A Rush and A Push and The Land That We Stand on is Ours!
It`s 1987 and it`s the weekend finally! Better than that still, it`s a weekend in June and I didn`t know it yet, but this really is my favourite month of the whole year and always will be.The nights or days-whichever way you look at it, never really end do they in Britain? If your young enough , or even just fit enough, you can leave a night club with that wonderful Friday night feeling and very shortly afterward be greeted by what seems like every single flying creature on the planet singing at once to you in the wonderful exciting life of a new Summer dawn. Not very rock n roll you may think or even pop and roll but it was on one such weekend that I discovered for myself the phenomenon that is RUSH.
And it was all by accident really, and felt technically so unfashionably wrong, whilst the Summer Dawn may not have thought so, the raised arms and ears of the Academy dancefloor certainly did. Music was changing , again, in `87, as it should and does and the divide was quite clear unlike it had been earlier in the decade. I`m not suggesting for a minute that the DURANs and that ilk were struggling, but the forms of the music which they were offering us to dance too, had been absolutely dwarfed by all time classics from WHITNEY HOUSTON` “I Wanna Dance With Somebody”, EDDY GRANTS “Electric Avenue”, any MICHAEL JACKSON floor filler etc, and most importantly the music was starting to stick around more in the clubs for longer-although not so much in radio terms like it does today, where arguably, the charts are less relevent or maybe just that there are too many of them about to count and hold credibility.
Either way-into none of those categorys sat the current “radio hit” that just kept filling my head, an “ear-worm” today, one would say, but then it was a track intriguingly called “TIME STAND STILL” by RUSH.
It was in my head still as I went up the stairs to the live music room in a club in Plymouth, where , on the promise of much beer , frivolity and a brand new `80s burger that actually had cheese in the middle (remember them?), I had agreed to spend the weekend with an old friend, his music and his band. Going to see the function style bands in the 80`s could occasionally be a treat, depending on what level of the act-but in general-the divide was quite broad and I hadnt seen my friend play since he limped through a bland “Sunshine of My Life” one night to a dead dance floor. This was always a running joke with us, and as had quoted me his current set list with his band, he had completely convinced me that those days had indeed gone, and we could expect Madonna, Tears For Fears, Duran Duran et al. Fun , fun fun! Especially after only recently seeing `70s bandPAPER LACE, do a rampant version of “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” at a late gig on the Pontins circuits-they were one of the bands that had adapted and survived very well.
The stage was set. The band struck up. Fun , Fun, Fun!
No! No! No!!!! Can you imagine my horror as a limp and suited band quietly struck up with “You Are the Sunshiiiine of My Life….” Oh no! This is the eighties! I`m still young. Where`s that RUSH song in my head??
Early next morning, we had just stopped for tea from a flask and the sun was rising , right over the A30. There were hardly any cars about and the flutter and chorus of birds faded underneath the engine of the Escort and the car radio as the intro for “Time Stand Still” by RUSH bounced out of the speakers. It had never sounded so sweet, and reminded me that time can stand still, but it doesn’t have to, but hey-ain`t it fun looking back at it?
Published with the kind permission of Martin Kitcher
Martin Kitcher (c)2012
Martin Kitcher
MKM
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