Moving On
Before making any more plans for the future, the DVD had to be put to bed. Alex travelled down to Dan’s place in California to work on the initial stereo mixes, then the project was moved back up to McClear Place in Toronto. “Alex was unhappy with the level of guitar, so off we went,” says Jimbo Barton. The sound wasn’t helped by the difficulties in recording stadium rock, explains Peter Henderson, who has also recorded at the Rio stadium. “I sympathise completely,” says Peter. “The place was terrible! The amount of echo coming back was huge.”
Meanwhile, Geddy’s brother Allan had set to work on the video. Neil’s minicams really hadn’t given the results that were hoped, but the footage was too good to waste and Allan decided to lower the quality of the video overall, rather than let Neil’s sequences stand out like a sore thumb. To Larry Jordan, the raw nature brought back the exhilaration of the night. “All that comes through and makes it more exciting,” says Larry, who went over a couple of times. “I changed a couple of things, but Allan had it covered.” The DVD also incorporated ‘bonus footage’ in the shape of a documentary of the band, recorded by Andrew MacNaughtan. “I was filming everything, then I came back to the States to start creating a story out of hours and hours of footage,” says Andrew. “That was a really hard project for me… I think it gave a unique perspective into the band, I really wanted to try and capture some moments of that.”
And it was done. The DVD and accompanying CD were mastered at the beginning of August 2003 by Adam Ayan at Gateway Mastering – where else. “Their attention to detail and desire to maintain the highest quality possible is very impressive,” says Adam. “Working with Alex was an absolute pleasure.” Unfortunately, some considered that the final result suffered from the same issue as ‘Vapor Trails’. “I was very pleased until the mastering, then someone put very slow compression on it, and crushed the bejeezus out of it!” says Jimbo.
Somebody must have liked it. The DVD debuted at Number 1 in the US DVD charts, and went on to quadruple-platinum status. Back in the homeland, it even picked up a Juno award – the first for many years! Given all the trials and tribulations, that was something nobody expected. “It would probably be overstating the case to call Rio a miracle,” says Brad Madix. “But it was remarkable that we did a show at all, let alone that we made an award-winning DVD of it!”
The band were having too much fun, it seemed. As the end of 2003 approached, the trio realised they had spent nearly 30 years together as a unit – Neil had joined on 29 July 1974, Geddy’s birthday, and the anniversary was coming around more quickly than anyone expected. When the idea of an anniversary tour came up, it seemed rude not to agree. In particular, it would enable the band to return to Europe. Geddy was determined the trio would reach the now-alien shores. “He put his foot down saying, the tour would not happen unless it included some European dates,” said Alex.
Neil Warnock got to work, ignoring concerns whether there was enough of an audience, whilst ensuring that the amphitheatre sets so popular in the US would work when they were transported to the arenas of Europe. Neil booked two dates at Wembley Arena, though the band only started selling tickets for the first. Before long however, both dates were sold out, as well as dates in Manchester, Glasgow, Milan and a number of other venues. Just as in 1977, the band discovered just how great its following was in the old world.
It was a buoyant band that broke up for the holiday season… but an incident over the break nearly put paid to the whole event. Along with his son, Justin, and his daughter-in-law, Michelle, Alex was arrested for brawling and resisting arrest, following an altercation with the police at a New Year’s Eve party at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, near his second home in Naples, Florida. It was unfortunate in the extreme, particularly for mild-mannered Alex who was horrified by the whole situation, not least the police treatment of his son and daughter-in-law. After a night in the cells he walked free, pending a trial. Furthermore, with certain conditions he was allowed to leave the US and move freely within it. Any other decision would have scuppered the possibility of a tour, national or international.
Alex was determined not to let the incident sour the tour preparations, nor the band’s desire to get even further back into its groove. The fires were well and truly lit, and the bonds between the players were stronger than they’d ever been. Normally, a tour would follow an album release, but this time of course, there was no album. It felt like there was a space waiting to be filled, an opportunity not to be missed. The idea of a covers album resurfaced, particularly as there had been talk of another tribute album looming. But surely they couldn’t… could they?
Of course they could. Not only was it an opportunity to rock out, but also to go right back to their roots, to play the music the threesome had been playing before they’d even been called Rush, let alone shared a stage together. “It was just a fun little trip down memory lane, to share with our fans the tracks which woke us up to music,” said Alex. Together and apart, Alex, Geddy and Neil had all done their time in covers bands, and shared a number of heroes and influences – Cream of course, The Who… before long the band inundated themselves with ideas on what songs they would like to play. Led Zeppelin was rejected: as they agreed, nobody could outzep the Zep.
The band reunited with producer David Leonard back in Studio A, at Phase 1 studios in Toronto. “Geddy sent me some stuff he’d been doing at home, and we just took it from there,” says David. The idea was to take things right back to the earliest days of the band – to record as they used to play, live as a trio, with no click-track and with minimal overdubs – the cover of ‘Crossroads’ was played completely live. A week was spent cutting the drum and bass tracks, then a second week was spent on the guitars. “We got to play with a lot of old guitar sounds,” says David. “We went into the little room, just Alex and I, and played with lots of old pedals, and ribbon mics and stuff like that, it was a blast!”
While the process was short, it was dynamic, liberating and above all, fun. “It was fun for them to do and fun for me to record,” says David. “It was freeing because it was some other material that wasn’t theirs and they weren’t trying to re-invent it. They were just putting their ink on it.” The whole process took only two weeks – “That’s usually how long it takes to do one song!” laughs fellow Dexter Lou Pomanti.
As usual, Hugh Syme was commissioned to produce a highly psychedelic cover for the disc, called ‘Feedback’ due to Geddy and Alex’s insistence in including it on every track. There was barely time to get the EP into production before the tour started, at the end of May 2004, literally thirty years from when the band had first hit the stages of North America. The inclusion of some of the ‘Feedback’ covers into the set was seen as a little unusual by some fans, but to the band it made absolute sense – at the end of the thirty years, the songs defined the band as a rock band who were proud to demonstrate their influences. “I think it was an extremely courageous, risky thing for them,” agrees friend and collaborator Mendelson Joe.
Rush came to Europe at the now-standard sedate pace, never more than two cities on consecutive days. “They just can’t tour like they used to when they were younger, it’s too hard on Geddy’s vocals,” says Andrew MacNaughtan. Neil treated the European leg as a road trip, travelling between gigs on his motorbike with companion and security manager Michael Mosbach. Sometimes Neil would sneak 20 minutes of sleep before going on, and after the gig had ended he would be out of the doors on his bike before the post-encore audience roar had died down.
Throughout the tour, Alex’s court case still nagged. The initial date was set bang in the middle of the planned European tour, but one of many legal postponements meant the shows could proceed apace. Alex was determined as ever, not to let the shadow of the case spoil things.
In any case, the guys were just having too much fun.