Broon's Bane

The combination of Broon's Bane, The Trees and Xanadu is my favorite section of live music ever recorded. Consequently ESL is my favorite live album. It's such a sweet transition from Broons to Trees. To combine two great songs like Trees and Xanadu, and perform them flawlessly live is such ear candy for a fanatical Rush fan.

If you take a minute to look up the term "BANE" in any dictionary you'll understand that Terry Brown _HATED_ the intro, which is why "The Trees" is the way it is on Hemispheres but not live. I saw them last night and they played "The Trees" (And it smoked_) but no "Broon's Bane" intro which is too bad because it's a pretty sweet piece of music.

I enjoy unusual origins in song titles such as here with Broon's Bane. Producer Terry Brown's nickname, Broon, borrowed...and then his rejection of it makes it his bane. Thank goodness for the live album Exit...Stage Left, in which we get to hear its fuller length. Had Alex lived in the baroque era of classical music before Mozart, Mozart would have had occasion to study this little, delightful and inventive piece of string work, and perhaps would have been inspired to write a whole symphony on it as the root theme. I look forward to many more years of Alex Lifeson's guitar work, and certainly wish that he brings more acoustical pieces our way. The time is right for more of this flavor.

Yes this song does go right into 'The Trees'. It proves just how versatile Rush is. To me, it also proves that a guitar player doesn't have to play 128th notes at 220bpm to be good at progressive rock music. Alex is truely a giften musician and his tasteful playing of this track gives me chills.

I LOVE how this goes right into the Trees!!!

This was actually to be part of THE TREES acoustic intro but was rejected by Terry Brown aka Broon, therfore the title Broons Bane.

This truly shows how much of a great guitarist Alex Lifeson really is!!! Classically trained and trained in the world of ROCK!!! GREAT!!!

Also to note, this song is not recorded on any studio album, thus no available studio only version. It exists only on the live "Exit Stage...Left" album.

I've always wondered...this song was performed on the 'Moving Pictures' tour, right before they recorded and released 'Signals', which was to be the last Broon-produced album. Didn't Broon start getting nervous when they named a song "Broon's Bane?"