Moving Pictures - Homage in the Limelight
On 19th August noted and respected Scottish Rush tribute band Moving Pictures will play their biggest gig to date at The Garage in Glasgow, alongside fellow Rush tribute act Clockwork Angels.
The initial success of Moving Pictures came from the annual RUSHfest shows that band manager, guitarist and lifelong Rush fan Steve Brown has put together since 2014 (donating, to date, over £101k to cancer charities).
But their ever-building stature is also due to impressive gig performances across the UK that, hopefully, will become a springboard to bigger things for a band who are totally dedicated to keeping the songs and spirit of Rush alive by playing extremely well performed homage to the revered Rush catalogue.
And that, as any fan of Rush or rock critic/historian will tell you, is no easy task.
Additionally, the band are championed by Planet Rock’s Darren Redick (a major Rush-head, Redick has appeared and played on stage with Moving Pictures) and part of the larger Rush family through close association with the late Neil Peart’s family, Rush producer Terry Brown (whom they have recorded and performed with) and Rush artistic director (and musician) Hugh Syme, all of whom have attended various RUSHfests.
FabricationsHQ spoke to an ever-busy Steve Brown between Moving Pictures gigs to talk about the upcoming Garage show, future plans for the band, the Songs For Neil tribute series of albums and their special version of 'Afterimage,' which caught the attention of one Alex Lifeson…
FHQ: We should kick off by making it clear you’ve been treading the boards and working in studios for a lot longer than you’ve been Moving Pictures in tribute to Rush…
[laughs] Yeah, I’ve been a full-time musician, producer, performer and songwriter for thirty years but it’s only in the last decade I’ve been doing the Rush and Moving Pictures thing, and the last two years where it’s really taken off.
That’s why we really want The Garage gig to be a success, which will hopefully lead to bigger shows, and bigger venues, in 2024.
FHQ: Moving Pictures reputation came, first, from your symbiotic link to RUSHfest but your gigging outside of Rush events is starting to pay dividends in terms of you becoming known as one of the best tribute bands on the circuit.
And that’s what we’re striving for now. By the end of the year we will have played forty-seven gigs in 2023, with many down south, including one of the smaller Manchester Academy venues, where the ticket sales are going really well – to the extent that we’ve been asked if we want to have more Academy dates for next year, to which we bit their hand off! [laughs].
We’re also not long back from gigs in Cambridge, Guildford and Worthing; turns out the lighting guy at the latter, Howie, had worked with Genesis!
He emailed me after the gigs with some really lovely words; someone had asked him how the gig had gone with us, and he replied 'when you’re half-way through the first song and you forget you’re doing a tribute band; that says it all about how the gig went.'
He also said 'you remind me of when I first worked with Brit Floyd. You get out there, with a good package behind you, and you’ll soon be on to bigger and better things.'
So we are starting to get the UK under our belt, and even further afield.
We’re going over to Canada at the end of August to play the Neil Peart Pavilion in Lakeside Park in Ontario, as invited guests of Neil’s sister Nancy; we’re also doing RushFest Brazil next April and the Dutch Rush Fans Fest in June, so it is all starting to pick up momentum.
The initial success of Moving Pictures came from the annual RUSHfest shows that band manager, guitarist and lifelong Rush fan Steve Brown has put together since 2014 (donating, to date, over £101k to cancer charities).
But their ever-building stature is also due to impressive gig performances across the UK that, hopefully, will become a springboard to bigger things for a band who are totally dedicated to keeping the songs and spirit of Rush alive by playing extremely well performed homage to the revered Rush catalogue.
And that, as any fan of Rush or rock critic/historian will tell you, is no easy task.
Additionally, the band are championed by Planet Rock’s Darren Redick (a major Rush-head, Redick has appeared and played on stage with Moving Pictures) and part of the larger Rush family through close association with the late Neil Peart’s family, Rush producer Terry Brown (whom they have recorded and performed with) and Rush artistic director (and musician) Hugh Syme, all of whom have attended various RUSHfests.
FabricationsHQ spoke to an ever-busy Steve Brown between Moving Pictures gigs to talk about the upcoming Garage show, future plans for the band, the Songs For Neil tribute series of albums and their special version of 'Afterimage,' which caught the attention of one Alex Lifeson…
FHQ: We should kick off by making it clear you’ve been treading the boards and working in studios for a lot longer than you’ve been Moving Pictures in tribute to Rush…
[laughs] Yeah, I’ve been a full-time musician, producer, performer and songwriter for thirty years but it’s only in the last decade I’ve been doing the Rush and Moving Pictures thing, and the last two years where it’s really taken off.
That’s why we really want The Garage gig to be a success, which will hopefully lead to bigger shows, and bigger venues, in 2024.
