Rush didn't chase fame, hits or groupies — yet there will never be a better rock band

SUCH WAS the secret appeal of Rush that in the summer of 2008 the band's three members were invited onto American television for only the second time, thirty three years after the first. Appearing on The Colbert Report, the show's host, Stephen Colbert, posed a question to his Torontonian guests. "You're known for your long songs," he said. "Have you ever written a song so epic that by the end of the song you were actually influenced by yourself at the beginning?"