Chapter 8
With the tour over it was time to actually start recording the new album. Rough demos of several songs had already been laid down, and the extended vacation and warm-up shows gave Rush extra time to work on the new material. The recording itself would be done closer to home at Quebec's Le Studio. Alex, Geddy, Neil and Terry met at the facility in late September, and stayed there through much of the next month.

All concerned were going after a different sound and approach. 'Hemispheres' had reached the outer limits of seventies art rock with its extended composition, complex musical structures, and in-depth treatment of metaphysical ideas. It seemed that they had explored to their fullest a whole range of topics. But now Rush wanted to chart a new course for a new decade. While the band had often been unfavourably compared by many critics to new wave and punk groups, the trio had listened to the new sounds, and if all of it was not their musical cup of tea, they of all groups understood that constant change was crucial to rock. Alex, Geddy and Neil were particularly interested by the music of Ultravox, Japan and Peter Gabriel who were infusing the new wave spirit with heavy doses of electronics and rhythm. Rush saw how these new directions were similar to the ideas they had explored on the 'Cygnus' epic.

Preparing to meet a new decade on their own terms was not always easy for the group. Some ideas would have to be jettisoned. Neil had been working on another long story. It was based on the ancient Arthurian legend of 'Sir Gawain And The Green Knight'. One rendering in verse is one of the oldest pieces of English literature around. Its author is unknown. Most of the other new material had a more modern sensibility, and after much consideration Neil realised that the concept would seem out of place in the band's current gameplan. It was dropped.

Neil went to his writing cottage in Quebec and began working on something to replace the piece. From Peart's pen emerged an artistic expression of musical integrity titled 'Natural Science'. It would eventually clock in at over nine minutes, and was constructed differently from its predecessors. Gone were the symbolic characters of earlier extended Rush songs. Neil was talking directly to the audience. The song reflects several different themes. As always the concept of balance is important to him. His devotion to the middle ground is intense. If Neil is fanatical about anything, it is the concept of balance. 'Natural Science' is interesting because the lyrics make connections that do not always leap forward towards us. Interrelationships between music, nature, and science are illustrated.

Neil Peart talked with Jim Ladd about some of the concerns that guided him during the writing of the lyrics. "I think there are a lot of great strides being taken by man," said Neil. "It's also true of art. For all of the corruption that goes on, there are lots of worthwhile things also. You can look at the cinema, books being written, newspapers... you can look at any manifestation of our existence here, and you can see a positive and a negative side to it.

"I think that the scientific and mechanical world getting out of hand is a symptom, but it is also a symptom of that positive quest to know. That drive which I think is one of the most precious things we have, if it is contained within a reasonable focus.

"Obviously the original relationship between man and nature was that he had to tame it in order to survive, and that became more and more sophisticated and out of hand, and finally it just became destruction. It's become the same thing with science where people don't understand it, and they are afraid of it. They think that you have to eradicate science in order to control it. I think it needs a lot more awareness in people's minds about what science is, and what it is doing and why. In fact science is not some impersonal thing trying to destroy us. It's not an enemy, it's something we ourselves created, and if it gets out of hand, it is our fault for letting it get out of hand.

"So what it boils down to is that we have to take ourselves in hand more than anything. It is we that need the taming."

And that could refer not just to science, but to the music the band were trying to create. Rather than ignoring the changes in music or throwing out the sound they had worked on for years Rush were trying to incorporate what was valuable to them from all genres and times. They did not want to be part of the old wave, or the new. They wanted to continue to bury the world with a timeless flow of music. But taking the long view did not mean that they would become musical conservatives.

An example of this can be seen in their playing styles. Alex, Geddy and Neil had long since proved that they had the chops to run rings around most of the musicians in the business. Now they were working to refine their approaches. They realised that the ability to perform precisely difficult arrangements and patterns was not enough. So they spent more time than ever before on the composition of songs. Rush wanted to achieve an equilibrium between their influences, inspiration, technique and passion. Whether or not they would be able to succeed, would show whether Rush would be able to continue as a viable musical force in the 1980's.

This conscious charting of a future course could be seen in the way the album was prepared. Some of the material was worked out at leisure and then road tested in front of a live audience. 'Natural Science' came together in a bout of creative tension with time constraints weighing heavily on the trio. In contrast, 'Different Strings' was designed as a purely studio creation to test the band's most ornate musical instincts. On 'Different Strings' Hugh Syme made another guest appearance. This time he played Le Studio's grand piano.

Once the basic tracks were completed, Rush headed to England to do the final mixes at Trident Studios. Trident was the place where they broke the mixing logjam that developed on 'Hemispheres' and it once again helped the flow of 'Permanent Waves'.

Geddy reflected on how the group's approach had changed. "I think the important lesson that we learned over the past few years is that music should be a natural thing. That it shouldn't be forced. Fortunately the more successful you become, the more you get to practise that kind of philosophy. We don't really want to guess where we are going. We just want to get together at certain intervals, and see what we start writing, so it's more of an honest, natural approach."

