IN more than 40 years as the singer with prog-rock titans Rush, Geddy Lee has seen and heard many things.

Yet the roar of the Glasgow Apollo crowd is one of the most memorable.

"I remember the first time we played the Apollo I was shocked by how ardent the fan base was, and at what good voices they had," he chuckles, ahead of bringing the band to the SECC tomorrow.

"I remember we played Closer To The Heart there, and Glasgow was the first audience that sang along with us so loudly that we could hear them over the roar of our amplifiers [later immortalised on the band's 1981 live album Exit- Stage Left].

"It was a special gig as that crowd was so enthusiastic and there's not a lot of places where the crowd was so exuberant."

Geddy has had time over his career to see all sorts of crowds, big and small, loud and quiet. Since 1974 the trio have kept the same line-up of Geddy, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart, and withstood all sorts of musical revolutions.

They were finally inducted in the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame this year, a fitting recognition for a band who have always challenged musical boundaries.

Their current tour, in support of last year's Clockwork Angels album, finds Geddy content.

The Canadian group have regularly been hitting the road in recent years, and the singer and bassist believes it's a sign the group are now enjoying themselves.

"As you get older and you experience more of what life can throw at you, I think you appreciate your opportunities more," he says.

"Here we find ourselves, 40 years down the road and we're playing better than we've ever played together, and with an expanding fan base, which is shocking in itself.

"We're in a happy place, and enjoying it and going with it."

That enjoyment carried over into Clockwork Angels, and Geddy speaks of the record with an enthusiasm that would make you think it was the first album the band had ever made.

SEVERAL tracks will likely be played as part of the group's typically lengthy set on Thursday, but the album's roots lie in their last tour, which was when the band took the step of testing out new material.

"It was a really good move for us, and an exciting move to not have the pressure of an entire album to debut live," explains the softly-spoken singer.

"To flip these two tracks into the show, and see how they were accepted and kinda get an attitude of how to play them did impact the rest of the writing –there was a streamlined attitude to writing them that we tried to carry through to the rest of the record."

That meant cutting back on overdubs in the studio.

Yet the band's famously complex musicianship remains intact.

Such a style has often come in for criticism over the years, and, like many prog rock bands, they have been accused of being pretentious in their music.

For Geddy, that criticism actually strengthened the band's belief in themselves.

"I think when you are kids you form social cliques and for us as musicians we were all so united in what we wanted to play, and that wasn't accepted very easily critically," he says.

"That hardens your skin a bit and makes you think you are fighting the good fight more."

Their fans have never doubted them though, and many campaigned strongly for the trio to be inducted in the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Geddy and his bandmates always insisted it as an honour they weren't fussed about, but they were surprisingly overcome with emotion when finally inducted this year.

He said: "We walked into the room, and seeing the people in the room and those who were there to perform, we just felt this love.

"It definitely affects you, and as Neil said in his opening remarks, we've said for years it isn't a big deal, and now we see it actually is. That's how we felt that night.

"We were surprised, and the crowd there was dominated by our crowd, and that blew us away.

"I think it was suitable for the career we had that our fans came through in shining colours."

Away from the road, though, and Geddy has one other major passion – the sport of baseball.

A huge Toronto Blue Jays fan, it begs the question of whether he'd have swapped his life with Rush for the chance to star on the baseball diamond.

"Everyone wants to be somebody else but if I chose to be a baseball player then I would probably dream of being a musician," he says.

"I probably ended up in life where I'm supposed to be."

n Rush, SECC, Thursday, £60, 7pm