An Evening with Geddy Lee At The Barbican – Review by Dawn Osborne

From a packed auditorium at the Barbican Arts Centre Geddy Lee looked happy and relaxed talking about his autobiography ‘My Effin Life’. Geddy has been someone who hitherto has not courted publicity about his private life and, as a result, has built up a certain amount of mystique about his character. He commented that he has a pretty good memory considering the amount of recreational substances he encountered in one way and another in his life. He confessed to be a bit of a hoarder of memorabilia and papers which, as he went through them, caused memories to come flooding back. He said the last ten years were harder to manage for the book as we are all flooded with data now about our lives and he found it challenging to record what was really important out of all of the detail.

The first half of the event concentrated on Geddy’s personal life with him talking about how his father and mother managed to survive the death camps of the Nazis, with some touching stories about how his father moved heaven and earth to find Geddy’s mother again after the war and send her food and clothing at great personal risk to keep her alive, including shoes (if you got sores on your feet and couldn’t work there was a very good chance you would be sent to the gas chamber). His parents spoke Yiddish and Polish, but after they moved to Canada only used Polish if they were swearing or saying things they did not want their kids to understand. Geddy recited some of 2112 in Yiddish amusing the crowd. Initially his mother did not encourage his efforts to be a musician disliking his hair enough to have a portrait painted of him to record his bar mitzvah with short hair rather than have a photograph with long tresses. But she kept this portrait on her mantel always and, as soon as Geddy was on TV she told everyone he was an entertainer and became the band’s biggest supporter. His dad died when Geddy was twelve, but he had been a musician before the war in Poland and since Geddy caught him eating bacon and eggs once, it must be where the streak of rebellion comes from. Geddy never ever told his mother that this happened.

Joking about the instrument that has become his life Geddy joked that no one chooses to be the bass player, but that he drew influences from “louder” bassists like Jack Bruce and John Entwhistle, people who made their bass parts “twang” as well as “boom”. Geddy was complimented in the choir as a tenor soprano/soprano castrato, a comment which raised a laugh given the ethereal quality of his voice. His influences included Robert Plant who was soulful with a vibrato that rocked and Jon Anderson who had a high beautiful voice without being “scratchy”.

Neil was responsible for introducing material that was akin to a rock opera about the struggle of an individual against the system which really resonated with fans. It was less popular with the record company who thought they had signed the new Bad Co. Given his background Geddy was furious when an NME journalist tried to suggest there were hidden right wing messages in the band’s material. When doing his book Geddy said he tried not to kick people in the nuts, but some people made it inevitable.

By trial and error the band realised that Geddy’s voice was more powerful in a higher octave. Half joking Geddy said that the struggle of his family and the anti-semitism he encountered at times meant pent up emotions came out like a “banshee” that led one journalist to describe it as “like a guinea pig with an amphetamine habit” and another to say that if it was any higher it would only be heard by dogs and extraterrestrials. Geddy said now being 70 he can say “if you don’t like the way I sing then Fuck the Fuck Off”.

Following a few readings from the book including one about Alex Lifeson’s genius on the guitar Geddy introduced and brought him on stage to roars from the crowd and they sat on stools taking questions from the crowd. It was lovely to see them make a fuss of each and every fan, pointing and smiling and receiving every question with warmth. Some of the best stories elicited related to the band sleeping with hairdryers to keep warm in substandard accommodation and being told in San Francisco that they needed an image ending up in Japanese town in a Kimono shop whence the era of bathrobes onstage was born. Neil commented “The Price Was Right!”.

Touring stories included how Pete Way from UFO would take the piss from side stage shouting “Geddy drink some milk of Paradise!”. They loved touring with UFO but found them dangerous to hang out with as they would already be drinking by soundcheck at 4pm. They mentioned that touring with KISS in the early days was amazing and they became very close at that time with both bands on their way up at the time. Once when they gave Hawkwind one of Alex’s rocket ship joints they lit it immediately before going onstage despite its ‘heft’ and were consequently leaning back for 5 minute long solos in the show. In 1969 Geddy was briefly kicked out of the band. They do not remember anything about the tour with Aerosmith!

When they met Paul McCartney he dug the band so much he agreed to be the band’s manager! Alex recalls when first seeing him he said “It’s a Fuckin’ Beatle”, but they found him to be a friendly regular guy. He encouraged them to go on saying he was still doing it at 80 and quoting Ringo “It’s what we do!” (cue hilarious scouse accents from Geddy and Alex.)

Tales of recording included being outside at Rockfield in Wales when the sound of pebbles under their feet could be heard on the tape and they ended up becoming nocturnal and watching early morning TV in the 70s while stoned including Open University documentaries on training a farm cat.

When asked which was the Rush song they would like to be remembered by Geddy commented that he’d rather keep living and Neil did not like a lot of the songs. However Neil chose ‘The Garden’ and Geddy ‘Dreamline’. For favourite bass parts Geddy chose the one in ‘Mission’ and Alex chose the beginning of ‘Marathon’. On most overlooked song they both chose ‘Alien Shore’. Geddy had only started playing a Steinberger bass with no headstock when there was little space on stage due to the number of keyboards, but he was not crazy about the sound so went back to Rickenbacker and Fenwick. They had only ever swapped instruments once when they only had a scornful audience of two which made the experience fun.

Speaking warmly of Neil Peart they discussed Alex persuading Neil to do one last tour, but explained that, wanting to retire, Neil would only do 25-30 shows and that is why they did not make it to the UK.  Geddy and Alex got sadder as the tour ended, but Neil got happier and happier and as such the band did not really feel like partying at the end of tour aftershow. Dealing with Neil’s death was very difficult. Geddy and his wife went walking near Hadrian’s Wall to try to process it. They had been unable to tell people that Neil was so ill as he had wanted privacy which made answering interview questions difficult, but they chose loyalty over honesty. Towards the end when he could not drive his Silver Surfers himself Neil had a driver take him around listening to a different Rush record every day. He had clearly appreciated and been justifiedly proud of the the Rush legacy.

The band was asked if they would do more Grapes Under Pressure wine tours and they indicated maybe as they found them joyful and loved getting drunk with their fans. Geddy commented that Neil loves to drink wine that he buys with a wink.

As the band said goodbye they gave the impression we should watch this space. Geddy did of course release a couple of tracks recently from the archive. Maybe it’s time for them to get back to music. They were not giving anything away, but their impish grins made me think the book might be out, but this is not the end of the story.

An extraordinary evening about an extraordinary life. A privilege to attend and fascinating from start to finish.

Dawn Osborne