Call it a spur-of-the-moment publicity stunt if you want, I still say there’s something pretty cool about a famous rock star giving his stuff away to a young fan.
Summary for those who don’t want to watch the video:
This young kid (looks maybe 12-13) named Zach Tabori was attending the NAMM show in Los Angeles. He’s a big Rush fan, so he approached the Hughes & Kettner booth and asked if he could play through the Alex Lifeson Signature amplifier. He turned out to be pretty good, playing quite a few Rush songs.
The impressed H&K guys got his name and address, and then the president of the company called up Alex Lifeson to see if Alex would send the kid an autographed photo. Alex decided to do better than that and said, “Why don’t I send him one of my amps?” He sent the kid one of his personal amps that he used on stage during Rush’s most recent tour!.
From all accounts he’s an extremely nice guy, as are most Canadians , so I doubt it was for pub- plus he tends to shy away from any pub I think. Very cool thing to do.
“On New Year’s Eve 2003, Lifeson, his son, and his daughter-in-law were arrested at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Naples, Florida. Lifeson, after intervening in an altercation between his son and police, was accused of assaulting a sheriff’s deputy in what was described as a drunken brawl. In addition to suffering a broken nose at the hands of the officers, Lifeson was tasered six times.”
Sounds like a peach of a guy.
A friend of mine is a huge Rush head and when he was on a project in their home town (Toronto, I think), he knew enough to go to a bar that Alex and a buddy of Alex’s co-own. While hanging out there, Alex showed up and the bartender, who knew of my friend’s coming there every night while he was on this project, pointed out my friend. Alex approached him, had a solid conversation with him (including, I think, taking a book for Neil that my friend thought Neil would like - and apparently he did), etc. - basically just a cool guy all around…
Great story - adds another data point to my already positive opinion…
Oh, and another friend of mine got to hang out with Geddy Lee at an All-Star Game (Geddy is a huge baseball fan and my buddy was a guest of the Blue Jays’ owner). Again, nothing but very positive things to say - very nice guy…
And no, this never seems to happen to me - just my friends!
I’m not even a casual fan of Rush, but you can’t take one incident out of a 55-year old man’s life, even if you had all of the facts, and make a judgement about him from it. Especially if he’s had a few pints.
“I may be crazy, but I’m no maniac. Aged 50, and in one of the finest hotels in America - it’s insane to suggest that I would pick a fight with three huge cops.” – Alex Lifeson, regarding his 2003 arrest for brawling with cops
Consider that at that point he’d been a rock star for 29 years and hadn’t had even a whiff of negative press (disregarding rabid fundies in the '80s calling Rush “Satan worshipers”). This is also a guy who’s been with the same woman since he was 15 years old, and once described the band’s early tours opening for the likes of Kiss and Aerosmith as an “education in how not to behave on the road” (based on watching how those other bands acted).
That Florida incident always sounded to me like a case of his drunk son thinking, “My dad’s a rock star! I can do what I want!” and security going overboard in handling the situation, prompting Alex to intervene.
, so I doubt it was for pub- plus he tends to shy away from any pub I think. Very cool thing to do.