This approach would pay off, but first there were a few problems that had to be taken care of. They stemmed from Hugh's clever ideas about how to design the cover. The working title of the album was 'Wavelength'. Originally Hugh was going for a high tech look by using E-K-G images of the band's heartbeats, but then he got an even wilder idea. He would show a smiling woman standing in front of a wave sweeping through a shore town. Several elements of the image had to be removed for the US release. One was the use of the famous 'Dewey Defeats Truman' headline from The Chicago Tribune.

Back in 1948 the paper jumped the gun and declared Dewey the winner in the race for the US Presidency. Truman managed to pull off a last-minute victory, and The Tribune was left with a considerable amount of yoke on its pages. While this had occurred several decades previously, the paper was still sensitive about the incident and refused to permit its use. So the headline had to be whited out. A Coca-Cola sign was also visible, but the folks at Coke objected to the sign's proximity to the smiling woman's semi-naked thighs. This was replaced by commercial signs carrying the three band members' names. The Pearl beer sign became Peart.

Since Geddy was off producing an album by the group Wireless and Alex was on vacation, Neil found that he had to deal with the fallout over the cover. He recalled constantly getting phone calls from the record company saying they could not do this or that. However, the problems were eventually washed away.

'Permanent Waves' was finally released on January 1, 1980. It was the first record released in the new decade, and it set a new standard in sound, playing, and composition for the 1980s.

'The Spirit Of Radio', the lead-off track, demonstrates the band's new sound with its upbeat melody and strong rhythmic base. Lyrically the song is both hopeful and pessimistic, describing an ideal radio station that really exists and comparing it with the commercialised stations that play it safe in the interest of profits. It also indirectly salutes an old friend, David Marsden, programme director at Toronto's CFNY, the man who first played Rush on the radio.

The station still flies high the flag of free form radio. 'The Spirit Of Radio' praises this approach and castigates stations that have abandoned it. Oddly enough this attack would unlock the doors to radio airplay for Rush.

For Marsden... "It was really flattering that they wrote the song about the station. We don't even play that much Rush, but they were obviously quite taken with our willingness to play bands before anyone else would go near them."

'Freewill' continues the strong bright approach of 'The Spirit Of Radio'. The sound is crisp and clean as Geddy sings Neil's words about choices we must all make even if we deny that choices exist. 'Jacob's Ladder' uses Biblical imagery to describe the search for inspiration. Alex's guitar style comes into its own on this album and especially on this song, fusing elements of classical, jazz-rock, heavy metal, progressive rock and reggae.

'Entre Nous' or 'Between Us' is another fusing of the personal and the universal. At one level it is a conversation between two lovers, but it also addresses the connections and separations between the trio and their audience. There is a frank message from the group to their fans in, 'Just between us, I think it's time for us to realise, the spaces in between, leave room for you and I to grow.'

The studio production 'Different Strings' allows the band to stretch out. Geddy talked about his approach to the song during an interview printed in Guitar Player magazine. "There's one song on the new album called 'Different Strings' in which harmonics become quite an integral part of the piece," he said. "The bass part is very simple--a punctuating sort of rhythm--but in between the notes I popped a couple of harmonics on two (different) strings at the fifth fret."

Another interesting aspect of the song is its lyrical concerns. Geddy wrote the words, but if you did not know this you would think Neil had, since the song shares many of the same thematic concerns of the rest of the album, lost innocence, the differences between people and the difficulty of communication. This raises an important point about Rush. Many of the topics they address in their songs are not just exclusive concerns of any one band member. All three of them share in many ways a common viewpoint about music, society, values and how they want to conduct themselves. That's why it's not quite right to talk about many of their ideas as being Geddy's or Neil's or Alex's. When three people work as closely as they do, an incredible exchange of attitudes takes place.

'Natural Science' closes the record, and for Rush fans it is perhaps the best nine minutes and 26 seconds ever put on to vinyl. The song is complex in just about every way, with an amazing fusion of different styles and time changes--everything from acoustic rock, to progressive music prowess, to the Rush power surge, to the latest in electronic experimentation. Lyrically there are several different themes and ideas intertwined to make a coherent whole.

'Permanent Waves' as a whole is a giant step forward for Rush. A new maturity and control emerges on the album and it would win the band respect in many quarters where before they had been ridiculed. Even the most difficult and complex segments are presented in such a way as to make the album easily accessible. The band had figured out how to express themselves in a way that would be pleasing to fans of many different types of music without compromising their own standards. A word of praise should be reserved also for Terry Brown. On this recording he really came into his own. The sound quality is superb. 'Permanent Waves' sounds as fresh today as the day it was completed, an achievement for all concerned. The last sound on the record is the moving of waves in and out on the sand which expresses what the band were seeking throughout the entire recording.

With the release of the album, The Permanent Waves Tour washed across America. This time Rush travelled with more than $600,000 worth of equipment. Four tractor trailers carted it all around and a crew of 25 people under Howard's direction were employed to keep things running smoothly. To transport the crew and band, two buses and a camper were used.

An early January gig in Binghamton, New York, at the Broome County Arena saw the band playing a rough, festive set. Coming off their longest break from touring in many years, they were still ironing the bugs out of the new set and equipment, but it was clear that the trio were glad to be back on stage. Alex seemed especially fired-up. During 'Xanadu' he played the bottom half of Geddy's double neck, while Geddy played the top half. As they made that modern music the audience responded with a crackle of bright emotional feedback. Two highlights of the show were strong readings of 'Jacob's Ladder' and 'Natural Science'.

