toymaker

9/4's original post is pretty much my experience. I don't think the musicianship flags at all later, but there's just a great sound to the earlier albums.

I haven't been here in a while, but I just wanted to check in and say best wishes to everyone.

I'm still listening to a lot of Rush as well during workouts. Yesterday I kept hitting repeat on "The Weapon". It's a favorite of mine anyway, in no small part because of the instrumental bridge. But now I am really listening to it. Not to give Geddy short shrift here or anything, but that section is so completely The Alex And Neil Show. You can listen to just the drums, or just the guitar, and be blown away by either one on its own merits....or be rendered speechless by the way the Neil and Alex complement each other. Damn, I will miss those moments. Not fair. And Keith Richards endures.... He does endure . . . but as been made so painfully apparent, no one endures forever. I've been thinking a lot of the bands I love from the 70s, who are all getting up there in age, and I know in the years to come there will be terrible news about all of them. All we can do to truly honor them is to keep listening. Recorded music is a pretty wild thing - a performance that keeps part of them alive, while making me feel a little more alive. What a thing to leave behind.

This makes me think two things: 1) what a monster drummer Peart was already on the very first album with the band and 2) your son clearly has all the dedication and power to be a phenomenal drummer in his own right

Is that the dude who plays upside down?

My band had a gig last night and we did a little tribute - a Limelight, Tom Sawyer, and Spirit of Radio medley. Our drummer has never been a Rush fan, but I could tell that he listened to the tunes and tried to get some of the parts in.

He spent some of the cash on Astin Martins and Ferraris and such...and expensive scotch.

There is a Canadian Rush stamp, at least. https://postagestampguide.com/stamps/18501/rush-2013-canada-postage-stamp-canadian-recording-artists

That is fantastic. Thank you for the link. Makes me feel really good to know that Neil was listening to Hold Your Fire regularly. Tremendous album overall, and really tremendous lyrics. HYF is way underrated, IMO. More keys being tickled there than frets, but still a pretty damned good album.

Why he does not cover one of the most important records of the 1970s is beyond me...

There are a lot of amazing tributes and memories here, and it's helping me deal with it. These pages are just further validating what I already knew about Rush fans. It's right to share the pain with you folks.

Out of respect, can we just let the thread end here, please?

Feeling pretty numb myself, for lots of reasons. Peart was a total inspiration to me as a young wannabe musician back in the early 80s. I don't remember spending nearly as much time reading the lyrics of any other band's songs. Also, I watched my wife slowly fade away over 10 months because of f***ing glioblastoma. Probably feeling numb because feeling anything else would be too much. In a strange way, maybe that's what Neil chose to do with respect to all the adulation - allowing himself to feel all that worship would have been too heavy. It's awesome how he focused his energy into music and insights - whether people find them to be deep insights or not is one thing, but you can't deny he was a deeply thoughtful and sincere dude.

Definitely Cooper - Years Ago / Steven / The Awakening - pretty much a short horror movie

Pretty cool - and cool tune, too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOuNQczj4Hw Also Rosanna, My Sharona, Led Boots, The Loser in the End. Lots of good choices so far!

He sounds like he has a tough constitution. He probably would eat nuts and bolts and then say "got anything crunchier?"

Just signing on to learn about this now. Really sorry to hear you are going through this, Lorraine. Thinking about you and hoping for the best outcome.

Can you post the lyrics? Here's a bit of it: At Christmas-tide King Arthur's court in Camelot Gathered there to share the feast of Yule Lieges, lords The ladies and the gallant knights Shining under Arthur's kindly rule A perilous horseman passed the portals Glowing all in green His garments and his hue of skin A ghostly verdant sheen etc. etc. That should give you the basic idea... There's a challenge, a decapitation and so forth.

Proof that you can't headbang in synch to the instrumental section of this song!

The book has Peart's handwritten lyrics to Sir Gawain and the Green Night - the tune that was meant to be on Permanent Waves. Probably for the best that it was scrapped!

A fair bit of bad press is included - some of it pretty nasty! But they typically say something like "In spite of [how awful, untalented, etc.] the band was, the fans loved it." . . . go figure.

Rush with Boston - that would have been cool to see. Anyone at the March 4 '77 show in Cincinnati?

Hey folks, it's been a while since I've been on. Hope you all are doing well! My copy arrived today, and I'm pretty happy with it - reading it while handing out candy to the chidlers. The book has a lot of cool little anecdotes, and I am learning stuff I didn't know. And there's some great photos! Certainly not something you can hold in one hand and read, though!

The sound of the car is one of the movie's best features. Plus the one cool special effect.

Apologies if this has been posted/discussed. I've been away for a while. sorry - wrong link - here's the right one