{"id":3191,"date":"2011-11-29T09:44:29","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T14:44:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=3191"},"modified":"2019-10-27T10:32:35","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T15:32:35","slug":"meeting-rush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/meeting-rush\/","title":{"rendered":"Meeting Rush"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EYYdQB0mkEU\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIs this your first Rush concert?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I\u2019m so excited.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rich and Brian had been talking about this for months. Like geeky hard rock fans worldwide, they had long been in awe of Neal Peart\u2019s furious and precise drumming, Geddy Lee\u2019s dancing bass and soaring vocals, and the rich textures and screams of Alex Lifeson\u2019s electric guitar. This was their first Rush concert, and they crowded towards the entrance with thousands of other fans, many decked out in concert t-shirts.<\/p>\n<p>But Rich and Brian had an edge over nearly all of them: backstage passes. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to meet him,\u201d said Rich.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRush.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Brian gave him a strange look but said nothing.<\/p>\n<p>Rich continued, \u201cI want to ask him how he came up with the lyrics for 2112, how many classical guitar lessons he took, and how he keeps his voice in shape.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou mean, you want to ask Neal the first question, Alex the second, and Geddy the third?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSure \u2013 they\u2019re all Rush. But I do think that Rush is the greatest rock musician ever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRich&#8230; Rush isn\u2019t a musician. Rush is a <em>band<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, I know, but they play so well together, it is <em>as if<\/em> they were one musician \u2013 one musician playing three instruments at once &#8211; sometimes four, when Geddy uses the bass pedals and plays keyboard too. Man, Rush is the best. He\u2019s so talented.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou mean,<em> they\u2019re<\/em> so talented, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStrictly, yes. I think Rush is a real thing, with three musicians for parts, but it is not literally a person, much less a musician. But we can say, without confusion, that Rush plays a mean guitar, is an awesome drummer, and sings in a high, spacey way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, we can\u2019t! If you said that, say, to your little brother, you would only confuse him. Remember, he thinks Pink Floyd is a guy whose first name is \u2018Pink!\u2019\u201d<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-36162\" src=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rush-the-band-in-the-1990s.jpg\" alt=\"Rush the band in the 1990s\" width=\"500\" height=\"316\" srcset=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rush-the-band-in-the-1990s.jpg 500w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rush-the-band-in-the-1990s-300x190.jpg 300w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rush-the-band-in-the-1990s-420x265.jpg 420w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rush-the-band-in-the-1990s-460x291.jpg 460w, https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Rush-the-band-in-the-1990s-90x57.jpg 90w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The concert was a memorable one, and Rich and Brian much enjoyed their brief backstage meeting with their heroes. To Brian\u2019s relief, faced with the band itself, Rich seemed to drop his strange speculations, and only addressed questions to one musician at a time. Perhaps he realized that Rush itself would have no voice to reply, nor any thoughts to express. \u201cA band,\u201d thought Brian to himself, \u201cis made of musicians, but is not itself a musician.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Surely Brian\u2019s last point is correct. We may disagree about whether the band Rush a thing in its own right or merely a collection of things, but all should agree that it is not a musician. And even if it is a thing, just because it is composed of musicians, just because it has musicians as parts, it doesn\u2019t follow that it is a musician itself. It isn\u2019t. When Rush is on stage, only three musicians are playing, not four \u2013 even when four instruments are being played.<\/p>\n<p>(<a title=\"Part 2\" href=\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/rush-2-0-and-rush-3-0\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">to be continued&#8230;<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIs this your first Rush concert?\u201d \u201cYes, I\u2019m so excited.\u201d Rich and Brian had been talking about this for months. Like geeky hard rock fans worldwide, they had long been in awe of Neal Peart\u2019s furious and precise drumming, Geddy Lee\u2019s dancing bass and soaring vocals, and the rich textures and screams of Alex Lifeson\u2019s&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/meeting-rush\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Meeting Rush<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36162,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"default","neve_meta_container":"default","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"off","neve_meta_disable_footer":"off","neve_meta_disable_title":"off","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories","category-theories","post_format-post-format-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3191"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41899,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3191\/revisions\/41899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}