Anthem: Rush in the '70s by Martin Popoff

[Slim]

I've been reading ]Anthem: Rush in the '70s by Martin Popoff while on holiday. If I were to be picky I might comment that Martin doesn't write brilliantly fluently and there are a couple of typos or grammatical errors. Nonetheless he's pieced together, largely from interviews with some of the key protagonists, a pretty comprehensive account of the early years of the band.

Martin doesn't dig deep into the personalities or the chemistry of the band but where this book scores particularly highly is in his analysis of the music - it's a proper fan's insight. There are tons of anecdotes from the likes of Ian Grandy and Liam Birt as well as the band themselves.

I especially enjoyed reading about Neil's audition with the band. What I didn't know was that before they'd auditioned strangers for the drum seat, the band had done their best to pry Paul Kersey away from Max Webster - much to Kim Mitchell's annoyance. Paul turned them down.