To celebrate 30 years of being together as a group, the Canadian band Rush recently embarked on a world tour that brought them to the shores of the UK for the first time since 1992. To be fair, a lot had happened in the intervening decade, mainly Neil Peart losing his wife and daughter in one year, and it was by no means certain that the group would even continue.
Wembley Arena is one of those venues that draws people despite the incessant complaints about the lack of atmosphere and the sound quality, not least because apart from the Stadium (now being rebuilt) there are few other venues in the south of England for groups this popular to play. That Rush are still popular despite being unknown in the singles chart for virtually all their career was testified to by the crowds in the Arena and the numbers of people who were unfortunately unable to get tickets. The punters were a mixed crowd, varying in range from clean-cut youngsters to old bikers, and refreshingly, female as well as male. Unlike some of their more testosterone-driven contemporaries, Rush seem to have a fairly universal appeal.
In 1992 the group were supported by the left-field band Primus. This year there was no support act as the event was definitely billed "An evening with Rush", which was what you got from about 7.40 onwards. There was a frantic surge of activity around the merchandise counters, which were selling not only T-shirts (the best design was with the "One Little Victory" dragon in party hat) but also "bobble-heads", rather bizarre figurines of the band in their younger days akin to those plastic footballer figures that pop up in cereal boxes in the UK of people like Michael Owen. In addition there were the usual jackets, baseball caps and so forth, plus the obligatory programme. I forwent the beer this time as I correctly guessed that with three hours of music plus a train journey home I might be inflicting discomfort and frequent toilet trips on myself, and tooled up with a bottle of water instead.
The stage was dominated by Neil Peart's drum kit, and rather oddly, two washing machines (working with clothes spinning round instead) and a vending machine, again with the (empty) trays rotating steadily. We had reasonably good seats on one of the balconies, unlike my first trip to Wembley in 1988 when we were seated so far back that the band were three matchstick men and a wall of sound. The warm-up music, perhaps not coincidentally, included Led Zeppelin I, an LP that seemed to leave an impress on Rush's early efforts before Neil Peart replaced John Rutsey.
As usual with Rush, there had to be a quirky video introduction. This time, instead of the familiar "Three Stooges" theme from earlier tours, we got a surreal sequence involving motifs from several album covers, such as the owl from Fly By Night, the rabbits from Presto and the man from 2112, after which the actor Jerry Stiller woke up from his dream and started rambling about the band. The group came on and launched without further ado into the "R30 Overture", essentially several of the key tracks from their first albums up to and including "Hemispheres", welded together into an imposing whole and played without lyrics. This was a good idea as it allowed the inclusion of some marvellous riffs - "Finding My Way", "Anthem", "Bastille Day", "Bangkok", "Cygnus X-1" and "Hemispheres" - without having to expend large amounts of time wading through all of them - and some of them in their full format were quite long. The video backdrop all this time was showing pictures of the group as they were 30, 20 and 10 years ago, which was in a way quite brave as the blatantly seventies fashion-victim appearance could have attracted hoots of laughter from someof the younger elements. After that we got into the serious business of the later and much-loved tracks such as "Force Ten" and "Subdivisions". A slightly surprising inclusion was "Between The Wheels", a keyboard-laden track that had not been played since the Grace Under Pressure tour but which with its somewhat pessimistic overtones perhaps sounded right for the anxious world of 2004. One thing I did notice was that in the equipment department, although technology is still employed extensively in the sampling and triggers department (how else can three men play a multitude of instruments, after all?), when it comes to the guitar and bass, Lifeson and Lee have definitely gone back to the older, dare one say, retro, equipment. Alex Lifeson swopped between Gibson Les Paul, SG and Fender Telecaster, with occasionally the use of his Paul Reed Smith and the Gibson SG twin-neck, while Geddy Lee appeared to play a Fender Jazz bass throughout the night. When one thinks of their earlier, eager employment of new instruments, particularly Lee with his Steinbergers or Wals, one wonders whether this is middle age or just another stage in the ever-evolving life of the group. The Moog Taurus pedals still appeared to be in evidence, however. The overall level of sound, I am pleased to say, was not overly loud, but at the same time it did lack some clarity to my ears, particularly for the guitar and bass, although not so bad that I could not recognise the song or hear what Lee was singing.
One thing that did disappoint me somewhat was the quality of the videos. I know this sounds like a niggle, especially as the event was a rock gig, not a film showing, but compared to their earlier shows, some of the videos definitely lacked punch or imagination. Some of the backdrop videos, in fact, appeared to be little more than fancy psychedelic screen savers, and one wonders if they could have saved money by just getting some guy with oil and a film projector to do the same job. The dramatic and poignant film accompaniment to "Subdivisions" was replaced by a rather uninspired zooming in on a suburban landscape, while "Force Ten" had dropped video footage altogether, leaving me nostalgically yearning for the humorous cartoon footage of the Rocking Reconstructionists and the sheep. Even "Roll The Bones" had been paired down, omitting the shots of the Berlin Wall interspersed with the shots of the solar system, although they had the sense to leave in the rapping skeleton. However, the multi-media department did belatedly redeem themselves with the video dragon for "One Little Victory" that had my wife and I in stitches, and with a bizarre but tongue-in-cheek manga-style sequence for "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" where the protagonists bore more than a passing resemblance to the three members of the group.
The most amusing part, ironically, was left for the interval. While the group were offstage, the video backdrop flicked into life to show the dragon again, this time in Oliver Postgate-style animated mode, lounging in an armchair and flicking through the channels on the TV before selecting "That Darned Dragon". We were then led into a budget animation of the "darned dragon" (an endearing thing with obvious strings and what looked like a neck made of coffee cups) attacking a city, Godzilla-style. At this point the bobble-head figures of the band appeared (aha! now I understand the merchandise!) and were summoned in true Japanese monster movie fashion to fight the dragon, zooming along in a plastic-looking "Cygnus X-1" rocket that paid tribute to the buzzing, sparking spaceships of the old Flash Gordon movies. The three heroes duly repelled the dragon after it had attacked their Rush merchandise tent.
Into the second half we got Neil Peart's inevitable but still intriguing drum solo, accompanied by a cleverly put together sequence of various people from the black and white era dancing interspersed with real and cartoon monkeys bashing the drums. Then the drummer went off to recuperate for a few minutes while we were treated to a short acoustic set from Lee and Lifeson, both on acoustic guitars. Although I had been surprised and perhaps a bit sceptical when I heard about the Feedback album of covers, I must say that they did add a little something new into the show, and the acoustic version of the Yardbirds' "Heartful of Soul" was quite good. Then it was back to power trio plus samples for the finish of the set, followed by a three-song encore before the lights came up and Jerry Stiller appeared again on the video to wind up the evening.
In all honesty I would have to say that this was not a perfect performance. Once or twice I thought Lifeson seemed temporarily at a loss, while "YYZ" and "Bravado", for example, seemed to be shorter than usual. But inevitably, and I say this with no disrespect, age changes people somewhat, including artists, sometimes to the point where they are less intense and more laid-back about what they are doing. Certainly the band are ageing well in appearance, although Lifeson in some close-up shots looked like a perspiring William Shatner. And let's face it, how many other groups now could play a three-hour set and still have to miss out a good deal of excellent material? In an age of faddism and short-life, recyclable acts, Rush still represent long-term careerism at its best. Long may they continue to evolve.