While the vast majority of the gigs featured this same interplay between the band and its audience, there was a reminder of what could happen early in the tour. When tickets went on sale for a Detroit gig on January 12, about 1,200 fans got out of hand and smashed ticket booth doors and windows. Although no one was seriously injured, the police had to be called in to restore order.

As the tour progressed, the album began to appear on just about every radio playlist. Ironically, the song most heard was 'The Spirit Of Radio'. It even got airplay on Top 40 radio stations. With this magic music leading the way, the record began to take off. Album oriented stations were playing it in heavy rotation, and on Billboard's album chart the disc peaked at number four where it managed to hold steady for several weeks. In England the album pushed up one more notch to number three. By March 'Permanent Waves' had gone Platinum in Canada, Gold in the States and Silver in England.

But there were drawbacks to their increasing popularity. While in their early days they had been ignored by radio station personnel, record company types and assorted industry hangers-on, now they found more and more people who did not even know who they were, trying to meet them because of their chart position. It was very frustrating for the group. By remaining true to themselves, they had managed to attract the very people they did not want to deal with.

In a way they were more comfortable when the rock industry and press had been unanimously slagging them. They still had plenty of critics, however. At this time one Philadelphia disc jockey, who later helped to pioneer the use of music on television, said to me, "Rush have got to be the worst band in the world. I hate Rush. That singer should be shot for singing like that."

As the band's popularity continued to grow, I continued calling the local stations telling them to play more Rush. But what I was looking forward to most was their next Philadelphia appearance. Soon after I received news that they would not be playing in Philly. The reason, two of the town's sports teams were heading towards the play-offs, so the Spectrum was unavailable while the band would be in the northeastern part of the US. I immediately called their management office, telling anyone who would listen that the band should come back later and play a gig since Philadelphia was their strongest city in the region. The staff were sympathetic, but they said the decision had been made. So the next thing I decided to do was to call my acquaintances at the local radio station, which was playing Rush, and get a petition drive going. Soon after, the programme director Steve Sutton got in touch with me and said he liked the idea and asked me to come in and organise it. With the radio station pushing the petition, there was an immediate response and eventually over 16,000 signatures petitioned Rush to play in Philadelphia. Steve even sponsored my idea to have a 'Rush Bus Contest' where we had local fans write in postcards to win tickets and bus rides to a Rush concert in Hershey, Pennsylvania, two hours drive from Philadelphia.

With their increased success the band played multiple dates in most major cities. St. Louis fans saw the trio play three sold-out nights at Kiel Auditorium before more than 30,000. Rush played two nights in Milwaukee, Dallas, Seattle, Detroit and San Francisco. In the Los Angeles area four shows were performed and in Chicago they became the first act to sell-out the 12,000 seat International Amphitheatre for a four-night stand. But perhaps the biggest highlight of the tour would be an extended gig in New York City. Four nights at the Palladium would signal to the music industry that Rush had arrived.

Before these shows they received another boost, this time from English fans. In April the band and its individual members swept the readers' choice polls in both Melody Maker and Sounds magazines. They were cited for their talents as a group and their individual musicianship.

The Palladium shows were set for the week of May 9. My Junior Prom was May 10 and my girlfriend gave me the ultimatum, either her or Rush. The band were in top form for the concerts. They had been on the road for four months and the rough edges that were shown in Binghamton had been sanded down. Rush rocked their way through a great set including such songs as 'La Villa Strangiato', 'Jacob's Ladder', '2112', 'By-Tor And The Snowdog' and 'Xanadu'. The show was over two hours and many hard core fans were on hand. The audience followed every note knowing each twist and turn of even their most complex songs; air drummers were everywhere following Peart's percussive precision; hundreds of arms could be seen punching out the fills to the beginning of 'Xanadu'. Geddy once said he knew their audience contained many musicians and here was proof. Mouths dropped when later in the song it was time for the duelling double necks as Alex and Geddy wailed away at their Hydra-like guitars. The band did many of their longer pieces at these shows and with no opening act it was a special treat for Big Apple Rush fans.

It was at these shows that the band made an important decision about their next record. They had originally planned to record another live set, and several shows on the upcoming British leg of the tour were to be recorded. But at the Palladium shows, Uncle Cliff, who had left Mercury Records and branched out to management, told the band that they were crazy. He attended all the shows and after each one he told them that they were on a roll creatively and now was the time to go back into the studio. His constant badgering had an effect on Rush. By the week's end they came around to his point of view, even with the recording trucks already booked. A live album would have to wait. Instead of documenting just one tour, the record would capture their sound on two jaunts.

Incidentally, Cliff would make quite a name for himself as a manager. His frank opinions and nononsense approach would later serve him well in breaking in such bands as Def Leppard and Metallica.

But with all due credit going to Uncle Cliff, there were other factors that influenced the band. As Rush began headlining they started using their soundchecks to work on new musical ideas, and the results of these informal writing sessions were particularly fruitful on the Waves Tour.

