"Rolling Stone seems intent on casting Rush's albums into the two-star void (Records, RS 381). You frown upon any band that doesn't acknowledge any influence from the Sixties, either verbally or musically. How can Rush be criticized for making the music on Signals, its new album, more mainstream? Wasn't that the prime motivation behind...

WHY PEOPLE THINK WE HATE...

On a warm April evening, the New Orleans Arena pulses with bong-infused cuts from the Seventies: Zeppelin's "Kashmir," Jethro Tull's "Thick as a Brick," Pink Floyd's "Us and Them" — the last a particularly apt choice for tonight's crowd. Under bright houselights, the 17,000-capacity venue is quickly filling with fans of the Canadian rock trio Rush — many resembling the two...

Taking the affirmative position are 14,000 French-Canadian fans, many of them wearing Rush T-shirts and scruffy denim jackets with the band's logo stitched across the back. They are vigorously pumping the sweaty, smoky air with their fists and yelling themselves hoarse as guitaris...