Meeting with Alex Lifeson from Rush

Meeting with Alex Lifeson from Rush

A night on the town in Toronto

After a flight of about 7 hours you feel yourself in no-mans land…tired…not tired…usually we still go out for Dinner when we arrive in the US or Canada So we did as well this Sunday.My wife had reserved a new Japanese restaurant in Toronto Yorkville ( she is officially the booking agent for restaurants in our family..) and , full of high expectations, we went to the place.As we entered into the restaurant they wanted to put us in a not so nice and cozy spot….so we refused…and then they gave us better spot …not far away from a table with a rather big family with little children and all..The food that we ordered was excellent…the sushi was too much…as usual we ordered too much much …everything is big over here…and the portions are enormous…Anyway, my wife and I had some drinks and we started to discuss life and family…

When I watched the table next to us I thought I recognizied the blond man in the middle…a big guy …in his early sixties..but with blond…hair…( jealous ).I checked quickly on my Iphone Wikipedia …and yes…he was the guy I thought he was….Mr. Alex Lifeson from RUSH…one of THE greatest rock guitarplayers of all time…!
I mentioned it to my wife…and she ordered me to do absolutely nothing to disturb or bother Mr. Lifeson…
Of course I didn’t care and I was thinking how to get in touch with the guy.

And yes the answer came quickly…
The woman who was sitting next to us ( she was part of the family ) went to the bathroom and when she came back I took my chance.“ Hi how are you doing?”Immediately she came to sit on our table and started talking to us as if we were long time friends.“ Elisabeth”..that was her name…” is that guy over there Alex Lifeson of Rush?”…She gave me the wink and she said yes.They were out with the whole family and she was the wife of his son…she was into her second relationship she told us confidentally…not really necessary to tell us but hey what the hell…
Without really asking if she could make a brief connection with the guitarhero, she promised us to try to get him on our table….Nothing happened for about 15 minutes…and then all of sudden the waiter came with 2 glasses of (real ) champagne…voilà for us..with the compliments of Mr Alex Lifeson…
He didn’t look in our direction but Elisabeth gave us another wink.

Then it happened.
Mr. Lifeson stood up and came directly to our table, sat down next to me and asked us how things were going and that he loved very much Holland.We told him our journey and that we will meet Mr. Springsteen most probably in LA ( wishfull thinking ).Picture Picture…No problem …I gave him the glass of my wife for the picture and we raised our glasses for the sake of good times!

He thanked us for being fan of his music and when the whole family stood up to leave he said “ tot ziens” in his best Dutch.After they left we left as well and had finished our first night in Toronto!
What a start of the journey!

Martin van Gulik 6th of March’16