Their last US date was another New York area appearance at the Nassau County Coliseum on Long Island, a wild, rowdy, sold out show where 17,000 Rush fans grooved to the music. During the encore that evening, Alex, Geddy and Neil returned to the stage wearing New York Islanders hockey jerseys. Geddy dedicated 'La Villa' to the Islanders who "are going to win the Stanley Cup tomorrow."

After the show I had my first opportunity to meet Geddy. The petition had received much publicity, and an interview was set up to discuss the possibility of a Philadelphia area appearance. I was nervous, and to make matters worse, this was the first interview I had ever done. Geddy could tell I was a big fan as I stood before him wearing a Rush tour shirt, trying not to drop my tape recorder. He was as relaxed as I was nervous, sitting on a couch drinking a glass of Chivas Regal as he said, "Don't worry Philly, we'll be playing at the Spectrum in September." Geddy also restated his prediction that the Islanders would beat the Philadelphia Flyers in the Stanley Cup play-offs. The game was set on a familiar date to 'Caress Of Steel' fans, May 24. Geddy was right.

The band then headed to Europe for another fullyfledged tour of the old continent. Gigs in Scotland and London were recorded for use on the live album. The reception from the British fans was intense and proof of their new-found celebrity came when the UK record company threw a big party for them to celebrate the end of the tour. With a five-month tour in the bag it was now time to head back home for some much needed rest and relaxation.

After a brief rest, the band decided to lend a helping hand to their friends and labelmates, Max Webster. In return, Pye Dubois, Webster's nonperforming lyricist would give Rush the idea for one of their biggest songs to date. But more on that, just a few miles downstream.

While Alex, Geddy and Neil had never really liked jamming with other musicians, the members of Max Webster were an exception. They found that playing with Webster was an enjoyable, rewarding experience. Max's off the wall humour and solid musicianship complemented Rush's more controlled sound. Webster had opened quite a few dates on the Permanent Waves Tour and the bands played together in an informal setting at many a soundcheck. When Webster's Kim Mitchell suggested that the two groups get together in a recording studio for a battle of the bands everyone agreed. Appropriately the song (a favourite jamming number for Rush and Max Webster) was 'Battlescar'. "We set up both bands live," recalled Geddy, "and we had this producer Jack Richardson standing in the middle with a baton, sort of conducting us. We were all in a circle and he was in the middle, and we just recorded the tune."

Well actually not just recorded. Neil recalled that they had the song down after the third or fourth take, but everyone was enjoying themselves so much that they did it about 40 times.

The result is a delightful mix of two styles. Max Webster can be heard in the off the wall time changes. Rush are apparent in Geddy's screeching vocals. They recall some of his earliest work with the band but perhaps the best synthesis is achieved on the 'wall of drums' sound.

Their good turn to Max Webster paid off in spades when Pye Dubois gave Neil the basis for what eventually became 'Tom Sawyer'. Originally titled 'Louis The Warrior', the song's streetwise character was a different turn for the band and much appreciated.

Alex, Geddy and Neil then took a few weeks to go off by themselves and work on new material. 'The Camera Eye' was developed first, followed by 'Red Barchetta', 'Tom Sawyer', 'YYZ' and 'Limelight'. As August drew to a close, they paid a return visit to Phase One Studios to lay down demo tracks with Terry Brown. An initial stab at 'Witch Hunt' was also recorded. Left aside this time was a softer piece based on Thomas Hardy entitled 'Wessex Tales'. Much like 'Sir Gawain And The Green Knight', it did not sit comfortably with the direction in which the band was now moving.

That direction was an extension of 'Permanent Waves'. Rush were very comfortable with their efforts to meet the 1980s head on. They wanted to continue to streamline their approach and they were also fascinated by the renewed emphasis on rhythm in popular music as seen in the work of artists as diverse as Talking Heads, Third World and Bob Marley.

As was now a band tradition, some of the new material would be tested on a brief tour. A two-week sprint up the East Coast of the US would get Rush back into shape for 'Moving Pictures'. The first date was September 11, in Hampton, Virginia. As soon as I knew the itinerary, cheques were written and letters sent to coliseums from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Massachusetts.

The band were a little loose as they performed 'Tom Sawyer' and 'Limelight' for the very first time on a lighted stage. While 'Limelight' sounded much like its recorded version, 'Tom Sawyer' was hopeful, yet discontent. Played in a faster tempo, it did not have the rhythmic punch of the completed version of the song.

The Coliseum should have been called Fort Hampton on September 11, because the security was so intense. "If you stand up one more time, I'm gonna throw you the fuck out of here," shouted the power-hungry guard from the front of the stage. I was the only person remotely getting into the music, so they must have thought I was a major security threat because 10 police officers then lined the front of the stage, which was low to the ground.

The rest of the audience sat in a stoned stupor as I argued with the cops who were now blocking my view of the band. "I didn't drive nine hours to look at your ugly face," I shouted during the acoustic opening of 'The Trees'. A minute later Alex stopped playing, came up to the front of the stage and yelled, "You guards get the fuck away from here! If he wants to stand, leave him alone!" All the security left the stage front as I rocked out for the rest of the night.

