Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen’s funny, touching Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage is one of the great Rock documentaries, offering an unusual degree of access to the beloved Canadian prog trio…and their moms. As is the case with most documentaries, a lot of footage did not make it into the film.
Martin Popoff, a seasoned rock writer and a researcher on Beyond the Lighted Stage, takes the waste-not-want-not approach with his new book Anthem: Rush in the 1970s. A good deal of the interview material that did not make it into the documentary makes it into Anthem. The book is almost so dependent on quotations from Rush and their moms that it could have almost been a proper oral history. However, that format would have left less room for Popoff’s commentaries on the band’s music, which are generally enjoyable reading despite a certain lack of critical distance (the guy’s a bit too forgiving when it comes to the lousy Caress of Steel).
Aside from such critiques, Popoff mainly steps out of the way to allow Rush (as well as their moms) to tell their own story. That storytelling is consistently interesting because the first phase of a band’s career is often the most dramatic since it deals with pre-fame struggles. Anthem is also enjoyable because Geddy, Alex, and Neil are humble, amiable, witty nerds adept at telling tales even when those tales don’t involve intergalactic Don Quixotes or bickering trees. Their moms are pretty good too.
