Rock and Roll Garage

Unlike many rock stars, bassist, singer, and keyboardist Geddy Lee has always been a good-humored person both on stage and in interviews. He often recalls funny stories from his years with Rush, ranging from the wild days of touring with his childhood friend and bandmate Alex Lifeson to a memorable first encounter with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant. Rock and Roll Garage selected three of the funniest stories Geddy has shared over the decades, showing that he has enjoyed some truly great moments on the road and in his personal life. The 3 funny stories told by Rush’s Geddy Lee Alex Lifeson’s night of total mayhem at a hotel The first funny story is the one Geddy Lee told in his book "My Effin' Life" (2024), recalling when the guitarist Alex Lifeson got drunk in a hotel in England and caused total mayhem complaning that British people were living "a 1000 years ago". "So it was on a February night in Manchester in 1978 that we convened in the bar of the Piccadilly Hotel. For a while, Alex had not been very happy. His second son, Adrian, had been born the year before and he was missing home big time. Out of the blue he challenged our stage manager, Lurch, a towering man with a tough constitution, to a cognac-drinking contest." "Now, cognac, usually around 40 percent alcohol, is for sipping. No one in their right mind knocks it back in shots, but I think I counted a dozen rounds. Soon words were slurred, voice levels rose, and when a clearly plastered Alex triumphantly slammed yet another glass on the table, he shattered it. I looked at Liam and Howard and said, 'You’d better get him to his room.' So they put their arms around him and suggested it was time for bed. Not least because we had another gig to do the following night." Geddy Lee continued: "Those of us remaining in the bar had a laugh about it, then decided enough was enough for us, too. As we were waiting for the elevator the doors opened and out flew Alex, lying prone on a room service cart. Cue more lunatic laughter and, once again, Liam and Herns rounded him up and escorted him to his room next to mine. Sitting on my bed, I could hear shunting and crashing through the wall like he was moving furniture around. I then heard him yelling out to the street, “Hey, England! You guys are stupid. You're all living a thousand years ago! Hey, you. Can you hear me?” "I opened my window and, leaning out, said, 'Lerxst, buddy, go to sleep now. It’s late. 'Dirk,' he said, “can you believe this? These people are livin’ a thousand years ago. Yeah, Lerxstie, I know. But come on, close your window.” I closed my own and began undressing, but he kept calling my name, and then I heard more smashing sounds. He’d torn down the curtains and was soon leaning out his window again, tapping on my window with the metal curtain rod." "'Dirk, Dirk. Don’t go. Open your window!' Half-naked now, I pulled back my curtains when the pane cracked apart, showering my room and me with splinters of glass. I looked down to see a three-inch triangular shard stuck in my tightie whities, about an inch from my effin’ manhood. Gingerly I removed it, then heard scuffling in the hallway and hubbub all over the hotel floor. I tiptoed over broken glass to the door and looked through the peephole in time to get a fisheye view of a nearly naked Alex running down the hallway with Herns and Liam after him." He continued: "They were just hustling him back into his room when two security guys charged out of the elevator and banged on his door. He opened up, the curtain draped over him like a gauzy toga, obstinately denying he’d been making a disturbance. He slurred, “Well, I just don’t give a shit,” and spat on one of them. As we all cringed, mortified, Herns did his best to placate them, earnestly apologizing and promising to sort it all out." "He urged them to talk it over in my room. But when I opened the door, there for all to see was the glass strewn across the carpet. Somehow Herns got them down to the manager’s office, reassuring them of our normally upstanding character and promising to pay for the damages, and saved us from being booted out in the middle of the night. I curled up under the blankets in that room with no window, splinters everywhere, and fell asleep as the cool February air rushed in," Geddy Lee said. He read this part of his book during a special event at the Massey Hall in Canada. According to Lee, the next day Alex Lifeson felt "embarrassed and humiliated". So the guitarist decided to go to every employee, shaking their hands and apoligizing for his behavior. They felt he was being sincere and agreed to welcome the band again the next time they were in town. In 1978, when that happened, Rush had just released the album "Hemispheres". Some of the most famous tracks of the record were "Xanadu" and "La Villa Strangiato". When Geddy Lee accidentally met Robert Plant The second story involves Led Zeppelin vocalist Robert Plant, whom Geddy Lee met by chance while on vacation in Morocco. They happened to be at the same hotel and, by coincidence, were entering their rooms at the same time. The Rush frontman recalled that story in an interview with CBC’s The Hour (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). “I was on a bycicle trip with my wife in Morroco. We ended up at this beautiful hotel in the Atlas mountains. I was given the room key, my wife and I were in this room that only had… just two rooms. One on the right and one on the left. I was checking in, turning the key to open my door and I heard the other door opening. I turned around and it was a guy that looked just like Robert Plant coming out of there.” Geddy continued: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlWKP7x4Cq8&pp=ygUlZ2VkZHkgbGVlIHJvYmVydCBwbGFudCBnZW9yZ2Ugc3Ryb21ibw%3D%3D “He looked at me and I looked at him and we both kind of went ‘That’s weird. He went his way, I went my way. I said ‘that guy looked like so much like Robert Plant’. Then we were on the dinning room having dinner and he came up to me. He said: ‘What are you doing here?’ We chatted and he’d be coming to this hotel for years. We kind of exchanged numbers and stayed in touch. So when he came to Toronto he called. So the two of us (Points to Alex Lifeson) went to watch them (Page & Plant project),” Geddy Lee said. Curiously, during that conversation the interviewer said that he had heard somewhere that Jimmy Page once said that Rush was one of the bands he liked. Geddy and Alex confirmed that they had heard the same thing. The Rush frontman also said over the years how important it was for him and Lifeson to attend that Page and Plant show. Because it was around the same time that Neil Peart had lost his wife and his daughter had tragically passed away the previous year. It was therefore a very difficult moment for Geddy and Alex, who were sharing in Peart’s sadness and grief. Alex Lifeson later revealed that he was excited as a fanboy to meet Jimmy Page. Geddy has even been mistaken for Bono, Ozzy, and John Lennon. The final one is a small collection of funny encounters he had with people who mistook him for other famous artists. Surprisingly, he has often been mistaken for Bono, Ozzy Osbourne and even John Lennon! “I get mistaken for other people in airports. They tink I’m Bono (Vox) sometimes. Sorry, Bono. For some reason, people with the spanish accents think I’m Ozzy Osbourne”. Geddy Lee then imitates people saying: ‘He’s that guy from the Osbournes,’" he told CBC’s The Hour in 2010 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). Over the years he also noted that people frequently thank him for Sabbath's "Iron Man". Geddy Lee believes that happens especially because of the hair and the round glasses both used. But the craziest thing is that there are people to this day who ask him if he is John Lenon (Who died in 1980). “I get mistaken for John Lennon. I do. It’s weird. Because I have little round glasses. And once in a while for . . . Bono,” he told Rolling Stone magazine in 2009.

The 3 funny stories told by Rush’s Geddy Lee

Pete Townshend says The Who is currently a tribute band

Rob Halford says he cried for hours after learning about Ozzy Osbourne’s death

The 3 funny stories told by Rush’s Geddy Lee

Pete Townshend says The Who is currently a tribute band

Rob Halford says he cried for hours after learning about Ozzy Osbourne’s death