Three neat guys.
I’ve been hanging around Toronto for almost 36 years now. I have come to appreciate the quite dramatic evolution of this little town since I made what must surely have been a gala debut in an Etobicoke hospital back in ‘69, but there remain some very comforting constants:
The return of the CNE to party-off the summer.
The CN Tower, which you can see from pretty much anywhere, cause it’s the tallest fucking thing humans have ever built.
The giant white golfball where there are big movies about volcanoes and space at Ontario Place.
The tragically misunderstood, genre-defying, massive-sounding power trio, Rush.
Each of these Toronto essences was within clear view on a perfect August evening a couple of days ago as I and my good friend Lisa C took our seats at the lakeside park, giant beers in hand, to witness the three aging yet increasingly cuddly rockers of Rush, who still sound like thirty freaking people when they are playing live. We, along with 15,998 others stood in awe as they tore through a dazzling, funny, loud, tight, beautiful performance of 30 years worth of music for their townsfolk.
You may have raised an eyebrow when you saw the word “funny” in the last paragraph. Rush is most often criticized for being way too serious, self-indulgent, unnecessarily complicated and sterile. This criticism is leveled most often by those who have not skimmed more than the surface of this amazing band’s career. And they sure as hell have never seen them perform.
I’ve seen lots of shows since that day in Etobicoke. I can’t think of a single band that puts on such an ambitious show and manages to look like they are having the time of their lives. In-jokes abound, the stage is littered with little self-referential props, they show self-deprecating cartoons on the big screen, they banter with each other (in that way that musicians do), and they change the odd lyric to joke about with their old timer fans. They are the one band that can turn the Molson Shed into an intimate venue. You just feel like you’re watching three guys that had a couple of beers and dared each other to wander on to the bitchin’-est stage ever to play a few tunes. The real irony of the whole spectacle is the inhuman yet seemingly effortless skill and precision with which they pull it off.
Many of my contemporaries regard such music as “soulless”, “pretentious” and “elitist”. This is just complete and utter bullshit. I mean come on, how many bands of that vintage (or any other these days) can sell out a 16,000 seat venue? Many of these same contemporaries who claim to have a problem with elitism and pretentiousness will wax off about how fabulous the Constantines, Broken Social Scene, the Dears and so on are, but abandon them as soon as they sell more than 200 records or get a mention in Toronto Life. It makes me sick that rock musicians risk catching shit the second they learn a diminished 9th chord or start to appeal to more people than will fit into the ElMo.
Sure they know all the expensive chords and play fast and clean, but Rush has always made music that spoke to the big and ever-expanding middle of society. As recently as two years ago, they played to their largest audience ever - 60,000 fans in some Brazilian town that even they had never heard of. Elitist music? Please.
These three guys after all are no different from the kids who understand about how shitty life in the suburbs can be, kids who don’t mind one bit that loud music can be played by great musicians, kids who know that there is a real disconnect between regular people and those who make the rules that they must live by, kids who know that the rule makers are not always acting in the interests of regular people.
They have a real knack for writing material that resonates years after the fact. There’s not much to be done about the cheeseball of synth sounds that may have been used in 1978 or 1984 on a given song, but give a listen to the narratives of The Trees or Subdivisions or Territories or The Big Money or Witch Hunt – it’s as if they’re playing them 20 and 25 years after the fact to say “SEE? WE FUCKING WARNED YOU THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!” And then listen to The Pass or Mystic Rhythms or even the now-kind-of-silly 2112 to reassure yourself that they believe that there is yet cause for optimism. And then spin I Think I’m Going Bald, Red Lenses or Dog Years to prove once and for all that they do have a sense of humour about all of it.
All of that highfalutin’ commentary aside, they also know about the singular pleasure of throwing a great sounding record on the hi-fi and pounding back a few after the Leaf game is over in a friend’s rec room on a Saturday night. Or loading a tape into the car stereo that makes you want to break land speed records on the way to the cottage. Or jumping around in your room pretending to be the guy that awesome solo is coming out of. Rush makes precisely those types of records.
Rush is one of those few bands that know the value of always striving to perfect your craft. They chose to pick up instruments when they were teenagers, and chose to practice. When they got good, they chose to get better. When they got better, they chose to get even better. When they got even better, they chose to innovate. I’ve now seen them 11 times throughout my life. They have never, ever mailed it in. And they themselves have promised to cease to exist before that ever happens. They continue to strive for improvement and I doubt that there’s a band out there that works as hard, has as much fun and represents everything that mass-appeal art should be. Being good doesn’t make you elitist or pretentious or soulless. It just makes you good.
So knock back a sixer, throw on your Scarborough dinner jacket, practice your three-finger devil salute and go see these three very regular guys who also happen to be masters of their craft in a town near you before it’s too late.
KISS (as opposed to RUSH): Gord rocks!
Posted by: Bodi at August 25, 2004 11:12 PM