A mysterious new project called The Great Lakes Suite spearheaded by the Rheostatics' Dave Bidini and involving Rush's Alex Lifeson will be seeing the light of day this coming November. Bidini announced last week that the project will be performing LIVE on Saturday, November 22nd at TD Music Hall in Toronto, and tickets went on sale shortly after. Sales for that show went so well that they have added a second show taking place on Friday, November 21st. Tickets for both performances can be purchased here. The project was first introduced via an Instagram post back in early March teasing something called The Great Lakes Suite, and depicting an image of the Great Lakes region with some ethereal backing music, and a list of the people involved; Dave Bidini, Dave Clark, Hugh Marsh, and Martin Tielli of the Rheostatics, along with BNL's Kevin Hearn (also a member of the Rheostatics), Don Kerr and Alex Lifeson. Bidini clarified some more details regarding the performances in a subsequent social media post last Wednesday:
Hey everyone-- Dave here. Here's info on our Nov 22nd show. Tickets on sale this Thursday at Massey Hall site. This is the whole band minus Martin, who actually suggested we contact Alex, which we did before we did anything. Once he said yes, it all fell into place. We're still all very tight with each other as friends and we'll miss our buddy, but we are really excited about this recorded project, which is largely improvised and instrumental, built around voices like poets Anne Carson, Chief Stacey Laforme and Liz Howard as well as stories by Gord Downie and singing by Tanya Tagaq. Laurie Anderson also appears on the album. The show will reproduce some of this, but the idea is to largely create in the moment, set to cinematics by Nic De Pencier and Jenn Baichwall, who did our Group of 7 stuff. Very excited for people to join us on this next phase. Art is about moving ahead, not looking back, and that's what we've tried to do.
Alex had spoken a little about the project in a few of his interviews promoting Envy of None's Stygian Wavz back in March/April, describing it as a sort of musical documentary:
... I'm still working on a documentary on the Great Lakes with a bunch of people - some guys from Barenaked Ladies, from the Rheostatics. We've been working on this for a while. It's an interesting project, because we get together and we jam, and then we start pulling stuff out of those jams and then building from those. And a lot of the jams, as we progress, get better and better and better, and stand alone as parts." ...
Speaking of Lerxst, Alex was a guest on Ann Liguori's Talkin' Golf podcast a few weeks ago, where he chats with Ann about his golf game, his many musical side projects, Rush and more. When she asked Alex to pick the most meaningful song that he's ever written or co-written, here was his answer:
... If I had to pick one song, it would be the last song on the last record which was "The Garden". It's a very poignant song. I think that song really meant a lot to Neil. It was ironic that he became ill. A lot of the things that he touched on in "The Garden" were very connected to his illness and his death, and it always sticks with both of us [he and Ged] deep down ...
You can listen to the entire 20-minute interview below or at this location.
Back in late 2023, Geddy Lee wrote a book of baseball stories titled 72 Stories from the Collection of Geddy Lee that he included as part of a package given to the winning bidders in a baseball auction that included much of Ged's extensive collection. He then announced via Instagram back in October of last year that he would be releasing the book for wide distribution sometime in 2025. A special, limited-edition version of the book was briefly made available around Christmas at the Rush Backstage Club. That edition is autographed, and comes encased in a red cloth-bound slipcase which includes an exclusive, custom-made Geddy Lee baseball, created specifically for this project. The standard version of the book will be available next month, with a slated release date of September 30th (just in time for the MLB playoffs) and pre-orders are available here. And if you missed out on the special edition last year, it's been made available again, and you can order one at this location. John at Cygnus-X1.net has posted an excerpt from the book's Introduction and made it available online here.
Rush has released a new, official 2026 wall calendar celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of 1996's Test for Echo. The calendar was produced by Poster Foundry and can currently be ordered via Amazon and other online retailers. The 12"x18" calendar features a dozen photos from Rush's Test for Echo era as seen here:
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of Rush's iconic Power Windows album with this officially licensed calendar. Featuring all 1985 dates from the unforgettable Power Windows tour and other important anniversaries in Rush's legendary career, this calendar is a must-have for every fan. Don't miss out on commemorating this milestone with the ultimate Rush calendar for 2025!
It also includes a four-month (September-December) 2025 planner page. You can purchase your calendar today at this location.
RUSHfest Canada took place this past weekend in Toronto, and one of the performers were Nina DiGregorio & Brody Dolynuik of Femmes of Rock. The pair came to fame among Rush fans (and Alex Lifeson himself) after posting this video of their cover of Rush's Limelight including an amazing electric violin version of the solo. Nina is the lead violinist and founder of Femmes of Rock, and Brody is their lead technician and producer (and also sang on the Limelight cover). Since Alex is a known fan, his sister Sally arranged a meeting while the pair were in Toronto, and they posted the following photo along with a message of thanks to social media:
Rush's Geddy Lee paid a visit to the studio of Canadian photographer and artist Edward Burtynsky a couple of weeks ago, as seen in this Instagram post from the artist. It's not clear what the purpose of the visit was, but the caption reads:
Great to welcome Canadian music legend Geddy Lee into my studio this week - Ed
Three years ago on the 3rd anniversary of Neil Peart's passing, Rush tribute band YYNOT held a charity concert dubbed Bubba Bash in celebration of The Professor at the Keswick Theatre outside Philly (Glenside, PA). The event was such a huge success that they've made it an annual thing, and they've just announced the dates for Bubba Bash 2026. The event will take place at the Keswick Theatre in Philly on Saturday, January 10th with more information coming soon. Like the previous 3 years, the show will be "In Celebration of Neil Peart", and feature YYNOT along with special guests (TBA) with all proceeds going to support cancer charities. You can check out some of videos from previous events below or on YYNOT's YouTube channel here.
Primus guitarist Larry 'Ler' LaLonde was recently interviewed for Guitarist magazine, and talks about losing much of his guitar collection in the California wildfires earlier this year. But he did manage to save one of his most prized guitars from the collection:
.. "But the first thing that I grabbed when I was like, 'We've got to get the hell out of here,' was the double-neck that Alex Lifeson gave me. So, there's some stuff that made it out of the house, but a lot that didn't. But one that comes to mind that didn't was that Strat, which I used up until I started playing the PRS." ...
Goldmine Magazine published a story this past week where Martin Popoff lists off his Top 20 half-century-old Progressive Rock albums (thanks RushFanForever). Both of Rush's 1975 offerings made the cut; Caress of Steel came in at #7 and Fly By Night at #3:
In light of the immense success Rush would begin to enjoy, kicked off by 2112 the following year, the band's first album with Neil Peart might be seen as the second biggest news story of progressive rock's 1975. Additional to introducing the classic Rush lineup, it's the record that represents the invention of progressive metal. Plus, it gave us enduring Rush classics like "Anthem," "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" and the warm and fuzzy title track.
In recognition of the 10th anniversary of Rush's final show last Friday, YouTuber Fiks2112 put together a full multi-cam fan edit of the show which uses over 100 audience-shot videos, along with select footage from the Time Stand Still documentary. You can check it out below or on YouTube.
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend!
