Rush

(please excuse this non-ED recovery post for me to talk reflect on something super important to me!)

 

I want you to think of the one thing that you go to when life gets tough.  When nasty stuff is really going on, when you feel like you cannot take one more thing on your plate, but life still throws it at you.  What is it?  Maybe it’s going to a favorite place, or thinking of that place.  Maybe it’s a sport – running, walking, meditating, training.  Or maybe it’s reading, watching terrible TV, or intelligent TV like PBS and listening to NPR.  Whatever it is, that’s what you go to when you just need to deal.

That’s what Rush is to me.

I’ve been picked on relentlessly since falling for this band when I was 10.  I was too young to be into a serious band.  It would just be a phase, and my obsession was silly because I was just a kid.  How could I stand Geddy’s voice?  How could I, a girl and later a woman, like a band such as Rush?  How could something as simple as music be so important to me?  They are after all just … songs.

But Rush is my thing when life is unbearable, or when life is wonderful.  When I’ve had a terrible day at work or I’ve dealt with tough people.  Or when I had to celebrate.  When I’m fighting with my spouse, a friend or family member.  When I’m bored, or just down for no reason.  I go to Rush.

It happened to me just the other day – I was driving somewhere and just feeling “blah” when I knew I should have been anything but.  I found my Permanent Waves CD in my handbag and put it in.  I listened to Jacobs Ladder and immediately connected the lyrics to my current feelings.  I’ve been listening to that song for 20 years and here I was finding new meaning in it.  This happens more times than I can count.

As their last major tour has ended, I’ve been thinking a lot about the memories I’ve made around Rush and how they have been in the fabric of my life (sorry cotton, though you’re cool too!)  There are literally thousands of memories that I can barely recall, but so many stand out.  So here, if you will, are the best of the best – the ones that have shaped my life, have made Rush what they are to me.

Here’s to Rush!

Here’s to..

-          Stealing my sisters’ Roll the Bones and Counterparts tapes, my first taste of Rush, and being instantly being hooked. 

-          To buying the back catalog from then on, saving the receipts of my purchases for scrapbooking because it was that special.

-          To hearing on the radio (pre-internet!) when the new Rush album was coming out, and listening to the title track Test for Echo in the car as my mother drove us around town doing errands.  I made her turn it up just for me.

-          To missing shows during those days in the 90’s because I was too young and had no one to go with (and being SO UPSET about that)

-          To the one night for the T4E tour where I sat home and listened to the radio special going on before the show.  To taping (yes, cassette) the whole thing as they played clips from all their albums – my first time hearing Xanadu – and replaying that cassette over and over again for years to come until I purchased the albums

-          To posters on my walls and downloading pictures from AOL.com in the late 90s.

-          To all the message boards – geddylee.net, rush.net, therushforum.com and the never joined Counterparts album because of its mean reputation (ha!)

-          To meeting LIFELONG FRIENDS on those boards – some who I have met, others who I never have, but realizing that a shared bond over a band can lead to true friendship.

-          To walking after school to my job in the public library, with Discman in hand, listening to Different Stages.

-          To having my father purchase Piano/Vocal/Guitar Rush books just so I could learn the piano/synth parts to songs like Subdivisions

-          To using every excuse ever to use a Rush song or lyric in English class to analyze as a poem

-          Here’s to being in college, finding out about Vapor Trails and the upcoming tour – would I finally get to see them live?  Yes!  Here’s to buying that ticket online from my shitty college computer with the slowest dialup!

-          To that first show – where I simply could not believe I was there.

-          To convincing my tennis coach to let me skip a match to see them a second time in Rochester at the last minute.

-          To getting pulled over on the way home from that Rochester show because I didn’t dim my lights.  The cop asked me where I was coming from and I told him the Rush show in Rochester and instead of issuing me a ticket, he just asked “how was it??” 

-          Here’s to winning (WINNING) front row tickets by solving a radio riddle that 4 people before me on the phone failed to solve.  I don’t remember screaming into the phone when told I won, but I must have as my dad came running into my bedroom because he thought something was terribly wrong.

-          (by the way, I still have the piece of paper I wrote the riddle answers down on and it says “Closer, summertime blues, Trees, for what it’s worth, Manhattan project, making memories”)

-          Here’s to that front row show that I shared with none other than a fellow TRF (The Rush Forum) fan who was coming all the way from Australia for his first Rush shows EVER.  Hi Haddon!

-          Here’s to LUVGEDDY license plates, signs, hearing my favorite Rush song live (Mission)

-          To having my photo on Rush.com at least twice

-          To random upgrades, meeting string ensembles, bus drivers, roadies. 

-          To being GIVEN an inside ticket one time when all I had were lawn tickets.  The guy was trying to sell an extra at the gate and heard me talking to EVERYONE about Rush – he was so impressed with my knowledge that when he couldn’t sell the ticket, he literally just gave it to me.  I went from lawn to 25^th row. 

-          Here’s to seeing Rush as close as an hour away, states away, in Canada, in their hometown and flying across country.

-          To sending items to the venue in advance with a SASE and later getting them returned to me autographed and addressed to me.

-          To hanging out at an entrance gate as SPAC one time with a couple other fans and realizing that the gate was where the band went into the arena.  I figured this out when Neil drove right by on his motorcycle – if I had put my arm out, I could have touched him.  I literally just froze.

-          Here’s to going to shows alone and meeting friends there, or meeting up with friends.  With Rush, I am never alone.  We’re like one big family reunion, like cousins who have never met. 

Many have said to me they can’t believe I have not met the band.  Or that I have been to so many shows that I must be right up there with the biggest fans.  The truth is, all this pales in comparison to others experiences.  It doesn’t make me less of a fan, and if anything else, these are my experiences – I own these memories and it has shaped my Rush life.  I would never trade any of this.

So this is why I am bittersweet about the tour.  It’s like taking away your favorite book or the activity you love.  And I know this might not be the true end, and I still have all the music and videos (with more to come).