Like most fans of my generation, I really came to know them after the release of Permanent Waves, although I much prefer the songs "Natural Science" and "Entre Nous" to the radio favorites "The Spirit of Radio" and "Freewill". I have enjoyed attending their shows and listening, with varying levels of attentiveness, over the years, to the changes in style and substance through which the band has gone. I was very pleased to hear them include "Under the Wheels" on the set list of the last show I attended, in Chicago in 2003 (?), and a live version of "The Analog Kid" on their Different Stages live triple disc set they released during their break-up/hiatus following the deaths of Neil Peart's wife and daughter within months of each other.
Listening now to certain songs, "Time Stand Still", "Witch Hunt", "The Camera Eye" among them, I have much different reactions than I had when I first heard them. Especially the first I connect with as I grow older and identify with much more personally than their more political songs. On the other hand, "Witch Hunt" is even more timely now than when it was released in 1980. As much of Rush was a musical accompaniment to my first semester of my sophomore year in college, and also my second semester of my junior year, which included intense study of foreign affairs and political philosophy, I can't help but associate even their non-political songs with my own growing understanding of certain political realities, and the conclusions I drew from certain facts. I was fortunate in these instances to have professors who were both personally supportive and intellectually stimulating to insist that I do the best work I could. I responded to their constructive criticism much better than at any time in my history in higher education precisely because they understood what I was trying to do, and while not always agreeing with my conclusions insisted that I could do better than I was, even while that was quite better than most of my contemporaries (as it was, I received the award for Outstanding Political Science Student, a book award, when I graduated from college; the book, a study of the benficial effects of economic sanctions in the conduct of foreign policy, is both long lost and eminently forgetable).
So it is with a certain urgency and earnest hope that I attend this evening's show in Tinley Park. As with my time in college, I believe that we are at a crucial juncture in our country's life and history, with much riding in the balance. I believe there is a confluence of social, cultural, and political forces that are not being heeded by the political class, attuned as they are to a mostly inside-the-beltway conventional wisdom that is slightly conservative and dismissive of the vulgar hordes who demand actual constructive policies on the part of government. Rush's songs are a peculiar element, both welcome and foreign (being Canadian).
I do not wish to overplay the political siginificance of the band. At heart, they are a bunch of very hard working musicians, invovled mostly in making sure their music is the best it can be. They do not take themselves very seriously at all, which is a welcome refuge from the all-too-serious performers from David Bowie to Bono. As a band, they express this best by continuing to play a nine minute intrumental with the odd title "La Villa Strangiato", long after conventional wisdom and prudence would dictate its retirement. The fans, of course, love it. Here it is, from a 1979 show:
Virtual Tin Cup