FHQ: Moving Pictures reputation came, first, from your symbiotic link to RUSHfest but your gigging outside of Rush events is starting to pay dividends in terms of you becoming known as one of the best tribute bands on the circuit.
And that’s what we’re striving for now. By the end of the year we will have played forty-seven gigs in 2023, with many down south, including one of the smaller Manchester Academy venues, where the ticket sales are going really well – to the extent that we’ve been asked if we want to have more Academy dates for next year, to which we bit their hand off! [laughs].
We’re also not long back from gigs in Cambridge, Guildford and Worthing; turns out the lighting guy at the latter, Howie, had worked with Genesis!
He emailed me after the gigs with some really lovely words; someone had asked him how the gig had gone with us, and he replied 'when you’re half-way through the first song and you forget you’re doing a tribute band; that says it all about how the gig went.'
He also said 'you remind me of when I first worked with Brit Floyd. You get out there, with a good package behind you, and you’ll soon be on to bigger and better things.'
So we are starting to get the UK under our belt, and even further afield.
We’re going over to Canada at the end of August to play the Neil Peart Pavilion in Lakeside Park in Ontario, as invited guests of Neil’s sister Nancy; we’re also doing RushFest Brazil next April and the Dutch Rush Fans Fest in June, so it is all starting to pick up momentum.
But we need to maximise on all these opportunities, and that starts with The Garage on the 19th of August; that's our biggest show to date and one in which we will be playing the entire Moving Pictures album.
We also have lighting director Kevin Cain, who worked for Rush on the Moving Pictures tour, on board for the show; he’s actually bringing in extra lighting, so we’re going to get a good looking show, which is also being filmed!
FHQ: Alongside you in Moving Pictures you have Eoin de Paor and Jamie Dunleavey.
What Jamie does on a kit much smaller than Neil Peart’s is remarkable – she has the drum riffs, rolls and fills down pat.
Eoin is a great bass player, dovetails on keys and has a voice that fits the profile, as they say.
He doesn’t try to perfectly mimic the Geddy Lee voice, nor strive for the higher register a younger Geddy had, but he is absolutely in vocal sympathy with those Geddy originals.
Yes, I’m very lucky in that I’ve got a Geddy! [laughs]. Eoin can do the Geddy stuff really well, and that’s rare to come across.
Jamie’s kit has grown a little since the early days but yes, she’s really good; and the fact she’s a younger lass is great, because she’s carrying the Rush sprit to the next generation and, perhaps more importantly, is also a reflection of the fact we are now seeing a lot more younger fans – and females – at our gigs.
And that’s brilliant, because Rush were always seen as a blokes band, although in the last few years of their own career they were getting a wider fan demographic at their gigs.
So when more females started coming to our gigs I thought well, this is unexpected, but very welcome!
Jamie is in her early thirties and Ciaran Whyte, who helps out now and again when Jamie is unavailable, is in his mid-twenties; both were brought up on Rush by their folks, so while they weren’t lucky enough to see the band live, they’ve had Rush since the womb! [laughs]
They’ve got the chops down and they have that focus to get it beat perfect, even, as you noted, on a smaller kit.
Eoin and I are just so lucky to have found these youngsters to play with in the rhythm department; and they’re really sound people, which makes it so much fun on the road!
We also have lighting director Kevin Cain, who worked for Rush on the Moving Pictures tour, on board for the show; he’s actually bringing in extra lighting, so we’re going to get a good looking show, which is also being filmed!
FHQ: Alongside you in Moving Pictures you have Eoin de Paor and Jamie Dunleavey.
What Jamie does on a kit much smaller than Neil Peart’s is remarkable – she has the drum riffs, rolls and fills down pat.
Eoin is a great bass player, dovetails on keys and has a voice that fits the profile, as they say.
He doesn’t try to perfectly mimic the Geddy Lee voice, nor strive for the higher register a younger Geddy had, but he is absolutely in vocal sympathy with those Geddy originals.
Yes, I’m very lucky in that I’ve got a Geddy! [laughs]. Eoin can do the Geddy stuff really well, and that’s rare to come across.
Jamie’s kit has grown a little since the early days but yes, she’s really good; and the fact she’s a younger lass is great, because she’s carrying the Rush sprit to the next generation and, perhaps more importantly, is also a reflection of the fact we are now seeing a lot more younger fans – and females – at our gigs.
And that’s brilliant, because Rush were always seen as a blokes band, although in the last few years of their own career they were getting a wider fan demographic at their gigs.
So when more females started coming to our gigs I thought well, this is unexpected, but very welcome!
Jamie is in her early thirties and Ciaran Whyte, who helps out now and again when Jamie is unavailable, is in his mid-twenties; both were brought up on Rush by their folks, so while they weren’t lucky enough to see the band live, they’ve had Rush since the womb! [laughs]
They’ve got the chops down and they have that focus to get it beat perfect, even, as you noted, on a smaller kit.
