He can laugh about it now, between sips of wine at civilized dinners with Geddy Lee but back when the band was inducted into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, Alex Lifeson's turn at the mic had his bro's steaming mad. Lifeson tells the story of their moment in the spotlight, stepping up to the microphone at the Nokia Theatre in LA after a rousing intro from avowed Rush nerds Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighter fame. Because I'm one of Rush's rare female fans, it was an giddily anticipated vindication of a band I didn't dare ever play on girl's weekends, they simply couldn't relate to the power trio's heavy bottom and heady tunes. My heroes were being inducted by ...MY HEROES!! Another sip of my sea breeze and they walked out. Say something cool!!! Say something life changing!!! Like "conform or be cast out'? Up stepped revered drummer Neil Peart with the usual thanks all around. Ditto for Geddy. And then Alex. Who now says, there was a lot of pressure, he was trying to memorize the speech off the prompter so he wouldn't stumble, no easy task at his age, Lifeson explained. He had one of those eureka moments, where his internal monologue wondered, "..why not just go up there and say blah, blah, blah...". He actually confided in his wife he wanted to do it, because everybody was giving all the usual long winded speeches that Alex thought were boring but at the same time unsure if he had the balls to pull it off. Anyway, famous last Lifeson words, Blah, Blah, Blah just blurted out of his mouth! Got a lot of press the next day, but Lifeson remembers how furious Neil and Geddy were. They wanted to kill me, but apologized later for being Un-Rushly with their judgement. Alex couldn't conform as it turns out, but in the hearts of us Rush nerds, none of them will ever be cast out.