Geddy Lee - My Effin’ Life in Conversation Glasgow Royal Concert Hall Thursday 14th December 2023

The book title was announced as ‘Geddy Lee: My Effin’ Life’ with a November 2023 release date and even more excitement was caused when a spoken word ‘in conversation’ tour in support of the book release was slotted in for the US and Canada in November and five dates in the UK in December.

The date at Glasgow’s beautiful Royal Concert Hall, a city with a great history and affiliation with Rush dating back to the 1970s, was very close to selling out, despite the slightly inflated ticket prices so close to Christmas. The large entrance halls were filled with people of all ages, many sporting Rush t-shirts from various stages of the band’s impressive career, as venue staff handed out specially printed commemorative booklets. On entering the concert hall, a calming ‘living room’ scene with two comfortable looking armchairs, a table and dimmed lamps took centre stage. Copies of Lee’s book and a few ‘mascots’ that I’m pretty sure were often found sitting on the amps during Rush live shows were on the table, as a large overhead screen played a slide show of photos from Rush’s career. The scene was very much set.

The lights dimmed and some Rush music filled the concert hall as the screen continued to display the slide show but before the man of the hour could be greeted by his adoring fans, a special guest ‘interviewer’ had to be announced. Now, I should say there were rumours abound as I entered the venue as to who this special guest would be and names ranged from plausible to incredibly unlikely. Billy Connolly (I quickly discounted this one!), Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro and John Gordon Sinclair were all mentioned along with a few others… but if you had pinned me up against a wall with a gun to my head and asked me to take a guess, I can assure you that I wouldn’t have uttered the name Phill Jupitus! In fact, I doubt his name would’ve crossed my mind at all, as I had absolutely no idea that he had a connection, albeit tenuous, to the band. But the one-time UK TV favourite and comedian appeared onstage to great applause, opening the evening with a few minutes of storytelling about how he gave up showbusiness and now lives in Fife (who knew this historical area of Scotland meant effin’ idiots, effin’ everywhere?!), whilst explaining how he’d once had the pleasure of spending time with Geddy, Alex and Neil, hence why he was in Glasgow as the special guest interviewer. Jupitus claimed he wasn’t really a huge Rush fan… and to be honest, I’m not overly sure whether I believed him or not, but he did a decent job of warming up the crowd for a few minutes before introducing Geddy Lee to the stage.

As Lee entered the stage (from stage left… obviously!), the Glasgow crowd rose to greet him warmly. The applause and cheers genuinely seemed appreciated by Lee but that was nothing to what happened next, as a count-in from somewhere to the left of me led the audience to burst into the opening of Rush classic ‘Closer to the Heart’.

“And the men who hold high places, must be the ones who start. To mould a new reality, closer to the heart. Closer to the heart”.

Of course, there was good reason for choosing this song, as it holds a special connection with Glasgow that dates to Rush’s 1981 live album Exit… Stage Left, often voted one of the greatest live albums of all time. Side 2 of the famous album was recorded at the city’s famous and much-missed Apollo venue on the 10th and 11th June 1980, with the Glasgow crowd singing along loudly to ‘Closer to the Heart’ and impressing the Canadian trio so much that they were immortalised in the album’s liner notes; “A special tribute to the Glaswegian Chorus for the background vocals on Closer to the Heart. Nice one, folks!”. So, it was history repeating itself 43 years later in a venue only a few hundred yards from where the Apollo once stood. Lee appeared genuinely taken aback by the greeting and clearly understood the emotional significance.

