Some call it Rush’s worst album, but 50 years later, it sounds like an ambitious near

In December of 2023, nearly five decades, 23 tours and 17 studio albums after the fact, Geddy Lee sat comfortably in an armchair on stage at Massey Hall across from his lifelong friend and Rush bandmate, Alex Lifeson, reminiscing on the body of work they’d created together with the late drummer Neil Peart.

Leaning back and crossing his right leg over his left, Lee posed a question.

“Do you remember making ‘Caress of Steel?’” he asked.

“When you say remember…,” Lifeson responded, to scattered laughter from the crowd and Lee himself.

“Do you remember how much hash oil we smoked making ‘Caress of Steel?’” Lee specified.

“Yeah, that was the thing then…,” Lifeson admitted.

Lee’s question worked on two levels.

He was asking, jokingly, whether the drug-fueled haze allowed Lifeson to rec