By the end of the tour 'Tom Sawyer' was much shorter in length. A lot of the jamming that had characterised the song in its Hampton performances was eliminated. The rhythmic drive was much clearer, although it still had an amphetamine-like tempo.

On September 25, Rush made their long awaited Philadelphia appearance. In a strange coincidence a member of Led Zeppelin, the band that had most influenced Rush in their early years, died that day. John Bonham's pounding drum style had given Zeppelin the strong bottom that Page, Plant and Jones had built upon. The soaking wet crowd at the sold-out show were subdued. Rush played a weak set. Bruised and sullen storm clouds obscured the light of this day. Their performance was still tentative and lacked the fire they had at the Virginia concert.

After the show I met Alex and Neil for the first time. I was backstage to present all the petitions we had gathered asking for the band to play in Philadelphia. At the time it was a disheartening experience. Rush's growing success had forced them to adopt a kind of protective armour when dealing with record and radio industry types. As far as they were concerned at the time, that's exactly what I was. The worst moment came when Neil was looking at the petitions and spotted a bogus name. He called out, "Hey Geddy, look Janis Joplin wants us to play Philadelphia." Geddy and Alex tried to be as friendly as possible, but it was pretty obvious that their hearts were not in it. Although I was later to understand the pressures they were under and saw how they must have felt, it was an upsetting night for me. I had worked my ass off on the petition drive and it had been made a joke of. The band left the petitions behind as they moved on to another city.

I was so upset that I almost didn't make the trek to Springfield, Massachusetts. But on September 28, there I was in the front row, complete with a large box containing the petitions. Rush restored my faith as they put on a tremendous concert. Geddy threw me his pick, which I caught at the end of 'Xanadu'. During the encore I vented some frustration as the lighted stage became flooded with the Philadelphia petitions.

On September 30, in Allentown, before another great show, one of the Rush crew members told me that the band's tour bus had been broken into while in the City of Brotherly Love, Philly. Many personal items had been stolen.

The trio spent much of October and November in Le Studio recording 'Moving Pictures'. While the music was an extension of many of the ideas developed on 'Permanent Waves', the album had a darker thematic tone.

Paradoxically, their mass success had in a way upset the band. Technically it was another step forward. The band were in for the start of the digital age. 'Moving Pictures' was one of the first rock albums that was digitally mixed and mastered. As Alex said with "most of the music written, arranged, rehearsed and refined and all the rough edges smoothed out..." the initial process of laying down the basic tracks was made much easier.

The inspiration for the songs came from their experiences of travel, dislocation and fame. Although there is much darkness on the album, there are several light spots, notably 'YYZ', pronounced Y-Y-Zed.

"We really had a strong idea to do a shorter, more concise instrumental that was actually a song with verses and a chorus, and so on, a la Weather Report," Neil says. The jazz-rock fusion influence had become increasingly important to the band's sound.

The title 'YYZ' refers to Toronto International Airport. It's the code that is used by the pilots and the control tower. The introduction to the song is actually the Morse code readout for 'YYZ'. "There are parts of that song," says Neil, "that are semi-evocative of the feelings that are engendered when you are going to the airport to leave. You are sort of feeling edgy and tense because you are having to leave home and go to work, and you are thinking that you are half at home and half away. It's a very transitional period, and you always have a sense of infinite possibilities at the airport. You can change your mind and fly anywhere in the world, and all of a sudden, you are not in Toronto any more, you are in the world. An airport really should not be said to be (in) a city, because it never is. It's always a crossroad. And that of course is a big part of the song. We tried to work a lot of the exotic nature of the airport in there. And the big sappy instrumental bridge in the middle that is really orchestrated, really emotional, really rich, is of course again half symbolising the tremendous emotional impact of coming home."

'Witch Hunt' was designed as the album's production number. Hugh Syme came in to play synthesizer again. This tune featured a strong melding of musical and Lyrical themes. "When Alex and I first received those lyrics," said Geddy, "the scene was so vivid. I mean those lyrics are very cinematic; they are very visual. You read through it, and you have a clear-cut picture of the scene that is going on and we sat down and said 'okay, let's try to capture that imagery that the lyrics evoke. "We worked very carefully with that in mind... we looked at it very cinematically, which we've done in the past, but this time we did it totally."

Because 'Witch Hunt' had so captured their imagination, the band were especially painstaking in their recording of the tune. They re-worked it over and over again until they had it right. Eventually they were to play it live, even though they had never intended to perform it onstage beneath a flickering light.

The amount of work put into 'Witch Hunt' is best illustrated in the introduction when a vigilante mob is heard being stirred up by a fanatic of one sort or another. It is purposely mixed so that you cannot understand what is being said, but the tenor of the situation, the hatred, the ill-will, and the fear comes through loud and clear. This effect was created by emptying the studio (in the middle of a snowy night) of production staff, road crew and band, and depositing everyone in the cold outside the isolated facility. With tape recorders rolling, Neil gave his best fanatic's speech, gradually getting more and more whipped up as everyone involved let themselves get carried away. The compact disc version of the recording brings this image into perspective with a stark clarity.

In sharp contrast to the work put into 'Witch Hunt', 'Red Barchetta' was put down in one take.