The first hour was Lee being interviewed by Jupitus whilst sitting in the ‘living room’ and it was an hour that flew past quickly, with stories of his origins and how he had been badgered for almost a decade to write his story before caving in to do so during lockdown. Lee explained his mother and father’s traumatic experiences in Auschwitz during the Holocaust, how they were ‘branded’ with the infamous numbers by the Nazis and how they made their way to Canada post-war to start a new life. His father lost most of his family to the genocide whilst his mother’s family fared better (it seems strange to write this, considering the horror they suffered) but their experiences as persecuted Jews clearly shaped the early part of their son’s life. Losing his father at the tender age of 12, a pivotal point in any child’s life, ultimately led Lee to pursue his dreams, watched on and supported by his mother. There was laughter, as Lee explained how his mother always hated his Bar Mitzvah photograph due to his hippy-like long hair, so she had a painting of him commissioned with shorter hair that became a funny family secret for decades. Indeed, the painting now hangs in Lee’s home (and a photo of it made an appearance on the big screen during the interval). There was further laughter as he adopted an Eastern European accent to mimic his mother, who after seeing him on TV for the first time with Rush told friends “My son is an entertainer”. He laughed loudly, as he said she would now be saying “My son is an author”. The bassist’s love for his mother, who died at the ripe old age of 95 (days away from 96) in 2021 after a battle with dementia, was clear. Lee spoke of her with great warmth and affection, explaining the positive impact she had on his life and career and, in an emotional moment, how the book was written in homage to her. Lee also took time to describe the devastating impact of the double tragedy that Neil Peart suffered by tragically losing both his wife and daughter in such a short space of time and spoke fondly of his schooldays with Alex Lifeson.

There was a short break before Lee returned to the stage to read a section of his book from a podium. He chose the sections wisely, reading a passage about the Glasgow Apollo and how he remembers seeing the famous balcony moving as the Glaswegian faithful jumped up and down during Rush’s shows there. Any mention of the Apollo caused a loud cheer within the Royal Concert Hall, such is the fondness that it still holds with the Glasgow rock community 36 years after the bulldozers moved in to demolish it. He then regaled the crowd with a story of Alex Lifeson’s tour antics, recounting a hilarious experience at the Manchester Piccadilly Hotel that involved the guitarist missing his young son and starting a drinking competition, eventually culminating in a smashed window and a half-naked Lifeson running down the corridors. Rock ‘n’ effing’ roll!!

The final section of the evening was an audience Q&A session, hosted by journalist and friend of the band Phil Wilding. I can only assume that Wilding spent the first half of the show backstage, pouring himself into his impossibly tight jeans and styling his incredibly stiff looking hair… but I concede that such bitchiness from me could be borne from jealousy, as Wilding is considerably older than me and my burgeoning waistline passed the threshold for skinny jeans (or skinny anything!) many years ago. He also has the kind of hair that has surpassed my styling abilities since losing the vast majority of my own barnet over a decade ago! Anyway… I digress! Those in the audience lucky enough to be chosen to have their question answered by Lee (asked by Wilding to save time) had their name shouted out, allowing them to stand up and wave at their hero from wherever they were seated in the venue. The questions were all generally well chosen, allowing Lee to furnish the crowd with further info about his life and career with Rush. I had no idea that Neil Peart can be heart saying “It’s not a fucking football” in the opening crowd noise of the song ‘Witch Hunt’ or that Lee’s favourite lyric of Peart’s was from the song Dreamline. I didn’t know that Lee and his wife have a shared love for Scotland and have visited the country a few times, including a fairly recent jaunt around the North Coast, where it was confirmed that an audience member’s friend had indeed seen Lee walking down the street in a quaint little highland village a few years ago! But the most poignant part was when Lee described how he was visiting Hadrian’s Wall in northern England (not too far from the Scottish border) when he was told of Neil Peart’s cancer diagnosis and how he felt so useless and unable to do anything to help the drummer. He had to stop to compose himself and it was clear that even to this day, he misses Peart and what he brought to his life and music. On a happier note and in an interesting way to end, Lee told of meeting Paul McCartney backstage at the Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert last year and that the former Beatle had encouraged him and Lifeson to hit the road with Rush again, saying “it’s what we do”. Could it really happen without Peart?

As Lee left the stage, the Glasgow audience knew they had been in the presence of musical greatness. It was a superb night of brilliant stories that ranged from the hilarious to the emotional with everything else in-between. The bassist/vocalist is at a point in his life where he wants to tell his story, ensuring that his legacy remains long after the last note of Rush music is played.

What an effin’ life, indeed!

Geddy Lee’s ‘My Effin’ Life’ is available now in hardback or as an audiobook, narrated by Lee himself. His other book, ‘Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass’ is also available. Lee’s TV series ‘Are Bass Players Human Too?’ is streaming now on Paramount Plus, and features him interviewing fellow bass players Les Claypool (Primus), Robert Trujillo (Metallica), Melissa Auf Der Maur (Hole/Smashing Pumpkins) and Krist Novoselic (Nirvana).