Music Appreciation 101: 'A Farewell To Kings'

Following the amazing success of their '2112' album and a grueling 18 month tour to support it, the band decided to skip taking a break and get right back into the studio to record their 5th album. On the advice of producer Terry Brown, the group convened in Rockfield studios in Wales. This would be their first experience recording outside the safe confines of their beloved Toronto and it would prove to be a valuable lesson in recording. The beaucolic setting and relaxed atmosphere would serve to make the song writing and recording less stressful and more creative.
While '2112' had been an experiment that worked on all levels, the music they would produce for this album would go beyond even that. The marathon tour for '2112' had them playing and refining their instrumental skills and broadening their approach to writing.
'A Farewell To Kings' would be the first of many changes the band would go through and it was solid step in the direction that would make them a cult favorite for decades to come.
The members all chose to add new instruments to their arsenals which would ultimately expand their sound. Geddy added more keyboard textures, Alex added a synth pedal and Neil added a variety of percussion elements that immediately gave the band a more orchestral sound and feel.
They were virtually reinventing themselves into the mold that would come to be the hallmark of their musical career as a band. Never content with resting too long on a specific sound or on their last success, they charted a new course in writing that would surpass the success of '2112'.
'2112' was an amazing album but the music, while technically challenging, followed some very basic ideas as far as music theory was concerned.
I must pause and say that as a musician, I learned every song on '2112' on guitar and apart from how fast some of the songs were, it was relatively easy to learn in that it followed the rules I had learned about theory.
'A Farewell To Kings' exploded those rules and had them playing not only in odd times but in odd keys and with a fair amount of key changes that left me in the dust. It was truly experimental in its approach and a giant leap forward in their writing.
While 2112 may have been their breakthrough album, it was AFTK that set them on the path to eternal glory in the annals of rock music.
The presence of 'Closer To The Heart' and 'Xanadu' cemented their place both on the radio and in the hearts of their faithful fan base.
My own personal favorite is a gem called 'Cygnus X-1', a tale of space travel into a black hole and the invention of what I like to call the 'mini epic' that would arise again on 'Permanent Waves' and 'Moving Pictures'.
'A Farewell To Kings' was the first of their true 'prog' records with grand themes and sweeping arrangements to go with them. The album was certified platinum quickly as they came into their own with this breakthrough album.
All in all, it was a solid album that increased their fan following and lent them even more credibility in the world of prog rock.

Lyrically Speaking Pt. 1

There are many levels to Neil Peart. There is the consummate professional known for his amazing skills as a drummer. There is also the shy, retiring man who wanted to be the best at what he did but decried any adulation for it. He was an introvert in the classical sense of the word and deeper still was the social critic who spun tales of the many and sundry ills of our modern world.

Above and beyond everything else he was known for, he was a writer, penning almost all of the lyrics for every Rush album from the second album right up to ‘Clockwork Angels, their final album. He was a veritable font of lyrical brilliance that seemed to have no end.

Album after album, beginning with ‘Fly By Night’, he began writing about the world around him in sometimes stark, uncomfortable terms. The early albums were filled with the imagery of fantasy and science fiction that he had devoured as a younger man with brief and beautiful paens to history interspersed as he honed his craft and his intellect grew.

His lyrical output seemed to have no bottom as he wove stories about a battle between gods in ‘Hemispheres’, a trip into a black hole with ‘Cygnus X-1’ and the dystopian future of ‘2112’.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, themes began to develop in his writing that would rise again and again. The theme of one man against the masses began to show up more and more often. His atheism came to the fore with examples of self reliance and self determination in songs like ‘Something For Nothing’ and ‘Anthem’.

He was growing as a writer and his voice was becoming more and more clear and pronounced as the years went by. 

One theme that popped up time and again was that one should always be true to oneself despite the pressure to do otherwise. He did more than write about that particular belief, he lived it every day of his life. He was not content to merely pay lip service to that line of thinking, he set an example that would be the hallmark of the band’s career and the overarching characteristic of his own life.

