RUSH's 'Beyond The Lighted Stage' Documentary To Make Television Debut In June

"Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage", the long-awaited RUSH documentary produced by Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn of Toronto, Ontario, Canada's Banger Films Inc., will make its television debut on June 26 on VH1 and VH1 Classic.

A poster for "Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage" can be viewed below. The film will receive its Canadian premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, which runs from April 29 to May 9 in Toronto, Ontario.

The film will be shown on the following dates/times:

* Thursday, April 29 at 9:30 p.m. at the Winter Garden Theatre
* Friday, April 30 at 4:00 p.m. at the Isabel Bader Theatre

The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America's largest documentary film festival, conference and market, held annually in Toronto.

"Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage" will receive a red-carpet premier at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on Saturday, April 24. All three members of RUSH — singer/bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart — will be on hand for the event.

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Dunn and McFadyen were interviewed last year by Classic Rock magazine's Jerry Ewing about the first-ever feature film documentary on Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart.

"Geddy had been in [Dunn and McFadyen's previous documentary] 'Metal: A Headbanger's Journey' and we were thinking about other bands we could work with," explained McFadyen. "We felt that RUSH had always been overlooked by the critics so we met them on tour and they liked what we said. We started working on it, then IRON MAIDEN came about so we took a break to do that and raised the financing for the RUSH film. We've started on it now and done a load of interviews so now we're editing with a load of archival footage."

"We've been lucky. Not only have we had access to [RUSH management] SRO's archives but also Geddy, Alex and Neil's own personal archives," enthuses director Dunn. "I was just at Geddy's house this week. Going through his personal collection of memorabilia. I dug up some gems I don't think RUSH fans have ever seen so we're hoping to offer something new."

As RUSH fans themselves, Dunn admitted this made him feel like a kid let loose in a candy store.

"Well, Geddy's definitely the premier band archivist," Dunn said. "He has a massive collection of photographs and clippings. We even got our hands on Neil's handwritten lyric sheets from back when they were making 'Fly By Night', '2112' and 'A Farewell To Kings', and I don't think they've ever been seen before."