Classical Music With Loud Guitars.

Classical Music with Loud Guitars

That @johnpopham went to see his favourite band in Sheffield . . . and wrote a review longer than one of their guitar solos . . . it does sound pretty amazing though.

The phrase “sound track to my life” is a terrible cliche, but, for me, Rush, the power trio from Willowdale, Ontario, could be said to have provided just that. Not perhaps for my childhood, I was 17 when I first heard them, but ever since then, they have always been there, and they show no signs of going away yet.

And, on Monday night at Sheffield Arena, there they were again. This is the fourth time in my life I have been in the same room as those three men, not enough, but part of my excuse is that, for more than ten years they declined to tour outside North America. And really, despite the fact that they are now approaching pension age, nothing has changed. That’s the thing about Rush, they’ve always been there for me, and I can’t imagine them not being so.

As a teenager, I would sit with friends pouring over the album covers and looking for deep meanings in the lyrics. This was serious stuff. Drummer and lyricist, Neil Peart, was hailed in our circles as a literary genius (as well as being the perpetrator of some of the very few drum solos that don’t send me instantly to sleep). Guitarist Alex Lifeson, and singer, bassist and keyboard player, Geddy Lee, wove intricate (and loud!) musical patterns around the lyrics. Some of their songs were nearly 20 minutes long, and we listened intently waiting for the enlightenment to strike. I mean these guys had an 18 minute song which ended with the “heart and mind colliding in a single, perfect sphere”. What more could you want?

And then I saw them live for the first time. The first thing that struck me was, how could three, yes three!, guys make so much noise together? Rush are the group for which the term “power trio” was invented, and their multi-instrumentalism means they make more noise, and play more different instruments, than most bands with twice their numbers. The second revelation was that these ultra serious musicians had a fun side as they high-kicked their way through the “Overture” to the 17-minute epic “2112” and encouraged the crowd to punctuate the musical gaps with shouts of “Oi!”. And the third shock to the system was the effect on my ears of Geddy Lee’s ultra high voice bouncing off the corrugated iron roof of the Agricultural show hall they were playing in.

Thankfully, for the sake of my hearing, Geddy sings in a lower register these days. My first ever Rush show was the one where they played “The Spirit of Radio” for the first time, the song which was to give them their first (and, I think, only) British hit single (there is a video tucked away somewhere in the dark recesses of the BBC website of Legs & Co dancing to it on Top of the Pops – it’s hilarious), and it was great to be part of the moment when an audience of hardened rock fans turned to each other in disbelief as the band broke into the song’s reggae refrain. And, there is an irony which is somehow typical of Rush that their song which has been played the most on the radio is one whose lyrics bemoan the inanity and commercialism of modern radio.

In subsequent years, Rush flirted even more with “white reggae”, and for a while experimented, too much, for the liking of some, with synthesisers, often pushing Lifeson’s guitar to the back of the mix, such that, there were rumours he was considering quitting the band. But, at the beginning of the 1990’s the guitar was back, big, brash and loud, and Rush returned to their earlier form. Then, tragedy struck drummer Neil Peart twice in a short space of time as he lost both his daughter, then his wife, and the consensus built that Rush would be no more. But, after a 6 year hiatus, they were back again in the new millennium, playing to bigger audiences than ever and winning awards. Not only that, but they abandoned their “North America-only” policy, touring South America triumphantly for the first time (as evidenced by their “Rush in Rio“DVD, and, since 2003, they have toured Europe (including the UK) no less than three times.

Many express disbelief that a band like Rush is still going 37 years after they released their first album, but why not? They are still making music people want to hear, and some of their recent releases have (in my opinion) been just as strong as what went before. Last year’s film release “Beyond The Lighted Stage” describes Rush as “the world’s biggest cult band”, a term I think it is difficult to argue with. Only the Beatles and the Rolling Stones have had more consecutive gold and platinum albums than Rush, and yet their public profile remains below the radar. There is no blueprint for what Rush have done, either musically or in terms of career longevity, they continue to defy critics, and long may they do so.

And so, to Sheffield Arena. I firstly want to make two very important points. One is that I really enjoyed the show. The other is that I am extremely grateful to Ken Eastwood and Emma Labedzki for sourcing the tickets that allowed Tim Difford and myself to be there at a time when other expenses would have taken priority over a full-priced ticket.