The dichotomy of his enormous impact on music and drumming and his need to retain some sense of privacy in his own life was never more obvious than after his daughter and first wife died within a year of each other. He withdrew from life and got onto his motorcycle and just rode until his heart healed and he could come out of the shell of pain and loss that had cocooned him.

He spent five long years on his bike trying to find a way to make sense of his personal tragedies and still remain a reasonably functioning member of society and his band.

He wrote constantly during this time as a form of catharsis but also to document his own journey of healing.

He published two books from that same period that laid bare the emotion he was feeling and chronicled the miles that passed by him.

Though he was unable to think about returning to drumming and music he never stopped writing. The sheer volume of his work both in the band and away from it presents a daunting challenge to explore fully. I decided to focus primarily on the writing he did in context of the band to gain a deeper understanding of the man and how he thought and felt about the world around him.

Starting with ‘Permanent Waves’ his writing became less fantastic and more based in the reality he was exposed to on a daily basis. Coupled with the fact that the band itself had chosen to turn away from the epic albums and themes of the past, his writing became more compact and concise. He was growing as a writer and had found a new voice with which to express himself.

The song “The Spirit Of Radio” was both a fond reminiscence of the way radio used to be in the early days as well as a scathing indictment of the corporate culture that was destroying the true artistry of music.

This was a new Neil. He was saying things that mattered now, not spinning yarns as he had done in the past.

His atheism was on display in the song ‘Free Will’ and he didn’t try to mask it or give it some flowery context in which to couch it. He came right out and said what he meant, 

‘You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice. If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill. I will choose a path that’s clear. I will choose free will.’

He was simply rejecting the notion of predestination for the self determination that he had touched on in earlier albums.

Speaking only for myself, I count this album as the precise moment when his maturity as a writer and social critic truly flowered and began to grow.

The very next album his voice was even stronger. ‘Moving Pictures’ exposed both the band’s music and Neil’s writing to a much wider audience. He spun one terrific yarn about a forbidden drive in a fast car in ‘Red Barchetta’ but stuck to pointing out what he saw as a furthering of the separation of humanity from itself in the songs ‘The Camera Eye’ and ‘Vital Signs’.

‘Witch Hunt’ was a dark expose’ on the dangers of groupthink and mob rule and what he saw as the worst parts of human behavior. Here was the social critic in full force, a voice that would become stronger as the years and the albums went by. ‘Tom Sawyer’ was an ode to youth in modern times. Gone was the young boy of Mark Twain's imagination. He had been replaced with a new arrogance and swagger, a youth who knew who he was and never bent to the will of others. He described in perfect detail how the youth of the early 80’s saw themselves.

“A modern day warrior mean, mean stride. Today’s Tom Sawyer mean, mean pride.”

He had captured the attitude of the youth of the time while not being critical of it per se. In much the same way Bowie had captured the spirit of the day in the song ‘Changes’ so too had Neil given a voice to the youth in the song.

It is at this point that I will end part one of this piece owing largely to the vast amount of lyrics this amazing man produced over the course of his forty years.

In part two, I will explore his later output and look closely at his ability to describe what was best and worst about the world around him.

Because It Happens...