The new technology was most evident in the increased use of keyboards. Geddy found that his taking on another instrument was changing his musical approach. "When you get a new instrument, it's like starting all over again," he says. Geddy did more chordal work and on 'The Camera Eye' there was no electric bass on half the song. Instead the tune was carried by synths and drums. The band were working in the electro-pop and ska influences that Alex, Geddy and Neil were interested in. A similar approach was used on 'Vital Signs'.

Terry recalled, "When we entered Le Studio, I had a really good idea of what we were going for, because they played two tunes live on the road. All four of us had so much knowledge of the tunes." Terry talked about how the band were able to have more impact without compromising their sound. 'Even though it's got a lot of in-depth meaning, lyrically it's up to Neil's usual standards. 'Pictures' is presented in such a way that it's immediately accessible to radio... or DJs, even though they don't have to get into the lyrics to understand it. It can be enjoyed on a more superficial level, which I think makes a big difference."

Terry was also proud of the rhythmic innovations, especially the fact... "that on 'Moving Pictures' we definitely reached a point where the drum sound was by far the best we ever had."

'Moving Pictures' starts in high sonic gear. The sound is crisp as drums and synth slip into a groove on 'Tom Sawyer'. The tune is smooth, with heavy metal spit and spirit thrown in. Neil's drumming is amazing, driving 'Tom Sawyer' onward like a fast current. As Geddy sings of the modern day warrior with 'mean, mean pride', Neil relentlessly propels the song forward. His drum fills are short yet crammed with detail. The song's idealised image of a rock musician is leavened by the last verse when the warrior exits and 'Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, the energy you trade, he gets right on to, the friction of the day.'

This seems to be a direct answer to the most hard-driving, negative criticism that was ever written about the band and Neil specifically. Georgia Christgau wrote in a 1977 issue of Circus magazine: "Today they promote philosophy too (filled) with self-inflated thought (one) gets from too many nights in front of a throng; 'I'm going to get my money out of you fuckers if it takes two more years'." But beyond any thematic message, the song proved that the band could rock as hard as anyone and incorporate even more complex ideas.

The short phrase during the chorus 'The River' is a great way of tying in the original Tom Sawyer with his modern day counterpart. By the way, the MiniMoog synth pattern during the middle came from Neil who remembered a part that Geddy used to test his Mini-Moog in soundcheck.

Another footnote. "He knows changes aren't permanent, but change is..." is a far cry from "the more things change... the more they stay the same."

'Red Barchetta' is inspired by 'A Nice Morning Drive', a short story by Richard Foster dealing with familiar Rush themes... the individual against society in a sci-fi setting. But the music and Lyrics are much more concise. On an earlier Rush album this could have been a side-long epic. Here it is boiled down to six minutes. Also bringing it down to earth is the car symbol, an archetypical rock and roll icon.

'YYZ' begins with the Morse code signal calling the band home as Neil taps the message out on his crotal. There is so much going on in this song that it takes many listens to hear all of the musical elements employed. Tough guitar leads, funky bass playing and more incredible drum work shoot back and forth. Neil gets his unique sound by smashing a piece of plywood against a chair.

'Limelight' opens with a 'Fly By Night' power riff five years on. This could have been an early Rush metallic tune, but there's a much more accomplished band playing here. Neil is going for the audience's jugular on this one: it's about as frank as you can get. Neil and Geddy have both said that this song is not cruel, but that it is honest. It is both. Self-pity mingles with self-examination of the players, performers, portrayers, and the play itself. The song explains what it must have been like for the band at the hundreds of meetings with people they could not know, who knew all about them. Neil talked about the effects of fame. "You watch somebody play a fa�ade for so long; the fa�ade becomes reality."

'The Camera Eye' focuses on a lighter mood in its attempt to capture what was perhaps the most unique talent of a half-forgotten, early 20th Century American writer. John Dos Passos is not ranked highly in the canon of literature nowadays, but he helped to expand the limits of the novel much like Rush were trying to do with music. And this song, more than any essay about Dos Passos, captures his wide-eyed sense of wonder and ability to see the magic of life. It describes that feeling of place that one can experience in New York or London or any town anywhere that makes each locale unique, and gives it a character and quality of its own.

'Witch Hunt' is part three of what would become the fear trilogy. Parts two and one would come out on subsequent albums. The music paints a cinematic picture while ignorance, prejudice and fear walk hand in hand.

The final song is 'Vital Signs', a tune that introduces a new fascination with the oncoming computer age, not in the abstract, but in the reality that was confronting the band. At the same time the song reprises many of the album's other themes. The inability to absorb all the events flashing by and the struggle to achieve balance. 'Leave out the fiction/ The fact is/ This friction/ Will only be worn by persistence/ Leave out conditions/ Courageous convictions/ Will drag the dream into existence.'

With 'Moving Pictures' recorded, the band ran into trouble once again over album design. Hugh's cover concept was his most amusing to date, but it was also expensive, and Mercury would not pay the extra cost. So Rush ended up spending $9,000 of their own money to ensure the cover's quality.

The LP was released in February 1981, and for the first time a Rush recording became a must-play item on album oriented radio stations. It took off immediately, garnering heavy airplay on 98 per cent of the stations.

