Published July 17, 2024

Rush’s Geddy Lee gives an ‘effin’’ lively book talk at FEQ event

Peter Black, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

He didn’t have his bass guitar and he didn’t sing a note, but Geddy Lee, the frontman for legendary Canadian progressive rock band Rush, gave a lively, memorable and crowd-pleasing performance at the Festival d’Été de Québec on July 13.

Lee, 70, was in town to talk about his autobiography, My Effin’ Life, at two sold-out sessions in the Salle Octave-Crémazie at the Grand Théâtre. The event was part of a new component of FEQ featuring a program of indoor shows at the performance centre.

The host for the early session was Montreal radio personality and musician Jason Rockman, who asked the crowd for a show of hands of those who had not read Lee’s book. Only a few people raised their hands, indicating the rock star had a captive and informed audience.

Lee explained the circumstances that led him to write the memoir that included his adored mother’s deteriorating condition with dementia, the painful death from cancer of Rush drummer Neil Peart in 2020, and the prolonged doldrums of the pandemic.

“Now is the time,” Lee said, to record the memories and experiences of his life, which allowed him “to turn grief into remembrance.”

Lee, born Gary Lee Weinrib in Toronto, said he needed to recount his family background as a window into understand- ing who he is as a person. His parents were both Polish Holocaust survivors who met in concentration camps, but whereas his father never talked about the experience, his mother “wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

He visited Germany with his mother and other family members in 1995, during which he recorded interviews with her. When he decided to write the book, he dug out the interviews for the chapter on his parents. He also contacted the Shoah Holocaust Foundation to learn more about family connections to other victims of the Nazi horrors.

A choked-up Lee said to be able to tell his parents’ story was a special thing, and he was pleased he was able to pass on his memories to his grandson.

Lee talked about his longtime connection with the province of Quebec, beginning with the band’s quest for a more pleasant environment to record their music. They found that in Morin Heights in the Laurentians, at the iconic but now shuttered Le Studio. Lee wore a black T-shirt from Le Studio for the afternoon session.

“We couldn’t believe how beautiful it was,” Lee said, contrasting its glass walls with the bunker-like conditions of other studios. “We fell in love with it.”

In the reading he selected for the audience, he recounted an adventure while on tour in England in 1978, when the normally low-key Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, fed up with life on the road and missing his family, got drunk on cognac and caused a ruckus, breaking the glass in Lee’s neighbouring hotel room with a curtain rod. The next day, Lifeson apologized profusely to the hotel staff.

Lee covered a wide variety of topics and answered questions submitted by audience members. He talked about his relationship with his wife Nancy Young, who he married in 1976. “You have to treat each other as boyfriend and girlfriend, not husband and wife.”

He also talked about his attempts to sell off his fabled baseball memorabilia collec- tion; as soon as a batch was carried off by a dealer, he found a bunch more. Lee said he is now working on a book about his baseball collection and “would like to make some new music.”

Rush, enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, played FEQ twice, first in 2010 and then a show in 2013 that was shortened due to a thunderstorm.

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