Just a few, scant hours ago, I learned of the passing of Neil Peart. Known for his ardent love of privacy, I didn't even know he was battling brain cancer. I had come to accept that of the three members of Rush, he was the most private and the one I knew the least about, at least personally. I knew him through his drumming and his lyrics but he was so painfully shy, he could not enjoy the glamour of fame like so many other musicians did. He loved giving the world his music but he believed it should end there. He wanted his solitude and his privacy more than he wanted fame as every Rush fan knew. He sought to keep himself seperate from the glitz not because he was snobbish or ungrateful but because he had seen the toll that fame can exact from a person and chose instead to focus on why his audience truly loved him - his music.
When I saw the news of his death, it hit me quite hard. He was a titan in the music industry and a personal hero of mine. I was still a drummer when I discovered Rush and like every other drummer who had heard them, I too wanted to be Neil. I started with the 2112 album and began to learn all I could while at the same time, preaching the virtues of Rush to as many of my friends who would listen. In recent years, many of my friends have credited me as their first exposure to the band and are grateful for my insistence that they were the best band in the known universe.
When the news of his death hit social media, I had more than a dozen people leave posts or messages offering their condolences to me personally because they knew how much the band and the man meant to me.
The simple truth is that his death was personal to me. I had come to know, love and respect him through his music and his example. It was like losing a friend on many levels. Even though he was the most private member of the band, I still felt like I knew him a little better than the average fan because his lyrics were pieces of himself that he gave me and millions of fans like me. Neil's heart, mind and soul are in his lyrics if one only look closely enough. His Libertarianism is found in the song "Something for Nothing". His atheism is inside the song "Roll the Bones" and his love of adventure is nestled in the song 'Available Light", a song with a deeper personal meaning for me.
He spoke to me so many times through lyrics that I often felt he had glimpsed into my life and found those things I had hidden away from the world out of a sense of smbarrassment or a desire to leave them secreted for my own sanity.
The title for this blog in particular is taken from "Roll the Bones" and I think sums up how he most likely dealt with his illness, "Why are we here, because we're here. Why does it happen, because it happens." There was no rhyme or reason for what happened to him through the course of his life. After losing both his daughter and his first wife in less than a year, his life was utterly shattered and he went on a journey of healing on a motorcycle trip that spanned all of North America and some 55,000 miles as he learned to find his place in the world once more.
He came back to music and to drumming only after he could make some sort of sense of the tragedy he had endured. The final few albums from Rush were darker and more focused lyrically as Neil found a new voice lurking inside of himself. This new voice spoke of triumph over adversity and of climbing up from the darkness to emerge into the light as a changed person, ready to once again tackle life anew.
After learning of his death, I started putting together a playlist of what I thought were Neil's best monets as both a drummer and a lyricist but when the list swelled to more than 40 songs, I realized I couldn't quantify what was best or try to order it in any way, so profound was his impact on me. I chose instead to simply put the entire Rush song list on shuffle and try to process my grief at his loss.
He was a giant in a land of miniatures by comparison and no list of his 'best' would ever be possible. It was all best in my mind.
Farewell to a distant mentor, a living example of what a musician should be and the greatest drummer rock has ever known.
The 'Limelight' is not nearly so bright nor appealing today and the world of music has lost a champion for the belief that music as art should never be a commodity to be bought and sold like so much chattel.

Neil Peart 1952-2020 RIP

Music Appreciation 101: Rush - 'Presto'