Eoin and I are just so lucky to have found these youngsters to play with in the rhythm department; and they’re really sound people, which makes it so much fun on the road!
FHQ: While you perform the Rush repertoire in highly impressive and authentic manner, you've also recorded a deeply poignant and heavily rearranged version of the Rush song, Afterimage.
The story behind that is deeper than many people think, or know.
John Eadie, who had been the keyboard player in Clockwork Angels, who are playing with us at The Garage, died suddenly toward the end of 2019; he was only his late thirties so it was a major shock to us all.
I then had the idea to take that song, because of the lyrics and their sentiment of loss, and make it a ballad.
I mentioned it to Eoin and said we should maybe look at creating an acoustic version; but before I know it he had come up with an amazing piano piece for the song, which clearly dictated the way it was going to go, so that’s exactly what we did.
We started it slow, let it build, and then it transforms to the faster and angry – another element of grief, of course – Rush original.
But while we were working on it, Neil Peart passed, so it instantly became even more poignant – and Neil wrote the lyrics for Robbie Whelan, a friend and assistant engineer of the band, who died very young in a car accident; so here we are with a version that has almost come full circle, and thought of as a tribute to Neil’s passing.
Alex Lifeson heard it and complimented us on it, thanking us for the tribute, which was lovely.
We don’t play our version of Afterimage at every gig. It’s actually difficult for us to pull it off live because it is so poignant and so far away from the original, up-tempo Rush version.
But if it gets to the stage where we become really well known for it, if it becomes a signature song of ours, we may well put it in the set.
The story behind that is deeper than many people think, or know.
John Eadie, who had been the keyboard player in Clockwork Angels, who are playing with us at The Garage, died suddenly toward the end of 2019; he was only his late thirties so it was a major shock to us all.
I then had the idea to take that song, because of the lyrics and their sentiment of loss, and make it a ballad.
I mentioned it to Eoin and said we should maybe look at creating an acoustic version; but before I know it he had come up with an amazing piano piece for the song, which clearly dictated the way it was going to go, so that’s exactly what we did.
We started it slow, let it build, and then it transforms to the faster and angry – another element of grief, of course – Rush original.
But while we were working on it, Neil Peart passed, so it instantly became even more poignant – and Neil wrote the lyrics for Robbie Whelan, a friend and assistant engineer of the band, who died very young in a car accident; so here we are with a version that has almost come full circle, and thought of as a tribute to Neil’s passing.
Alex Lifeson heard it and complimented us on it, thanking us for the tribute, which was lovely.
We don’t play our version of Afterimage at every gig. It’s actually difficult for us to pull it off live because it is so poignant and so far away from the original, up-tempo Rush version.
But if it gets to the stage where we become really well known for it, if it becomes a signature song of ours, we may well put it in the set.
FHQ: As Afterimage underlines and as every Rush fan knows, Neil’s lyrics were as strong, resonant, and powerful as the music Geddy & Alex wrote for those lyrics; in fact there’s some very clever and deceptively complicated stuff going on in many Rush songs.
Yes, and that’s something I’m still learning about their songs!
Every time I learn a new one, or get in to the nitty gritty of an arrangement, I think 'wow, that is so clever.'
Marathon is a great example. That song has a couple of key changes toward the end – it’s in B Major, goes up to C Sharp Major then goes up again – or rather you think it goes up again, because it actually drops back to B Major. But the way the melody and key changes build I always thought it jumped up another full tone; it wasn’t until I sat and worked out the chords I thought 'Oh, genius!'
You think it goes up again, or rather it sounds like it goes up again, but it doesn’t – it goes back to the original key, but the whole song keeps lifting. That, to me, is sorcery! [laughs]
FHQ: RUSHfest 2023, which you held back in May, has been cited by many attendees as the one to beat, but I know you’re looking to do just that for 2024...
Yes, the violinist and concertmaster Jonathan Dinklage [part of the Clockwork Angels Tour string ensemble; played on Losing It on the R40 tour] is hoping to come over next year; he's also speaking to Adele, one of the cellists who was part of the Clockwork Angels string ensemble, about coming across with him; that would be as part of us playing a headline set with a string ensemble!
And beyond 2024, Neil’s sisters Nancy and Judy Peart, along with Hugh Syme, all want to come back as VIP guests; Hugh will also be part of the Lakeside Park event I mentioned earlier and he’s also looking to come with us to the Brazil fest.
FHQ: Another Rush related passion of yours are the Tributes : Songs For Neil album series that you started to produce during lockdown, with every penny of profit going to Cancer Support Scotland and Glioblastoma Foundation Neil Peart Research Award.
