What Book Is Alex Lifeson Reading in Beyond the Lighted Stage

However you feel virtually Rush, you take to admit the band has something special.

Critics have always shrugged at the Canadian trio. Blitz's intellectual lyrics about Mithril steel and black holes tin seem overwrought, the ring's lengthy orchestral workouts can show confounding, and the singer'south siren wail remains a love-information technology or hate-it matter.

Merely slowly and deliberately, Rush has built a massive cult following and developed into one of the biggest bands in the world — if not the unabridged galaxy, every bit some of their fans would attest.

In the new career-spanning documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, an unrated film that heads to DVD and cable Tv after its express theatrical run, we see a moving portrait of three goofy guys from Toronto who dropped out of loftier school to play in a stone ring. Their parents hated the idea, the musicians possessed limited fashion sense and sex appeal, and they were too young to play anywhere other than church dances.

Merely in 1971, the drinking age in their neck of the woods dropped to 18, and Rush began gigging at bars half-dozen nights a calendar week, playing British Invasion standards and dipping their toes into heavy metal. The rest is unlikely rock history.

Peart, Lee and Lifeson never actually got the knack of dressing like stone stars.

Photos courtesy Banger FilmsCountless cinematic gems from the band's early days fill the offset half of the movie. Super-8 footage of a teenage Lifeson shredding on guitar, photos of singer and bassist Lee at his bar mitzvah, original drummer John Rutsey (who died in 2008) mugging in a skimpy swimsuit.

They may have looked weird, but these musicians could tear it up. And they kept at information technology, parlaying early on regional success into tours supporting Kiss and Uriah Heep.

The filmmakers (Banger Films' Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn, whose previous piece of work includes the splendid Iron Maiden: Flight 666) intercut early footage with interviews with Lee, Lifeson and drummer-lyricist Neil Peart, hired to supercede Rutsey after the ring'due south first record. This revamped version of Rush has been together since 1974.

How does a rock band stay together through 4 decades? For one, the trio's musical chemical science is undeniable. They also managed to avert the drugs-and-groupies path that leads and so many bands to break up. There's also true friendship and love among Lee, Lifeson and Peart. In the film, they constantly bosom each other up, and they have trouble keeping a straight confront whenever any two of them go in a room together.

Farther insight into Rush'due south longevity comes at the film'southward midpoint, when the ring is prepping its fourth anthology, 2112. They had dumped the Led Zeppelin wannabe affair and had begun experimenting with longer songs, more complex arrangements and mythical themes, as in songs similar "By-Tor and the Snow Canis familiaris" and "The Fountain of Lamneth." Fans turned a deaf ear to the new sound and Rush's concert ticket sales tanked. The record label wasn't happy: The ring members sensed their 15 minutes were almost up.

Deciding they'd rather become down fighting than cave to The Homo, the trio took what it idea would exist its last trip into the studio. The result was 2112, a concept album whose title rail is a heavy, side-long epic.

This time, the kids dug it. The record went gold solely through discussion of oral fissure. The 22-minute musical narrative didn't get any radio play, and critics dismissed it every bit a pretentious joke, merely the fans responded to the message of the lyrics, which speak of the importance of individual freedoms in an oppressive society. Some of those fans even started buying Ayn Rand novels afterwards Peart name-checked her in the liner notes.

The album'due south success earned Rush its independence — Lifeson says after 2112, the tape company never questioned the band's vision once more.

From there, things only get bigger, and Across the Lighted Stage documents Rush'south growth into stadium headliners (1981's "Tom Sawyer," their most well-known song, doubled the band's audition). Around this time, you beginning to encounter a weird parallel form between Rush and their fans.

Disproportionately male person, doughy, well-educated and over 30, Rush fans know their favorite band is profoundly unhip. Simply they only don't care. They possess such a tremendous sense of dead-serious devotion that they seem like brainwashed children when McFadyen and Dunn plough their cameras on them. They've been to hundreds of concerts, and they sing forth and air-drum through every one of them. Lee muses that Rush might exist the "biggest cult band on Earth."

Bona-fide mainstream stars show up on-screen to repeat the sentiments of the common fans. Billy Corgan from The Slap-up Pumpkins tells how he sat his mother downwards and played her "Entre Nous," giving her the album jacket to read forth with in hopes she would improve understand his connectedness to the music. Kirk Hammett of Metallica describes how Lifeson'south solo in "La Villa Strangiato" caused him to rethink his own approach to the guitar. Les Claypool gushes nearly the band, and a very stoned Jack Black riffs on the catholic juju of Peart'south lyrics.

Along with that cult band status comes the inevitable hero worship. We see the guys signing autographs at a Toronto restaurant and doing post-show meet-and-greets. Lee and Lifeson shake easily and pose for photos, but Peart refuses to interact with fans. The whole thought of fan adulation makes him uncomfortable. He's painfully shy and private — 1 of his lyrics, "I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend," is telling. In his habitation movies, Peart exhibits the aforementioned bookish wallflower vibe at 14 that he does at 57.

The picture show drags a bit near the end, generally because the focus turns to some heavy internal band stuff. First, in that location's Lee's conclusion to switch to a synth-based sound, which alienated all simply the most difficult-core Blitz fans and severely tested Lifeson's patience. Then comes Peart's search for a new drum technique. Lastly, there's the decease of Peart'due south wife and daughter, a crushing blow that sent him on a two-year solo motorcycle breather. He disappeared to grieve, articulate his caput and rediscover his own humanity. We learn that everyone in the Rush family unit idea the whole thing was over.

Just Peart climbs behind the kit again for the film's coda. Or maybe it'south an encore. Or maybe the start of the side by side chapter? Ah, who cares! I was likewise busy air-drumming.

Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage premieres on VH1, VH1 Classic and Palladia on June 26. Information technology comes out on DVD and Blu-ray on June 29.

WIRED: Tons of sometime footage and stories for fans to chew on. Fun and entertaining, so girlfriends and newbies will exist amused. Intimate and revealing interviews. 1 rare tune, "Garden Road," shows upwards almost outset.

TIRED: A bit long and uneven — lots of detail on the early works, simply later albums (Presto onward) go breezed over.

Rating:

Read Underwire's film ratings guide.

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Source: https://www.wired.com/2010/06/review-rush-beyond-the-lighted-stage/

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