As these things often turn out, the band's management chose a different breakout song. David Marsden says, "The first time I heard 'Tom Sawyer'... I picked it out right away, because that to me is one track that shows their growth pattern more than anything else on 'Moving Pictures'. I think its composition, its writing... 'Tom Sawyer' lyrically... it's a very contemporary lyric there. There is nothing pretentious about it. You go back to 'Xanadu' and it's a very pretentious thing, but 'Tom Sawyer is not... it is good music. It talks about today... that to me more than anything else exemplifies the growth pattern of Rush. Interestingly enough, Ray Danniels told me that it wouldn't be a hit. He said 'Limelight' is the hit." They were both hits!

I headed out to Kalamazoo, Michigan, on February 19, to catch Rush as they got their show ready for the 'Moving Pictures' tour. In the months since I had met them in Philadelphia, I had begun doing interviews for NBC's Source Radio Network. Wing's Stadium was empty except for the band and crew in the early afternoon, and as I walked into the hall I could hear the band playing. I took a seat at the side of the stage and watched them work their way through the new set. Crew members scurried around ironing the bugs out of the new equipment as I saw the trio perform the musical pictures 'Vital Signs' and 'The Camera Eye' for the first time. It was different from a concert performance because the sound engineer was testing the PA system. He might turn down the bass, guitar, drums and synthesizers during 'Tom Sawyer' so all you could hear out in the hall was what sounded like Geddy singing a cappella.

When the sun went down, I got a chance to see the show exactly as the band would play it on tour, a complete concert. The missing element was the audience. Howard manned his battery of lights as Alex, Geddy and Neil blasted through the set. They took a few more chances than they would in front of a live audience as they tried to perfect their approach to the material. After seeing a two-hour-plus performance, I was surprised when they launched into the set once again. This was the last night before the tour began and they worked late into the evening playing the show over and over, trying to get it in the best possible shape for opening night.

During a break in rehearsal, Geddy talked about the factors that were keeping the band together. "We all have a very strong unified cause. We all think alike when it comes to our music, and we all enjoy what we do a lot. We've never had any reason to stop, because our music is still interesting for us to play. There are still a lot of barriers to break through in learning and playing as musicians. They are very tight-knit personally as friends. When you know what you want to do, it's easier to withstand all the outside pressures. We also try to keep a kind of low-key lifestyle on the road. Because of this, we are not as open to the cracking up that many bands are."

To make life easier for themselves, the band cut down their touring schedule. The Moving Pictures Tour would last six months. While this still far outpaced most bands on the road at the time, it was a considerable relief to Rush. The guys in the band were in their late twenties and it was not possible for them to play three hundred nights a year any more. But since they were playing larger halls they would make more money than ever before.

Geddy also talked about the extra challenges that his ever increasing keyboard work posed when the band tried to translate this to the stage. "It's always a challenge," said Geddy. "The whole idea of being a musician is to keep getting better and to keep putting challenges in front of you so that you improve every aspect of your musicianship. Being a bass player alone is challenge enough, but playing other instruments gives me a better all-around view of what music is. I learn more from having these different points of view. It helps me in writing too, because I start thinking about my music and writing in different ways. As a bass player you are more concerned with rhythm, where with keyboards you concentrate on melody. Playing these two different types of instruments increases my knowledge of music."

The next night Max Webster warmed up the audience in the rowdy college town where Gibson guitars are made. They did a powerful version of 'Battlescar' that went over well with the fired-up audience. This was the kind of crowd that had been listening to Rush for years. The audience knew that Alex, Geddy and Neil could deliver and they were not disappointed. The new material was well received. Older songs benefited from their increased musicianship, but some of the longer epics had to be scaled back in size. Both 'Hemispheres' and '2112' were only performed in part. In a weaker band this would have been a problem. '2112' had really worked for Rush onstage, and it would have been understandable if like The Outlaws with 'Green Grass And High Tides' they had performed it in full for their audience for years on end. But the trio knew they had to progress.

As the tour progressed I managed to catch the band in Louisville, Kentucky, Dayton, Ohio and Binghamton, New York. The more time they spent on the road, the better they sounded. Every date was sold out.

One week I managed to catch Rush two nights at the Capitol Centre outside Washington, DC, Madison Square Garden, Nassau County Coliseum and capped it all off with a show at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.

The Garden show was a particular highlight for the band. They had sold-out the biggest hall in New York City. The only drawback was that the circus was in town and the backstage area smelled of animal droppings!

I began to get to know the band better during this tour. They had heard my work on the radio and apparently liked it, so our relationship was not quite so formal now. Geddy greeted me at the Capitol Centre by saying, "It's Bill Banasiewicz, whose name rhymes with Manashevitz (wine)."

An extra musical highlight of the tour (that would later have several musical consequences) came in early April when the band accepted an invitation to watch the launching of the first space shuttle. The group arrived at Cape Canaveral on a day off. But when the mission was scrubbed because of technical problems, a little bit of tricky scheduling had to be done. The band boarded a plane for a show in Dallas. The launch was rescheduled for April 12, so the band flew back to Florida. This time the launch went off without a hitch. Neil described the lift-off as a once in-a-lifetime experience. One interesting sidelight: the area where they watched the shuttle take off was called Red Sector A. Once the shuttle was in the sky it was time to head back to Texas for another show.