That’s a great showcasing series of albums featuring various International and UK Rush tribute bands, as well as some solo artists or singer-songwriters who have a love of Rush.
Yes, and funnily enough Hugh just done a fantastic, Scottish themed artwork for what will be the Neil Peart Tribute album Volume 4; he also did the artwork for Volume 3, which we released on what would have been Neil’s 70th birthday.
One of the artists featured on those albums is a young singer-songwriter called Leoni Jane Kennedy, who supports us now and again.
I’ve just co-produced, mixed and mastered Leoni’s album of acoustic Rush covers called New World Woman.
She's done them in her own way, each with a twist; she’s an amazing and genuine young talent who recently won a Freddie Mercury Music scholarship.
I can also reveal that myself, Hugh, Leoni and Jonathan Dinklage are going to be collaborating on a new interpretation of Circumstances for Volume 4, so watch this space!
Yes, and that’s something I’m still learning about their songs!
Every time I learn a new one, or get in to the nitty gritty of an arrangement, I think 'wow, that is so clever.'
Marathon is a great example. That song has a couple of key changes toward the end – it’s in B Major, goes up to C Sharp Major then goes up again – or rather you think it goes up again, because it actually drops back to B Major. But the way the melody and key changes build I always thought it jumped up another full tone; it wasn’t until I sat and worked out the chords I thought 'Oh, genius!'
You think it goes up again, or rather it sounds like it goes up again, but it doesn’t – it goes back to the original key, but the whole song keeps lifting. That, to me, is sorcery! [laughs]
FHQ: RUSHfest 2023, which you held back in May, has been cited by many attendees as the one to beat, but I know you’re looking to do just that for 2024...
Yes, the violinist and concertmaster Jonathan Dinklage [part of the Clockwork Angels Tour string ensemble; played on Losing It on the R40 tour] is hoping to come over next year; he's also speaking to Adele, one of the cellists who was part of the Clockwork Angels string ensemble, about coming across with him; that would be as part of us playing a headline set with a string ensemble!
And beyond 2024, Neil’s sisters Nancy and Judy Peart, along with Hugh Syme, all want to come back as VIP guests; Hugh will also be part of the Lakeside Park event I mentioned earlier and he’s also looking to come with us to the Brazil fest.
FHQ: Another Rush related passion of yours are the Tributes : Songs For Neil album series that you started to produce during lockdown, with every penny of profit going to Cancer Support Scotland and Glioblastoma Foundation Neil Peart Research Award.
That’s a great showcasing series of albums featuring various International and UK Rush tribute bands, as well as some solo artists or singer-songwriters who have a love of Rush.
Yes, and funnily enough Hugh just done a fantastic, Scottish themed artwork for what will be the Neil Peart Tribute album Volume 4; he also did the artwork for Volume 3, which we released on what would have been Neil’s 70th birthday.
One of the artists featured on those albums is a young singer-songwriter called Leoni Jane Kennedy, who supports us now and again.
I’ve just co-produced, mixed and mastered Leoni’s album of acoustic Rush covers called New World Woman.
She's done them in her own way, each with a twist; she’s an amazing and genuine young talent who recently won a Freddie Mercury Music scholarship.
I can also reveal that myself, Hugh, Leoni and Jonathan Dinklage are going to be collaborating on a new interpretation of Circumstances for Volume 4, so watch this space!
Watch this space indeed; and keep your eyes and ears on Moving Pictures, whose upward momentum may soon be written on Steve Brown’s studio walls, and larger concert halls...
AN EVENING OF RUSH with Moving Pictures & Clockwork Angels
The Garage, 490 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Saturday 19th August. Doors open at 6pm
Clockwork Angels will open the Evening Of Rush show with a 60 minute set.
Moving Pictures will follow with a full set including a complete performance of the Moving Pictures album.
Between them, at least one song from every Rush album will be performed.
For See Tickets link click here
For Tickets Scotland link click here
http://www.MovingPicturesUK.com
http://www.RUSHfestScotland.co.uk
http://www.stevebrownmusic.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/Clockworkangelsuk
Songs For Neil albums:
https://rushfestscotland.bandcamp.com/
The Garage, 490 Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, Saturday 19th August. Doors open at 6pm
Clockwork Angels will open the Evening Of Rush show with a 60 minute set.
Moving Pictures will follow with a full set including a complete performance of the Moving Pictures album.
Between them, at least one song from every Rush album will be performed.
For See Tickets link click here
For Tickets Scotland link click here
http://www.MovingPicturesUK.com
http://www.RUSHfestScotland.co.uk
http://www.stevebrownmusic.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/Clockworkangelsuk
Songs For Neil albums:
https://rushfestscotland.bandcamp.com/