For those of you familiar with the band, you know that change is the one constant that marked their continued success in the music business. Just when the critics thought they had the band figured out, they would change again, leaving many of them scratching their heads in either confusion or disbelief.
Their fans simply took it as the mark of a band always looking for something new or different and happily followed them into whatever new area into which they chose to venture.
This very thing happened again when the band released 'Presto' in November of 1989.
The album marked a return to more guitar driven arrangements and less reliance on synthesizers although there are synth textures used sparingly on the album.
Guitarist Alex Lifeson began using his myriad guitar tones and textures in ways that gave an slmost synth-like feel and atmosphere. After the synth heavy songs of the last four albums, it was the band's tentative steps back into guitar oriented arrangements and while the album does lack a certain cohesiveness of the pre-synth era, it was a solid return to what they were best at which was primarily power trio rock with Geddy Lee's soaring voice floating high above it all.
The track list starts with the only #1 hit from the album, 'Show Don't Tell' which showcased what was best about the band at heart. The song starts with Peart introducing an ethereal electronic drum pattern before the band blasts in with the signature lick and Lifeson firmly back at the helm of providing strong rhythm parts combining a sharp distorted tone with light and airy clean guitar that drives the song along well. The keys are heard but are used in much the same way that had been on the albums preceding 'Signals'. They were used for color and not substance in such a large degree heard in the previous albums.
Producer Ruper Hine wanted to make this album reflect what he said was "The best power trio of all time minus all those keyboards." The next track, 'Chain Lightning' has Lifeson playing a fairly dissonant guitar figure that lends itself well to the frenetic opening. The chorus features more of his patented use of effects as he outlines the chord progression with sweeping, lush chording. The solo is particularly noteworthy for the use of backwards guitar  in spots blended with a forward track added to it.
For me, I found so much to like in the songs and my personal standout moments were on 'Superconductor', 'The Pass' and 'Available Light', a song which would come to have a much deeper meaning for me in years to come.
'Superconductor' was a slap in the face of the "commercialism over talent" aspect of the music business. It was a straight ahead rocker with Lifeson once again proving his worth on guitar with playing that shone a white hot light on the song.
'The Pass' was a poignant and sometimes uncomfortable expose' on teen suicide that had Peart writing some of his most descriptive and revealing lyrics ever. Lee's plaintive cry, "Christ, what have you done?" is an emotional moment seldom heard on a Rush song. This was real. This was not some vague reference to something Peart had read, this was personal experience being sung beautifully and without being hidden beneath some secret meaning. It was almost hard to listen to because it was raw and harsh.
Other notable moments are 'Scars' which featured a complex and riveting drum pattern using electronic and acoustic drums that Peart would use parts of for his drum solo in the future.
At the time I first heard the album, I knew 'Available Light' was my favorite for many reasons, most of which were due to Lee's amazing vocal on the song but also because it featured a simple piano line. I thought I understood the lyrics Peart had provided but years later, they would come home so powerfully that they would affect my life.
In 2016, I suffered a stroke that nearly left me blind. I was unable to drive and could barely make my way around my own house because the stroke had hit me in my visual cortex, where vision is processed. For months, I tried to adapt to my new reality of reduced vision. My wife helped me make my world a little easier to deal with by adding more and brighter lights throughout my house. The stroke completely wiped out my peripheral vision and lacking that most basic part of my vision, I was declared legally blind and told I was forbidden from driving unless my brain could manage to wire around the damaged part. I took a visual field test every three months to determine whether the healing as progressing. I went through two tests and was still in the same shape. I became depressed that I might never go back to a "normal life" again. Driving is the most basic freedom of adulthood and I was no longer in that club. 
Deep in the depths of this depression, I was listening to 'Presto' and 'Available Light' came on. It was then that the lyrics finally made sense to me on a much more profound level. I realized that I had two choices - I could either let the depression take me and I would forever sink or I could live my life in the "available light" I still had. I decided to "Chase the light around the world, I want to look at life in the available light."
My brain, being the amazing organ it truly is, manged to finally wire around the damaged portion and restored just enough vision to make me safe to drive. It took nearly eighteen months but I could drive again and that fearful weight was lifted. I had never been so close to the edge before and without that song at just the right moment, I'm not sure I would have recovered as well as I did.
My own personal observations aside, this album was the first, shaky step back to being a power trio and while the writing is good and the playing outstanding, it fell flat in a few basic areas.

Perhaps the drawbacks to the album stemmed from the fact that the band had been away from their core sound for too long and this was the "shakedown cruise" they needed to get back on track. As is always the case with this band, their first step is always a bit wobbly but once they find their footing, they leave other bands in the dust. Their 1993 release, 'Counterparts' (see my review on this blog) would have the band back at full and potent strength with some of the heaviest music since "Moving Pictures".
Geddy himself said that 'Presto' was a reaction of his desire to no longer be so beholden to keyboards and computers and the music reflected it with its rough edges and simplicity of arrangements.
The album worked on almost all levels with a few weak spots but still an admirable entry into their catalog. Like 'Signals' this was a transitional album with exploration of a different kind and it is often left out of "Favorite Rush Album" lists.

