A tribute concert celebrating the legacy of late Canadian music icon Gordon Lightfoot, who passed away last May, took place last Thursday night at Massey Hall in Toronto and Rush's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson made a surprise guest appearance:
... Lee and Lifeson, billed on the private performer rundown and setlist only as "L+L," were backed by Canadian Music Hall of Famers (and the evening's house band) Blue Rodeo on Lightfoot's song "The Way I Feel," complete with an acoustic guitar solo from Lifeson. ... "It was important for us to pay tribute to Gordon," Lee told Variety. "Not being folk or pop artists, Alex and I were looking for one of Gordon's songs that might better suit our style of play and we found that in 'The Way I Feel.' Its structure was loose and more open to interpretation than many of his more popular tunes." ... "After the gig, Gordon's daughter Meredith [Moon] said to us, 'Leave it to Rush to make 'The Way I Feel' sound prog,' so I think we succeeded," Lee added. Lee and Lifeson also came out for the ensemble finale, "Summerside of Life," featuring all of the evening's performers ...
Geddy Lee posted some photos from the evening's festivities to his Instagram along with the following caption:
On Thursday evening at Massey Hall in Toronto, both Alex and myself had the profound pleasure of paying tribute to a true Canadian musical legend, Gordon Lightfoot. A huge thank you to the gracious members of Blue Rodeo for sharing their stage and prodigious talents with us both- a tremendous evening full of compelling performances and warm remembrances. An honour to be there. ...
You can watch some fan-shot video of the performance below or on YouTube.
Despite Geddy Lee's My Effin' Life: In Conversation spoken word tour ending this past December, Ged announced last month that he'd be doing a special one-off show at the Grand Théâtre de Québec as part of the Quebec City Summer Festival on July 13th at 1PM. Due to the first show selling so well, he decided to add a second show taking place shortly after the first at 4PM. The shows will take place in the 500-seat Salle Octave-Crémazie room, and some VIP tickets that include an autographed copy of his memoir have been made available (although there aren't many left). Tickets are $57 CAD ($140 VIP) and are on sale at this location while they last. There aren't a lot of details yet, but from the information available, it looks like the shows will be similar to Geddy's prior appearances, with a guest interviewer, Fan Q&A and fans receiving a copy of the book.
Reader Stephen T dug up a Rush reference in a 1982 video game for the Apple II from Continental Software called Guardian. The introductory screen shows the following text:
The year is 2112.
The high priests of the SOLAR FEDERATION
have entrusted you with the sacred
EMERALD of SYRINX,
a treasure so valuable that the various
enemies of the universe would kill you
for it, given the chance.
You are the ...
GUARDIAN
You can watch a play through of the game on YouTube here.
Triumph front-man Rik Emmett was recently interviewed by Sonic Perspectives' Rodrigo Altaf to talk about his recently released solo compilation album Diamonds, among other subjects. Back in 2016 he had Rush's Alex Lifeson and Dream Theater's James LaBrie guest on his RESolution 9 side project, and he spoke at length about that experience, saying the following:
.. I gotta tell you Rodrigo that was probably one of the greatest days in the studio of my life. Because I got to have Alex lifeson show up in the morning and work with him. And then I had a lunch brought in and then James showed up and we had lunch together and we did the photo shoot and all the things that you have to do. Then Alex left and then James and me sang the stuff in the afternoon and it was incredible. It was just so much fun and so rewarding to get to work with artists that are not just here [gestures down low with hand], they're here [gestures with hand held high]. These artists are accustomed to working at an extremely high level. And Alex is a sweetheart of a human being with a great sense of humor and it was the first time I'd really got a chance to meet James and spend time with him ...
You can watch that entire interview on YouTube here.
The Rushfans YouTube channel is back after a brief hiatus, and they've uploaded a couple of new Rush Roundtable videos over the past week or two where they discuss Vapor Trails track by track. They've covered both One Little Victory and Ceiling Unlimited, and will cover Ghost Rider next.
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend!