While the tour was going even better than expected for the band, radio airplay and record sales were even more encouraging. Stations latched onto 'Tom Sawyer', 'Limelight' and then 'Red Barchetta', playing them for months on end. 'Moving Pictures' pushed up to the number three spot on the Billboard album charts, remaining there for four weeks. And this was all during a real downturn in the music industry. Established touring bands were cancelling dates and playing smaller halls. Some acts that had achieved gold and platinum records for years were selling less than half their previous totals. Rush became the only band to chalk up three US platinum albums that year. 'Moving Pictures', 'All The World's A Stage' and '2112' all passed the million in sales mark. Rush also received a Grammy nomination for 'YYZ' as best rock instrumental. Individually, Alex, Geddy and Neil found themselves topping just about every readers' poll around as best musicians on their respective instruments, as well as group honours. It was a heady time for the band. The success of 'Permanent Waves' had seemed incredible, and now they were swimming in a much larger ocean.

The one negative event of the period came when Max Webster broke up. Webster had been gaining popularity in the area that launched Rush, the Midwest, but they were not able to deal with their growing success and they parted ways. Rush had been really pulling for Max Webster and they enjoyed exposing new talent, not to mention the fun of soundcheck jams. The split upset the band and crew. Max Webster were soon replaced as the opening act by another Toronto Band, FM. FM also complemented Rush very well and soon began to make appearances at soundchecks.

I caught the last two dates of the tour at the Alpine Valley Amphitheatre in Wisconsin on the Fourth of July weekend. This concert site was at a resort that was literally in the middle of nowhere. The parking lot outside was filled with Rush fans from Chicago who had driven a hundred miles to see Rush. It was a rowdy few days. Fireworks were shooting off outside the entrance to the outdoor theatre, and hundreds of people were camping outside the parking lot.

But while the audience were ready to celebrate the holiday, the road crew and band were glad that the tour was almost over. Everyone looked tired, and there was much talk of going home and spending time with family and friends.

Geddy looked back at the long road the band had travelled before the soundcheck on July 4. "It was the best tour we have ever done from every aspect," he said. "It was the most successful and we played well on a consistent basis. It doesn't even compare to some of our earlier tours. In a way they were nightmare tours. It's such a whole different world now. In '74 or '75 we were a struggling opening act. You can't even compare that to the tours we are doing now. I mean the quality of life is so much better. At the same time it's nice that the tour is just about over. At the end of a tour you always have that kind of bittersweet feeling. You are tired and you want to go home, but part of you wants to keep going. That feeling goes away quick, though."

The band had been having success with their soundcheck work as Geddy explained: "As the tour grows the areas we left open to jam on during the show started to get filled in; it became structured. We're just creatures of structure. We always fall into that. We've been starting to have some very interesting soundchecks lately. It's a very satisfying part of the day really, especially when you have been into a tour as long as this one, because the set has become so structured. It's nice when we get together in soundcheck to open up, and loosen up, and experiment in new things. Most of the time you forget what you write there, but when the jams start to get interesting it's a sign that your brain is getting ready to start working on some new material. So I think we will all do some writing at home this summer." Soundman Jon Erickson had been taping the soundchecks so ideas would not be lost.

But first there was the long-delayed live album. The band already had 50 reels of tape from the previous tour and they had recorded more dates on their latest swing through North America. "We plan on mixing the dates from last year's English tour and the material from Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Edmonton," Geddy told me. "On this tour we wanted to record shows from the beginning of the tour when we were fresh, and some dates towards the end to see the differences in the confidence of our playing." The Montreal date was shot for a concert film. I urged Geddy to put 'Cygnus X-1' on the upcoming live disc. He said that it was recorded in England, but he didn't know what songs would be used.

Geddy ended the interview by lamenting the fact that part of his holiday would be upset by the baseball strike, since he had looked forward to following the season closely. Ironically his comments would run on the radio the day the strike was settled.

Later that afternoon, during soundcheck, Geddy walked up to his mike and said, "Well, hello! It's good to see you again, and what can we play for you today?" I began to look around to see who Geddy was talking to, but there was nobody else in the amphitheatre. Then suddenly the band wheeled into 'Cygnus X-1'. The air was swallowed by the music's fearsome force. The sound and fury of 'Cygnus' live drowned my heart. The impromptu version ended as the road crew began covering Neil with large curtains while he was still playing.

The band had the next month and a half off. Then in September, even though all three were supposed to be concentrating on the in-concert record, they found themselves writing new material. It was beginning to look like a repeat of what happened when they decided to shelve a live record the year before. But this time everyone realised that it could not be delayed. There was the matter of the concert film that had been set to be released with the record. Plus the band was itching to make another change in direction, and it would be a good time to release an album that chronicled their development since 'All The World's A Stage'.

While Rush had been frustrated during the mixing of the first live set, they thought it would go differently the second time around. The trio were sure they would be happier with their playing, and to a degree had forgotten how little they had enjoyed the polishing process on the 'Stage' record.

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