Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Mon, Mar 18, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, Aug 13, 2010@11:26AM | comments removed/disabled

Rush brought the Time Machine Tour out west this past week, playing Seattle, Mountain View and Los Angeles. It's probably no coincidence that the tour made a stop in Neil's now hometown of Los Angeles Wednesday; yesterday was his daughter Olivia's first birthday so he was able to spend the day celebrating with his family. They'll continue the tour tonight in Irvine, head to Vegas tomorrow night and play 2 shows at Red Rocks next week. RushCon will be hosting a mini-con in Las Vegas this weekend at the Hooters Casino Hotel to coincide with Saturday's Rush concert at the MGM Grand. You can find all the details at the RushCon website. Rush expanded the South American leg of their tour over the past week. Last Friday they announced the addition of a show at the Desarrollo al Rio in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Friday October 15th, and yesterday Chilean newspaper El Mercurio confirmed a show at the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile on October 17th.

For my last poll I'd asked everyone what they thought of the Time Machine Tour setlist. The results were overwhelmingly positive with nearly 60% of respondents saying they either loved it (34%) or liked it (23%). Another third of you said it was ok and less than 4% claimed they didn't like or hated the setlist. You can check out the complete results at this link. For anyone wondering, these results are virtually identical to those obtained when I asked the same question regarding the Snakes & Arrows setlist back in 2007. My next poll - also tour-related - came from a suggestion made by reader thedigitalman. Since Rush is playing Moving Pictures in its entirety for this tour, he wondered what other Rush album folks would like to see the band play in its entirety. Take the poll and let us know. Speaking of Moving Pictures, PopDose.com has been posting their list of the top 50 prog-rock albums over the last several weeks in chunks of 10. This past week they posted part 4 of the series and coming in at #18 was Rush's Moving Pictures. Thanks to PhillyMike for the heads up.

The Rush 2112/Moving Pictures Classic Albums documentary will be released on September 28th and we learned earlier this week that it is now available for pre-order on both DVD and Blu-ray.

UK Drum magazine Rhythm is celebrating their 25th anniversary and recently asked readers to vote for the best drummer of the last 25 years. The results are in and Neil Peart came in at #4, behind Gavin Harrison at #3, Mike Portnoy at #2 and Joey Jordison at #1. Another drum magazine - DRUM! - declared last week as Neil Peart week and re-posted all of the Neil Peart features ever published in their magazine; from his 1994 interview discussing the Burning for Buddy project to last year's Thus Spoke Neil feature where Neil answered questions from readers.

To celebrate the arrival of MusicRadar's dedicated bass channel, they're asking readers to submit their nominations for the greatest electric bass player in history. For all the details and to nominate our favorite bassist Geddy Lee, check out this link.

The Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage had its US television premiere back in late June on VH1, VH1 Classic and Palladia. Shortly after that it was released to DVD/Blu-ray. I received several emails from folks over the past couple of months regarding one topic that was left out of the documentary; namely how Rush came up with their name. This question was actually posed to Alex and Geddy on a Rockline appearance back in 2003. You can listen to the clip where they answer the question at this link. In the clip Alex makes light of the fact that it's not too interesting of a story which is why they may have opted to leave it out of the documentary. As the story goes, back in the summer of 1968 the band was trying to come up with a name and John Rutsey's older brother Bill suggested Rush. That's it. :)

The Canadian vampire horror/comedy flick Suck was released to theaters in Canada back in October of 2009 and had its US premier at the SXSW Film Festival in March in Austin, TX on Wednesday March 17th. Alex Lifeson makes an appearance in the movie as a border guard. You can get a glimpse of Alex in the film's trailer at this link (at about the 1:50 mark). We learned last week that the movie will be released to DVD and Blu-ray on September 28th and is currently available for pre-order. It'll also be getting a limited theatrical release sponsored by horror magazine Fangoria starting September 2nd through D&E Entertainment - the same distributor that handled the Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage theatrical release. All the details along with theaters/showtimes can be found at this link.

In reference to a Boston Globe article from last month on aging rock stars, Donna Halper wrote the following letter to the editor which appeared in the August 8th edition:

Keep on Rockin' I loved Neil Swidey's Perspective on aging rockers (July 18). But he omitted one band that's still getting it done with original members and with the same energy as in their younger years - Rush. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart have been touring and creating music since 1974 - I was a music director and DJ back then, and I helped them get their first airplay in the United States. Since then, Alex and Neil may have lost a little hair, but nobody in the band has lost the love for performing, and with a new documentary about them and new music on the way, Rush are introducing the band to a whole new generation.

Here's one Rush interview from last year that slipped under the radar. Last Fall Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee attended the Niagara Fall Wine Festival and were interviewed by Terry David Mulligan and Ken Weir of Tasting Room Radio. You can listen to the interview at this link; just scroll down to July 17th, 2010, hour two. Their interview starts at about the 11:45 mark. Thanks to pdx2112 for the heads up.

This past week I received a few scans of old Rush articles courtesy readers RushFanForever and Patrick from Malta. 2 of the articles are from the now-defunct Canadian metal magazine M.E.A.T. and one is from a 1984 issue of International Musician.

The first article is an Alex Lifeson interview from the March, 1992 edition of M.E.A.T. conducted by Drew Masters just before the Roll the Bones tour kicked off. You can check it out by clicking on the thumbnails.

The second article is another Alex Lifeson interview conducted by Drew Masters. This one is from the November/December 1993 issue of M.E.A.T. and Alex discusses the band's album Counterparts. You can check it out by clicking on the thumbnails.

This last article is from the July, 1984 issue of International Musician and is titled Rush's Grace Under Pressure: Sometimes the best step forward is a step backward and was written by Dan Hedges. You can check it out by clicking on the thumbnails.

The Coverville podcast discusses cover versions of songs from famous bands and reader Ken D let me know that Rush was the subject of one of the show's recent podcasts. You can check it out at this link.

Reader Damon pointed me to this article at JamBands.com titled Rush: Why No Female Fans. I'm sure many female readers of this site will take issue with the article's premise. :)

You can check out a short minute-and-a-half preview video of the 2112/Moving Pictures Classic Albums documentary below or at this link. The video shows Neil Peart, David Fricke, Alex Lifeson and Terry Brown talking about Limelight.

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend everyone!

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.

Share