Here is a guest review from Sean Highkin, a writer/editor at our sister music site, 130BPM. You can view all his work here and check out the review below.
There are few subjects in popular music that merit legit documentary treatment more than the legendary Toronto prog-rock power trio Rush. It’s one of rock’s most flat-out unique stories: three nerdy Canadians struggle on the club circuit for a few years, get told by their label to get more commercial, respond with an Ayn Rand-inspired concept piece which improbably becomes their best-selling album to date, and spend the next three-plus decades cranking out smart, forward-thinking rock, becoming a perennial top concert draw, and gaining a legion of near-Deadhead-level fans (full disclosure: I’m one of them) while somehow never getting anywhere near the mainstream critical acclaim they deserve.
The good news is that you’d be hard-pressed to find a duo more qualified to tell the improbable story of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart than Sam Dunn and Scott McFayden, the team behind 2005’s excellent Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey. And they deliver on every level with Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage, a smartly paced rock doc that puts nearly four decades of history into just under two hours without leaving out any important plot points.
The film’s greatest strength is the way it actually manages to be all things to all people. I’m someone who knows Rush’s extensive catalog backwards and forwards, has seen them in concert several times, and has a pretty respectable collection of bootlegs and unreleased material, and I was still blown away by some of the things Dunn and McFayden dug up for this project. Particularly revelatory is the never-before-seen footage of the band with original drummer John Rutsey, which shines unprecedented light on their earliest days as a bar band influenced by Cream and Blue Cheer, before they made the transformation into a prog-rock force equally adored and loathed for their long, complex compositions, sci-fi-themed lyrics, and especially Lee’s unique, unusually high-pitched voice.
But at the same time, Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage does such an impeccable job of boiling down Rush’s essence—that of a band of outsiders dedicated to musicianship and integrity who legitimately enjoy each other’s company after all these years—that I could just as easily see it as both an introduction for new fans and an overview for nonfans. The scope of Rush’s appeal doesn’t really sink in until you see Dunn and McFayden trot out an impressive array of celebrity fans to pay testimony to the band’s legacy (Billy Corgan and Trent Reznor are particularly well-spoken and insightful; Jack Black is consistently laugh-out-loud hilarious).
Although some of Rush’s longevity can be attributed to the fact that, despite the heady nature of their music, Lee, Lifeson, and Peart have never taken themselves or their legacy too seriously (one of the highlights of the film is their reflection on some of the more unfortunate fashion decisions they made in the 1970s), Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is at its most eye-opening when they address the most difficult five years of their existence. In 1997, shortly after they completed their successful Test for Echo tour, Peart tragically lost his daughter (in a car accident) and his wife (to breast cancer) within one 10-month span, and subsequently embarked on a 55,000-mile solo motorcycle trek from Canada all the way down to Belize and back to find himself. Although he wrote about this journey extensively in his 2002 memoir Ghost Rider, he to this point had never really discussed it with journalists. Somehow, Dunn and McFayden convinced him to open up on camera about this period of his life, and it’s the most powerful segment of the film. Lee and Lifeson also discuss these years, and the universal belief that Rush would never exist again after that. It is a testament to the friendship between these three men that they managed to reconvene, make new music, tour, and, improbable as it may seem, gain more widespread mainstream acceptance than they ever have. Since 2008, they have appeared on The Colbert Report, made a cameo in the successful bromantic comedy I Love You, Man, and been sent up by South Park creators (and Rush fans) Matt Stone and Trey Parker.
Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is a rock documentary the way all rock documentaries should be made. It’s as smart and revealing as their music, but as funny, likeable, and self-aware as the band members themselves. It offers up enough unseen footage and obscure trivia to please die-hards like me, but it presents their entire career in a manner that is accessible enough to reach casual fans and even the band’s detractors.
9 out of 10
Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage is currently in limited theatrical release and the Blu-ray comes out June 29th, 2010.