Seize This Moment a Little Bit Longer

Rush was the first band I ever thought of as my Favorite Band. We’re talking capital F, capital B. Sure, I’d enjoyed other bands and other music before I heard The Trees through the tinny speaker of my clock radio (!?), but from that point on I was hooked.

Of course, since this was the 90s, I had to go on some kind of miniature quest just to figure out who this was. I’d never heard any music like this, and there was no Shazam to point me in the right direction. I did what everyone did – I consulted the music nerd in high school. He was a drummer. At the time, I didn’t even realize how fortunate that coincidence had been: all drummers knew Rush, because all drummers knew Neil Peart. He told me that the song I was smitten with could be found on their greatest hits album Chronicles.

Did I make use of that information? Of course not. Instead, I went to the source, and bought the album where it originally appeared, Hemispheres. This is a little like trying to swim by diving into an Olympic pool or the English Channel. If you’re not familiar, Hemispheres is an album from 1978. It only has four songs on it. One of them is 18 minutes long, and one of them is nine minutes long, with no vocals. The 18-minute song? It’s a sequel to a song on another album! I was officially out of my element.

Even though you could accurately describe me as mystified by the entire experience, I didn’t give up, and I found myself falling in love with this very idiosyncratic music. Eventually I did buy Chronicles, and was able to hear some much more accessible music from this amazing band.

Since 1997 I’ve seen Rush on every tour, including their swan song in 2015. Their place in my heart and in my personal canon is as solid as anything, so it’s a little strange that I’ve spent the last few years not quite knowing how I feel about them.

January 2020

That’s when Neil Peart passed away. I remember hearing the news and waiting to feel something big. It didn’t come. I felt numb, and then I felt confused about feeling numb. This was the drummer of my favorite band. The guy who wrote the words I’d been carrying around since I was a teenager. Shouldn’t this hit harder?

I still don’t have a tidy answer for that. I had young kids, and definitely thought my days of going to concerts were basically behind me. Maybe some of it was that Rush had already ended, quietly, when they stopped touring a few years earlier, and I’d half-grieved it then without noticing. Maybe some of it was that grief for someone you never met has nowhere obvious to go.

Reborn and Baptized in a Moment of Grace

Life can still surprise you. I don’t remember when I heard that Rush was reforming and would be playing shows again. Once I pinched myself I knew that I had to get tickets. Waiting for the show was a bit of torture. Then on Monday night I saw Rush at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, back on the road for the first time in more than a decade, with Anika Nilles on drums.

It was joyous. It wasn’t reverent, or a museum piece. Two guys who’ve been playing together for over fifty years looked like they were having the time of their lives. I’d heard that Geddy Lee had retained a vocal coach for the first time, and the results really were noticeable. A 73-year-old man should not be able to hit those notes. Alex played the same as he always has: creatively, with virtuosity. With such legendary players on bass and drums, the world has a tendency to overlook Lifeson: how could one band house three of the all-time greats? That’s not fair: his guitar drives the band even if it’s not always the star.

Nilles is an amazing drummer. I play drums in a cover band, so I watch drummers with a certain amount of professional nosiness, and I came away extremely impressed. To my ears, one thing I noticed about Peart over the years was that his style seemed to change from a more swinging 70s sound to a more robotic one over time. She’s retained some of that original feel and I really appreciate it. There were many moments of incredible playing, but I feel especially grateful to have experienced the band’s version of La Villa Strangiato with her on the throne.

Time Stand Still

Remember that feeling of grief, the absence of which confused me so much? I felt it at the concert. Not the acute, painful grief present in the wake of something immediate and traumatic; no, this was an elegiac feeling, usually fairly calm but one that would still occasionally threaten to overwhelm the moment. It didn’t happen during the big Neil Peart tribute video, which was projected during the song Bravado (a perfect choice for it). It actually happened during Time Stand Still.

It’s funny to me that this feeling both of loss and appreciation happened not during a song known for an iconic drum performance. It’s not even known as one of his most lyrically acrobatic songs. It’s a (by Rush standards) fairly simple, straightforward 80s pop song. It even features Aimee Mann, for heaven’s sake! And it wasn’t even the drumming that did it.

If you don’t know Time Stand Still, it is fairly straightforward, but when Geddy Lee’s not singing the lines of the chorus, he is absolutely annihilating with his bass fills. They’re all in service of the song, and if you weren’t paying attention to them you probably wouldn’t notice them. But for whatever reason, they hit me like a truck. I started to laugh: what kind of strange band would record a really solid, crowd-pleasing pop ballad, only to absolutely shred the bass throughout the entire song?! Who thinks this way? There is only one band who could do this.

With my full attention on the song, it wasn’t long before the lyrics got their hooks in me too, at this performance:

I’m not looking back But I want to look around me now See more of the people And the places that surround me now Time stand still Summer’s going fast Nights growing colder Children growing up Old friends growing older Freeze this moment A little bit longer Make each sensation A little bit stronger

Well, let’s just say that broke the dam wide open. From that point forward, all I could do was to try and appreciate the show and hold onto it for as long as it would last.

Freeze this moment A little bit longer Make each sensation A little bit stronger

Sweet Miracle

It’s miraculous that we got this tour. It’s miraculous that such a perfect replacement for Neil could be found, someone who could work so well with these two strange old guys, while also being able to handle the pressure of what is probably the most intimidating throne in the drumming world.

I keep thinking back to my first tour seeing Rush. This was in 1997, after Test for Echo. Shortly after this tour, Neil Peart experienced a terrible tragedy in his life. For a few years it was unknown whether he would keep playing at all. At the time I found myself wondering if we’d ever get another Rush tour at all. It’s miraculous that nearly 30 years later, we’re wrapping up another one.

Rush closed the show with Working Man, a song off their debut album. It’s a concert staple for a good reason (it fucking rocks). One interesting piece of trivia: the debut Rush album (Rush) doesn’t feature Neil Peart. He didn’t join the band until its follow-up. The drummer on the debut album is John Rutsey, who passed away in 2008. The video accompaniment for this song featured an animated tribute to Rutsey, along with some photos of the original trio together.

I can’t remember whether this tribute had been a part of the show prior to this tour, but I really appreciated it. It was a great reminder that, before the man who would become their most famous member ever sat down behind the kit, Rush was a force to be reckoned with. They were three kids from Toronto who could rock your fuckin’ socks off. They didn’t become a great band when Neil showed up. They already were one, and then they got to become something else.

I think Neil would have really dug that.