Music Arcades: Rush: Power Windows

Somehow I find it strangely reassuring that, even when I was 20, I was already a nostalgic fool. I fell out of love with Rush on 2 November 1981. When their 1982 album, Signals, came out, things hadn't quite healed over, so I ignored that (only to later go back and get the single). But after a while I went back to buying their albums, not because I expected to like them, but because I just wanted to see how they were getting on. Kind of like keeping tabs on an old girlfriend. I had no old girlfriends to keep tabs on, so…

In 1985, Power Windows put an end to that. As with other records like Promise Nothing, I had to take it to Richard's room to hear it. I knew Richard wouldn't mind listening to the new Rush album. He didn't, but I did. I thought it was grim, and, with the added wisdom that the intervening 25 years have bestowed on me, I see I was right.

My friend James, who got me the excellent Rush ticket a few years ago, but otherwise has fine taste, follows Rush around the country every time they tour, wearing a leather jacket embossed with their name, which cost several hundred pounds. He acknowledges that the slow decay had well and truly set in by the time of Power Windows. He's so young that he didn't become a fan until about then, and listens to me talk of the Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures tours with considerable envy. Looking at Last.fm's charts suggests few of the fans prize the music that Rush made after 1982 (at the time of writing, the top song from Power Windows is at No.26). Of course, I confess to James, all the time we were at Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures tours, we were wishing we'd been at the Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres tours — but we were too young.