All in the wrist

It goes without saying that Geddy Lee is one of the most accomplished bass players in the history of Rock music and has left a lasting mark on the industry that will continue long after he has left this world. His amazing dexterity and playing style have been marveled at for decades and his influence can be heard and felt in the generations following him.
His has always been a style that was formed from using a more melodic approach to composition and a much busier technique out of necessity. As a three piece rock combo, it was incumbent upon him to fill the missing gaps in the sonic structure of their music. Not having a dedicated rhythm guitarist to carry the melodic weight of the middle while Alex Lifeson played his virtuoso guitar leads, Geddy's style not only filled the missing space but created a new paradigm for bass players everywhere.
After they broke on the music scene it became clear that he was not a bass player who would simply hold the bottom end in place with the customary thump of playing root notes only as was so common in the rock music of the late seventies. There were notable exceptions of course in the music of Yes, The Who, and a few others but Rush began blazing a trail into an area of music that heretofore had not been explored. Yes, they were progressive rock but they had a much harder edge than most of their counterparts in the genre.
Instead of just relying on Alex to provide the melodic structure their music needed, Geddy picked up the baton and carried bass playing to a place that no one had even heard before. He was combining the roles of bass player and rhythm guitarist in one instrument with often times staggeringly brilliant results.
He was mind boggling to listen to as he shredded the bass in a way that defied understanding.  He was fierce and fearless on bass and in the early days the most common comment anyone had about him was, "How the hell does he DO that?"
It's not really that he was doing things no one had done before, he was doing it so much faster that you simply couldn't keep up with how amazing he truly was.
Over the course of their first three albums, his own personal style evolved in such a way as to be a thing of wonder but with the release of 2112 he cemented his technique as one of complete mastery on the instrument with his melodic approach and aggressive playing. You could actually sing along to the melodies he would create on bass in a way that was unheard of for rock bassists.
He had the fastest hands that had eve been heard on AOR radio and as with anything truly unique and new in the music business, he was dismissed at first as just another flash in the pan with more speed than taste.
He would go on to prove his critics wrong with album after album of music and bass playing that would confound the critics and leave them speechless and stewing in their own bitter juices.
His technique was more than just speed though. He was deadly accurate on the fretboard with hands that seemed to be made of solid steel but with the gentlest of touches at times.
While his right hand technique has been examined and talked about for decades, it's his left hand technique that I write about today.
His right hand was so amazingly strong and dexterous as was his left but that right hand could do things that most guitar players couldn't do with either hand.
The bass is not an easy instrument to play by any stretch of the imagination for many reasons but the most of which is the amount of strength it takes to smoothly fret those notes on strings that can feel as thick as anchor cables at times.. Geddy could hammer on and pull off notes with his left hand so cleanly that at times you were never sure if he was even using his right hand.
For me, that was the real mystery. How could anyone who played bass have a left hand that strong?
Hammers and pulls, as they are more commonly known, are usually the domain of guitarists and a technique that one must master to become adept at guitar but here was a bass player who could do it better than anyone on the planet.
In my own training as a guitarist I learned to be precise with hammers and pulls and make them as distinct as picked notes but that was on guitar strings that aren't really all that thick in comparison to bass strings.
Geddy's real magic for me was in his left hand technique and as the years went by I learned to marvel at how good it was. I began to work hard to get my own left hand technique as smooth and as strong as his in hopes it would help me to become a better guitarist.
Yes, his right hand is a thing of wonder for how fast and precise it is but that left hand baffled me for years. I have a bass at home that I use for writing and recording and I can say from practical application that it is not an instrument you pick up unless you are prepared to suffer pain and humiliation during the learning process.
Geddy set a new standard that I have not heard except in fleeting instances in the likes of Flea from RHCP and Les Claypool from Primus and while those two personify what Geddy started in his quest to make bass a focus of rock music, they have evolved their own styles that differ greatly from what Geddy accomplished.

Never Enough

When Rush announced that they would tour again in 2015 I was beyond excited to see them again. This was due partly for having been unable to see their Clockwork Angels tour and because I had already seen them 12 times previously. They are my favorite band after all and their stage shows were always something to behold not just for the visual elements but for the precision and technical excellence they have always displayed live.

Before the tour that would ultimately be their last had even begun I had heard the rumors that it might be their last. I was of two minds about the rumors that had been circulating about the impending closing of the curtain on a band that had defined both my youth and my chosen profession as a professional musician. They were more than just a band to me. They were the inspiration for my manic love of music and they were also the soundtrack to my life. I had gained a great deal of personal meaning for my own life through their music and lyrics. They were a part of me every bit as real as my arms and legs and they had shaped much of the reality I had come to know through the years.

