N Ti ME Wi TH RUSH
Photos by Richard Sibbald
R40
( L-R ) Rush ’ s Alex Lifeson , Neil Peart & Geddy Lee on the R40 Tour .
crowd favourites in the opposite order of their respective releases . All the while , the set elements on stage change to reflect those eras – massive walls of speaker cabinets for the big arena era , a proscenium stage with drapery for the theatre era , all the way down to a pair of amplifiers and a small drum kit ( by Peart ’ s standards ) for the final songs .
“ We thought it ’ d be a cool concept to finish the night the way we started our career – in the simplest environment with virtually no props and just the music ,” Lee candidly shares with Canadian Musician . “ It was just about the music back then .”
But over the years , the tours grew more elaborate in tandem with the band ’ s swelling success . The culmination of their ambition – conceptual , technological , and , of course , musical – was the aforementioned Clockwork Angels Tour , boasting an imagin ative steampunk design and threehour setlist .
“ With the Clockwork Angels concept , our live show had kind of evolved into its most complex point ,” Lee says . “ There were so many twists and turns and complexities on the stage itself that it was kind of like , ‘ Where do you go from here ? How do you keep getting more spectacular ?’”
The answer , as it turns out , was to devolve instead of evolve . “ It seemed fun to use [ Clockwork Angels ] as a starting point and break it down from there – visit each era and the iconic things that were a part of that history , from set design to the amplification , all driven by the music from those periods .”
Choosing which songs would represent those periods was a significant undertaking , and understandably so when you have 40 years and 20 studio albums worth of material to consider .
“ That ’ s always a difficult thing , to cull it down to the three-hour time frame ,” Lifeson admits , and that was compounded by the nature of this particular tour . “ Our fans are diverse , and they have periods that are their favourites , and they don ’ t always agree ,” Lee shares before chuckling and adding , “ In fact , they rarely agree . And then we have our favourites , so you have to satisfy a lot of masters .”
Lee says that they initially had different ideas of how the set list should come together – predominantly choosing deeper cuts to appease the die-hards versus a runthrough of their biggest hits . Ultimately , though , being an anniversary tour that celebrates different periods of Rush , Lee says , “ I think you have to celebrate the highlights of those periods . And that ’ s how we began – picking our most successful , slash most popular , slash most loved songs . We tried to take our personal favourites out of the mix and focus on what our fan base really believes to be iconic .”
Following a video intro , “ The Anarchist ,” a hard-hitting cut and one of the standouts
CANADIAN MUSICIAN • [ 35 ]