Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A different way of telling a story

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Three kids Alex Lifeson, drummer John Rutsey, and Geddy Lee started a band in suburban Toronto. They played in school dances, graduated to Toronto clubs, finally getting noticed in Cleveland radio, and signed to an American label. Rutsey is replaced for health reasons with Neil Peart. With bookish reserved Neil's words, the band gains a following in the 70's and beyond. The band was never superstars but has garnered a devoted cult following of mainly disenfranchised male youths. This is a wide documentary of these music nerds. There is not anything dark except for the heart-breaking tragedies suffered by Neil. The guys are fully in control of the narrative. This is not a band of sex and drug in any case. At one point, they are described as boring (not musically). For fans, this is great and for non-fans, this is the music of an interesting community of smart adolescent male outcast. It's not anything terribly dramatic but it is compelling nevertheless.

I remember that my first Rush album "Permanent Waves" came with my twelve albums for a penny from Columbia House in the summer of 1980. I had a classical music background but was so moved with the musicality and the lyrics that I went album hunting at the local stores and found "Caress of Steel" and ran back and played it again in wonder at the completeness of it and thinking it was brand new - not realizing that it was a much earlier album until later! Such is the timelessness of the Rush experience! This documentary is an awesome, tasteful, and well done work that will truly take the Rush elite on an intimate journey into the lives that produced their insightful lyrics, their cutting edge sounds, and their ability to look inside our humanity. It shows enough of their personal lives to make you feel like one of their friends - but remains private and close. You will cry with their losses and smile with their accomplishments in this first class film. It also warmed my heart to see one of their first legs up into the big time was opening for Uriah Heep, one of my favorite bands as well! When a new rock station in our area started up decades ago and said they would play our call in requests for a month while they perfected their sound and lineup and after a week they put out a request to please limit requests for Rush - that they could not become an "All Rush Station!" Such is the power of this band. From the beginning that first penny was the best that I have ever spent to find such a moving experience over the years. The documentary "Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage" is just what you want if you are a Rush nerd like me. Be careful if you are not one already - watching this may make you become one!

I'm going to my first Rush concert next month with a self-confessed Rush nerd so I have been busy educating myself about the band. My friend gave me this highly entertaining and informative documentary about them.It is a quite conventional documentary. The band members tell the story of how they met and how the band was formed. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were High School friends in Toronto with similar backgrounds with European immigrant parents. Even now it is clear that they are very close and they jokingly still refer to Neil Peart as the "new guy".Rare footage is included of the band at a Toronto high School gig with original drummer John Rutsey.The replacement of Rutsey with Peart is discussed, followed by unexpected success in the mid seventies. They talk about their various albums, admitting some were better than others. The notoriously reserved Peart also discusses the death of his daughter and wife in a very short period of time and how he recovered enough to be able to rejoin the band. Various musicians such as Jimmy Corgan and Jack Black explain why they like Rush.There are also interviews with fans, explaining how the band appeals to them. The DVD special features include live songs from various concerts throughout their career and Lee and Lifeson revisting some of their old haunts in suburban Toronto.Although Rush never seems to have had great credibility in the mainstream rock & roll media they have a huge number of fans. This movie tries to explain that and I think it succeeds. It also gives us an insight into the life stories of three serious but down to earth musicians. The band members are refreshingly honest and apparently lacking in ego so it is easy to like them.

I came away wanting more from this documentary, much more. I thoroughly enjoyed the early life stuff and the build up, formation of the band etc.. but what was really missing from this was epic concert footage! Come on! Let's see Tom Sawyer COMPLETE, best concert footage you can find, and blow my eardrums off!! Let's see some of their earlier stuff COMPLETE!! Stretch it out, make it overly long, make it so that only die hard Rush fans will stay till the end, then treat them to something AMAZING!!! In short, make the documentary for RUSH FANS, and us alone.This film instead chooses to give a very complete overview, and overview only, of the life of Rush, from birth to present day. It gives us teasing clips from concerts, and lots of candid humour. Of particular amusement was the joking commentaries from the likes of Jack Black and others attempting to imitate key Rush musical milestones.I have not yet seen a Rush concert, and it is on the bucket list. I was hoping for a taste of that with this movie, seeing it in a theatre at a special screening, and I didn't get that.But for what it was, it was an OK solid doc.