Knowing the end was nigh cemented my absolute desire to see them one last time. I would not be denied this last chance to worship a band that had come to mean so much to me.

It is no secret that Rush fans are arguably the most devoted and rabid fans of any rock band and it was with that same sense of rabid devotion that I steeled myself for the final tour.

It was the end. The end of forty plus years of music that inspired and frightened me for its complexity but always left me wanting more.

The tour came and went and as always I was awed and flabbergasted by the level of musicianship they could still muster after all these years. I was in a kind of ecstasy during “Jacob’s Ladder” and “Xanadu”, both personal favorites for me and to see the double necks come out was like seeing some holy relic on display for the faithful. It was the pure, unadulterated joy I had felt during each concert I’d been to previously. It was perhaps a bit more poignant and bittersweet but I pushed back the knowledge of their coming dissolution as a band. There would be no new albums or tours. It would be the closing of one of the most important chapters of my life and while at first I accepted it as a natural conclusion to a career marked with failures, successes and more change than any other band I had ever been a fan of before, inwardly I felt immense sadness at the end of their run.

They had been making music of such incredible technical expertise but fused with  such heart and a command of the human condition.

The simple truth was that age had finally come calling for them as it must come to us all. Neil was no longer able to bounce back from the physical rigors of touring and was often left lame and in extreme pain because of his muscular and athletic approach to drumming. Alex had been suffering from arthritis for years and Geddy’s voice was beginning to slip in that hitting those high notes was no longer possible in many cases.

About a year after that last tour it finally hit me that it was over. It was over. The curtain had been drawn on a band that had been the measuring stick by which I would measure every other band. Not for their abilities as musicians mind you but in how their music touched and inspired me. No other band had ever even come close to being that important to me.

The child in me raged at the sheer infairness of it all. How could this happen? I felt that emotion for many months and it always left me slightly bitter for my wanting.

As I examined it more closely, I began to understand and appreciate how much they had given not only me but millions upon millions of fans everywhere.

The rational adult in me came to see that the real gift of my love of their music would never die. It would be with me always. Like so many of my fellow Rush fans, I too kept a secret wish in my heart that I might hear from them again. I began to let that wish go slowly at first but with time, I was able to let it go completely. Their lasting impact on the music business would be felt for decades to come and they would still find new fans who had not yet discovered their music. They would continue despite being absent from making new music. So much of their music is truly timeless and defies the dated sound of some older bands.

I have let it go. They have given so much of themselves and endured hardships that most of us will never know or understand. As fans, we have asked so much of them and they have always delivered on our requests and demands. It is selfish to continue to make our demands on them in the face of the staggering legacy they have left us. It is enough. They have rewritten the book on prog rock and spawned so much music from new bands as well as tribute bands who do their best to keep the music alive.

It is finally enough. Rest well gentlemen and I thank you from the bottom of my grateful heart for all that you have done and all that you have given me and millions like me. I understand the folly and selfishness of my desire to have them continue beyond the point they could or even should.