If you’ve seen them before, you pretty much know what you are going to get with Rush. The package includes no support band. Their catalogue is so extensive that they can play all night (well for the best part of three hours with a 30 minute interval). It also includes elaborate videos before the show, at the beginning of the second half, and following the encore, which are pretty much extended in-jokes, which I am sure seem funny to the band members when they dream them up late at night, but are a bit painful to anyone else. This time, we were treated at the beginning to scenes of a bar where Alex Lifeson in a “fat suit” stuffed his face with sausages, interspersed with lots of innuendo about “pulling sausages”, while fiddling with a machine which caused the band playing in the corner (who were called Rash and bore a passing resemblance to Rush) to change their musical style. The band in question played versions of “The Spirit of Radio” in different genres, returning it seemed quite often to oompah-style, until the sausage eater finally turned the button to the point that caused them to play in an authentic Rush-style, at which point the video screen went dark, the stage lights flashed on, and the trio themselves stepped forward to blast out a rollicking version of their best known (in the UK at any rate) song. That’s the thing about Rush, they have so much material (culled from 19 studio albums, not to mention 6 live albums), and they know their audience so well, that they have no worries about leading off with the hit single.

Another thing you always know you’ll get with Rush is a spectacular light show coupled with interesting videos projected on their backdrops. Rush have always played this way, perhaps to divert attention from the fact that they don’t move around a great deal on stage, they’re often too busy playing more than one instrument at a time, as Lee plays keyboards with his hands, bass pedals with his feet, and sings, while Lifeson flits between acoustic guitar, mandolin and electric guitars whose sound can change dramatically with the touch of a pedal. And, all the while, Neil Peart (proclaimed greatest drummer in the world by no less an expert than Jack Black in the film “School of Rock”) hammers out the beat behind them, taking centre stage towards the end of the second half with a drum solo which I, as a self-confessed hater of drum solos, found just about acceptable. And I defy anyone to see a Peart solo and not be impressed by the way he makes full use of a massive drum kit, which helpfully spins around to enable him to play a whole new set of skins.

For more than 30 years, Rush have been playing loud, intricate, carefully crafted music, coupled with lyrics which strive to be meaningful. They were always highly proficient at their art, and they have honed it through constant repetition. In the film, “Beyond the Lighted Stage” Gene Simmons of the band KISS, recounts an incident in the early days when Rush were touring as support. Simmons knocked on the door of the hotel room where Rush were gathered, imploring them to help out as there were more groupies present than even KISS’s voracious appetites could cope with. Simmons was told to go away; Rush were practising a new song. Music comes first as far as Rush are concerned, and, for many of us, that is a key part of their appeal. Is there a Rush tribute band? I don’t know, I’ve never heard of one. I’m not a musician, but I could well imagine that what Rush produce is devilishly difficult to copy. As I often say, it’s classical music played on loud guitars, if you don’t believe me, check out the cover versions of Rush songs done by the Vitamin String Quartet.

Because they have such an enormous back-catalogue, Rush are able to vary their shows quite a deal from tour to tour. The feature on this, the Time Machine tour, is showcasing their biggest selling album, “Moving Pictures” on its 30th Anniversary, and the album is played in its entirety at the beginning of the second half of the show. This allows them to start the second half with “Tom Sawyer” their biggest selling single world-wide, and includes “Limelight” the song whose lyrics capture Neil Peart’s struggle to come to terms with the pressures of fame, and, in particular, intrusions into the privacy of an intensely private man.

And so the show powered on to its climax. The memories came flooding back as Lee and Lifeson once more high-kicked through the “2112” Overture, and the whole thing culminated in an encore in which the band playfully switched from Heavy Metal to Reggae and back again as they rambled through “Working Man” from their 1974 debut album. And so, they were gone, with Geddy Lee wailing “Hope to see you again some time” as the final video, featuring characters from the film “Love You Man” (which in turn featured Rush) ushered us out of the hall.

And there’s the rub. Will we see them again? Just how long can they go on? Rush have spent a good part of the last eight years on three gruelling world tours. As I left the hall I was elated, as I always am at the end of a Rush show, but I was also pensive. Would this be the last time I saw them? But the other thing that nagged away at me was this. Our seats were quite a long way from the stage. The last time I saw them, in 2007 at the MEN Arena in Manchester, my son and myself were so close to the stage that we left the hall bathed in sweat from the on-stage flames which accompanied the video of a fire-breathing dragon during the encore. This time, the distance from the stage led to a bit of detachment. And, I suppose what was bothering me was that a Rush show is just too damned perfect. They are such proficient musicians, everything is so well-honed, that there is never any question of an error, a little bit of human fallibility. During Rush’s six-year hiatus around the turn of the Millennium, Geddy Lee released his only solo album, which included a track called “Working at Perfekt”. I think he and his band mates have pretty much got there, but I can’t help wondering if that is what a live show should be about.

Words by John Popham

Twitter: @johnpopham

web: http://www.johnpopham.com/about