A twenty something’s ode to Rush
What happens when one of your favourite bands calls it quits?
Revisiting this essay I wrote back in 2019 with the news of legendary drummer Neil Peart’s death in January 2020 at the age of 67 from brain cancer. Rush is still one of my musical heroes. Their ability to shape shift from album to album, ride musical trends throughout the decades without losing sight of who they were was something to behold.
The original version of this essay appeared on Medium.
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May 22, 2013, was the first and last time I saw acclaimed rock band Rush in concert.
I was in the midst of preparing for my first semester exams in university in Manchester, England.
Legendary Canadian rock band Rush had just released their 19th studio album Clockwork Angels the year before and was touring across the UK. For once in my life, I could see them on tour.
Tickets were expensive for a student, but this was one of those experience I had to go.
It was non-negotiable. Rush rarely toured Asia, and here I was in the same country they were going to play at. Regardless of the circumstances, I had to go.
It never occurred to me to ask anyone along. My peers were more interested in current artists like OneRepublic who had played just a few weeks before Rush.
Nah, this one, I was content to go alone.
Who was going to be interested in a fuddy-duddy old-person rock band like Rush anyway?
For a band dating back to the late-60s, who knew when they were next going to play or even hang up their instruments?
I didn’t know what to expect
Decked out in a plain blue polo tee and my trustworthy pair of washed-out denim jeans, I made the solitary journey to the Manchester Arena.
My heart was a cocktail of trepidation and adrenaline-fuelled excitement, buzzing with a myriad of questions like:
“Was I going to be the only young person there?”
“What if I get trampled on in a rave?”
“Am I wearing the right clothes for a rock concert?”
“Will I recognize anyone there?”
As I reached the monstrous Manchester Arena, I realized I had made one fatal mistake.
All around me were middle-aged men in various state of baldness (with the odd lady or two) hyped into a frenzy.
Maybe it was the towering pints of beer they now swung around like batons, singing at the tops of their voices a distinct medley of Rush songs with the energy of rambunctious teenagers.
“Okay, so I am the only young person here”; I thought to myself as I scanned the room, panic rising at the sharp realization that I was indeed, alone.
Second realization: Everyone around me was sporting some sort of “Rush On Tour” tee.
Had I walked into some form of time capsule?
You had the 40th anniversary R40 t-shirts, the multiple tours during Rush’s heyday during the ’80s and late 70s and some wearing newer shirts from the early noughties.
My first thought: “Damn, Rush has indeed been touring a heck a lot over the years huh?”
Whichever tour shirt you could think of, there was a person wearing it.
It was almost as though if the further the tour dated back on the shirt you were wearing, the more ‘street-cred’ you had as a Rush fanboy.
Me? None.
I picked my dark blue polo tee hoping to blend into the crowd as best as possible. But my lack of tour shirt ensured I stood out in the worst possible manner and I was too broke to spend any more money on an overpriced $50 tour shirt.
Note to self: The next time I embark on another grand adventure to see a veteran band perform, make sure I have a tour shirt on hand.
Awkward moments aside…
I had an idea of what to expect at a rock concert.
Bone-numbing reverberations of expertly-played music pulsing through your every being. Watching three legends come together on stage, entirely at home with each other and on the stage. If you stood there and took in the experience, you could visualize the thousands of hours they committed to their respective instruments — countless hours of practice, mistakes, experiments, and failure.
On that stage, Rush played as a unit.
Yet, they were at home with us raving fans. Despite my initial awkwardness with being the odd one out, I blended in with the crowd — singing at the top of my lungs the lyrics to hits like 1981’s Tom Sawyer.
Chills go down your spine as the band plays an opening chord to a song you have sung, air-guitared to, bobbed your head to and internalized the lyrics to on repeat.
There’s a quote from musician Amanda Palmer from her book The Art Of Asking describing the other-worldly experience seeing a band who was integral for your life:
“I was finally experiencing, in person, the songs that had been the soundtrack of my life for the past few years, the lyric-images I’d memorized after hours of headphone-listening on walks to school, the worlds that had been direct-deposited into my heart through the channel of my ears — I was hearing them here, now, in a moment that would never exist again.” “I was also standing in a room with three hundred people who seemed to have formed a real, connected comradeship by virtue of Loving One Thing and, by extension, one another.”
In that moment, or at least for the next few hours, it felt like we as fans stood as one collective unit. Whether we were Chinese or British, tall or short, fat or thin, balding or sprouting dreadlocks were immaterial. We held in that concert arena united by our love for Rush and perhaps appreciating in our own way the various ways the impact that the band’s music has had on us.
Today, Rush is no more
With their members now well into their 60s, Rush recently announced their retirement in 2018. Triggered by drummer Neil Peart’s ongoing health issues as a result of the many hours behind the drum kit, their long and distinguished career has come to a natural end.
But what do you do when one of your favourite bands calls it quits?
You grieve.
You are happy that the band members are content. You thank them for their years of blessing your world with their artistry. You go through their back catalog once again, a pang of sadness hitting you once it hits you that it’s unlikely that the world will see a new Rush album.
But maybe that is the story of life itself, right?
Like writing a story, there needs to be an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Without a definite conclusion, the story drags on for too long, and both the reader and writer get frustrated at the inability to end the story.
As creatives, there comes a point where you know you have to stop creating.
You trust that your body of work up to this point would speak for itself and ensure your legacy lives on.
In an interview with Drumhead Magazine, Peart describes his daughter Olivia as introducing him as a retired drummer to her friends:
“True to say–funny to hear. And it does not pain me to realize that, like all athletes, there comes a time to… take yourself out of the game. I would rather set it aside then face the predicament described in our song ‘Losing It’ (‘Sadder still to watch it die, than never to have known it’.”
Eras will come to their natural end:
Now that Rush has retired, I look back fondly on my experience of my first and last concert with them 6 years ago in the UK. Listening to their catalog takes me back to being that skinny, awkward Chinese kid within a sea of intimidating, formidable men and women.
I recall the courage I summoned to go for my first “fuddy-duddy classic rock” concert in a foreign city alone.
But above all, I reflect on the legacy of a distinguished rock band.
Rush embodied the dedication to practice and master their respective instruments, yet taking time off when they needed to.
They evolved with the times while maintaining their artistic vision and integrity; shifting from high conceptual progressive rock in the 70s to a more synthesizer-dominated sound and finally to a harder alternative rock sound in the 90s, 00s and beyond.
But more importantly, the members of Rush never let their egos got in the way. It was always the friendship between the trio and the music that came first.
In interviews, they strike me as humble, down-to-earth guys despite their proficiency and fame.
Those are the essential lessons the band has taught me.
While they won’t be producing any new music in the foreseeable future, it doesn’t mean their formidable back catalog will vanish. I will still turn to my Rush albums whenever I need to be transported into another world of high fantasy, of overlong, obtuse philosophical concepts and socially conscious lyrics.
I wonder how many legions of grown men (and women) their music has brought to tears, how much energetic air-guitaring, and headbanging they’ve cajoled out of many teenagers in their bedrooms.
How many sore throats have resulted as fans tried to imitate singer Geddy Lee’s one-and-only high-pitched wails?
Ah, Rush. I will miss you.
But, thank you for the music and leading by example for all of us to become not just better artists, but better humans as well.