Looking into the magician's hat

I am 55 years old and I've been a musician since the tender age of 13 when I started playing snare in the school band. I seemed to have a natural aptitude for understanding rhythm and I spent the next few years honing that skill to a fairly high degree. Being the scrawny geek that I was, I was never going to have a trophy shelf filled with monuments to my physical abilities. I did, however, have a shelf filled with monuments to my musical abilities that I was quite proud of.
Around the time I turned 17, I took Music Theory as an elective in High School because I had satisfied most of the core curriculum for my senior year before I even got there. At the urging of my theory teacher, I decided to take up a melodic instrument to better use the new language I was learning. I was playing drums in a band and on a dare from the guitarist and mostly because I thought it would attract girls, I took up guitar and began to teach myself the instrument. I borrowed a battered Mel Bay chord book and began learning chords as best I could. The pain and frustration of those first few weeks learning chords still makes me both grimace and smile. Human fingers are really not meant to bend the way chords require them to bend and the pain was excruciating as I began to build callouses and the necessary hand strength needed to play the dreaded F chord and the elusive B7.
Now, playing drums does require a fairly substantial amount of dexterity but it did not prepare me for what lay ahead playing guitar. Guitar opened up a whole new world of pain and mounting disappointment in how terrible I really was.
Slowly, agonizingly, I began to get better at playing chords and started using my theory materials, written for piano, on guitar learning scales at a snails pace. I got to the point where I could pick out little melodies from TV shows and songs on the radio. I bought a book filled with scales for guitar and soon started learning them, running scale drills and learning to understand the basic patterns the guitar neck had.
Fast forward quite a few years and I had developed into a fairly accomplished player, using both my ability to read and the ample ear training I had learned in band. I could improvise pretty well as far as soloing was concerned and had a strong grasp of the neck and where to find the chords I needed to play almost any rock song.
I had already discovered the music of Rush when I started learning guitar but that seemed light years beyond what I was capable of.
That was until I found and purchased a huge book called "Rush:Complete Volume 1". It had everything from the first album up to and including "Signals".
That was a defining moment in my life as a musician as I began literally devouring the music and learning to play much of it.
I already had all the albums so I started at the beginning and worked my way further into it. I was essentially teaching myself to play guitar using Rush as the main medium to accomplish it. It was a daunting challenge to say the least but it taught me more than I could ever have guessed.
I spent many years in and out of bands playing guitar in front of crowds that loved it, liked it or just tolerated it. I used to love that nervous excitement I would feel before a gig because it ultimately makes you play better in the end. It's nice if the crowd is "on your side" too but I fell in love with being on stage doing something I truly loved to do.
Years passed and the love began to fade as I seemed to play the same songs over and over again no matter what band I was in. The shine had left and I no longer felt nervous before a gig. That's a bad space to be in. It makes you lazy and complacent and you never do your best when you're in that space.
The last couple years for me have been filled with disappointment and boredom at the thought of once again taking the stage and being forced to play the same songs I had been playing for almost 30 years. I was almost to the point of folding up my "tent" so to speak, and giving up live performance forever. I had come to the point that I would rather shove an ice pick into my eye than play Margaritaville or Sweet Home Alabama one more time.
In absolute desperation one morning, I posted an ad on Craig'sList looking for musicians to start a Rush tribute project. I had never been able to play Rush in front of an audience because the music is so demanding and technically challenging. I had resigned myself to the fact that the only way I would ever play their music was sitting at home using backing tracks or whatever else I could get my hands on.
To my complete and utter astonishment, I was contacted by both a bassist and a drummer who were interested in doing a tribute project. The bass player also sings and plays keys and the drummer is a huge Neil fan.
It might seem strange to put myself through the needed work and focus to play Rush music at this late point in my musical life but to be truthful, I know I don't have many stage years left ahead of me and I would rather spend them playing something I truly love with all my heart than play music that every other bar band is playing.
I want to be challenged again as a musician on stage. I want to be nervous before I take the stage again. Speaking only for myself, I play better when I'm a little scared. It forces me to focus and listen better to what's going on around me. I'm feeling a little jittery just thinking about the first rehearsal but this is ultimately where excellence is found on the inside of many musicians.
We've settled on the first few songs we're going to tackle and while I know most of them pretty well, there are a few I need to brush up on simply because I got tired of playing them at home by myself. There are also a couple I never bothered to learn because Rush music has always been a bit like watching a magic trick being performed flawlessly by a true master. Sometimes, it's better not to know how the trick is done so you can suspend your own disbelief and retain the wonder of seeing it done. I didn't want to ruin the trick by looking inside the magician's hat only to see a false bottom. At this point in my life as a musician, I seldom listen to music the way I used to. I listen to it now with a critical ear, always examining its construction and the elements of theory and how they apply to the song. I've learned quite a few of the magic tricks at this point but there are still a few that I listen to just for pure enjoyment, waiting for that sense of wonder I used to have for all of their music.
I sometimes envy non-musicians for their ability to just listen for the sake of the music.
My sincerest hope is to see that look of wonder on the faces of the audience as I play the music that so many of them see as magic tricks. With any luck, I'll be able to feel that same sense of wonder that they feel when they listen to Rush. 
That would be the greatest gift of all.