[Rush: Our fans feel vindicated]
Rush is featured in today's edition of the UK's Guardian Newspaper for a piece by Rob Fitzpatrick titled Rush: Our fans feel vindicated. The article talks about the resurgence in popularity of Rush in recent years and how it's no longer uncool to be a Rush fan. It contains interview snippets from Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson from around the time of the November 8, 2010 London screening of the documentary where Geddy Lee made an appearance and answered questions from the audience. From the article:
... Rush, and Rush fans, are long used to being the butt of the joke – kimono-wearing, book-learning, heavily moustachioed Canadian prog-rock overlords never seemed likely to be at the cutting edge of cool. But what's really interesting is how their fan archetype – that nerdy, computer-club, Dungeons and Dragons-playing, comic-reading, sci-fi geek – has moved from the margins right into the very heart of the mainstream. Rush have been uncool for so long that they are, finally, perhaps the coolest band in the world.
"We've been vindicated!" laughs guitarist Alex Lifeson ... "A lot of fans feel vindicated, too. There is a segment of our audience that are outsiders and some have grown into power and influence, but that bond they feel to us is still there. It's very, very deep and I don't think it's like that for a lot of other bands." ...
... After 37 years, Rush are still recording new material and still finding new places to play ("In South America they cry when they meet you," Lee says). More importantly, they're still friends.
"That's totally it," Lee says. "That's what Rush means, and that's the satisfying thing for all of us."
Back in his home office high above Toronto, Lifeson laughs out loud. "There are very, very few bands that get along anything like as well as we do. In fact, thinking about all the bands I've ever met, I really don't think there are any."
The article goes on to describe The Many Faces of Rush, one song at a time by showcasing the evolution of their songwriting over the years; Finding My Way, Xanadu, Rec Barchetta, Distant Early Warning and One Little Victory are profiled. The article also includes a piece from Neil Peart discussing Samuel Taylor Coleridge, whose poem Kubla Khan was the inspiration for Rush's Xanadu that had appeared in a Guardian article back in October, 2010. You can read the entire article at this link. Thanks to Tony R for the heads up.
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