little Victory.

[idunnosomename]

better since they remastered Vapor Trails so it isn't brick-walled anymore. if only more bands would admit they ruined 00s albums by letting their producers push all the levels up to 11 (like Metallica's Death Magnetic, which is unlistenable)

honestly enjoy their later stuff more consistently.

2112-A Farewell to Kings-Hemispheres isn't below par but it isn't as much of a run of unabashed classics as other "heavy metal" bands were putting out at the same time (I'm being very loose with that definition). certainly wasn't their commercial peak either

[sutin]

As a Primus fan of over 2 decades, i've also been tempted to check out Rush.

[Dropshadow]

Clockwork Angels is great!

The awful Kevin J. Anderson wrote a "novelization" of it. Him and Peart were great pals, apparently. These facts give me the shites and, therefore, I spurn the album, as should everyone.

[Monkey Hanger]

As a Primus fan of over 2 decades, i've also been tempted to check out Rush.

This might pique your interest then. A lockdown Rush cover by, among others, Les Claypool and members of Tool, Mastodon and Cave In/Converge

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fULwDbZ4iSU

[Shaky]

The awful Kevin J. Anderson wrote a "novelization" of it. Him and Peart were great pals, apparently. These facts give me the shites and, therefore, I spurn the album, as should everyone.

Oh, I avoided all that. But CA has a focus they hadn't demonstrated for years; it's a grinding beast of a thing, and probably their most consistently listenable album since the classic era. Aging rock band pulling a corker out of the bag one last time.

I'd say Vapor Trails is the only album there I wouldn't listen to again, but even that has One Little Victory.

I like Ceiling Unlimited as well but yeah, the rest of the album is dull.

[JesusAndYourBush]

I've promised to finally listen to some stuff by them - even though it sounds incredibly far from 'my thing - so thought I'd ask the experts on here. Any good? And why do they attract such fanatical fans?

I'll probably get the bum's rush for this though.

In 1985 I heard a recording of their performance at Pinkpop Festival 1979 on Radio 1 and really enjoyed it.  Years later I sought out the recording on the net and enjoyed listening to it again, and then sought out some of their other stuff and found it less inspiring and overly long.  Try listening to the Pinkpop Festival recording and see if it does anything for you.

[Magnum Valentino]

Best Rush live album is the concert that comes with the anniversary reissue of A Farewell To Kings, previously released in truncated form on the complication Different Stages.

I'm on my own preferring the original mix of Vapor Trails, it seems. It's badly mastered for CD but much more energy in terms of the actual mix. The remix is so BORING. The two alternate remixes on Retrospective III are the best of the three versions, I think.

[Icehaven]

One of the first bands I was in back in the late 90s briefly had a Brummie bassist that was a huge Rush fan who would frequently say "Rush are GREAT" apropros of nothing, and like the aforementioned Goldbergs character lived in Rush Tshirts. He only lasted a few months before getting fed up of how un-Rush-ish we were and leaving. I like to think he went on to form Birmingham's 3rd most popular Rush tribute band, Hurry Up.

[sirhenry]

Just wanted to add my thanks to Jockice for starting this thread. I first got into Rush around the time of Fly By Night and was really excited to see them on the 2112 tour - except that the article I mentioned above by Julie Birchill which just went on and on about them being fascists meant that I daren't talk to anyone about them and go on about how great they were. The aftermath of that article lasted at least 10 years, meaning that they were unmentionable and so I've never met anyone else who was a fan.

This thread has been wonderful; finding out that people whose opinions I respect also rather like them. A bit late perhaps, but

Spoiler alert

like Neil Peart[nb]sorry, couldn't resist[/nb] -

[close]

better late than never.

[Jockice]

Just wanted to add my thanks to Jockice for starting this thread. I first got into Rush around the time of Fly By Night and was really excited to see them on the 2112 tour - except that the article I mentioned above by Julie Birchill which just went on and on about them being fascists meant that I daren't talk to anyone about them and go on about how great they were. The aftermath of that article lasted at least 10 years, meaning that they were unmentionable and so I've never met anyone else who was a fan.

This thread has been wonderful; finding out that people whose opinions I respect also rather like them. A bit late perhaps, but

Spoiler alert

like Neil Peart[nb]sorry, couldn't resist[/nb] -

[close]

better late than never.

No problem. They're a band I really didn't know much about but the people I know who are fans are very big fans so I was just trying to find out a bit more. And now I know quite a lot. So thanks to everyone who has contributed.