All the Concerts Fit to Print

Rush is on tour in commemoration of the bands 40 years together (41, actually, but who's counting?). Their show is a travel through time. They started with songs and set from their most recent album and tour, and ended in their earliest days. It was a fitting (apparent) end to their grand concert touring.

They started with three songs from Clockwork Angels, one of which incorporated a short drum solo. Then two songs from Snakes & Arrows - "Far Cry" and the instrumental "Main Monkey Business," which were excellent. Then Vapor Trails with "One Little Victory" (the original video seemed a bit tired). They skipped over T4E and went to Counterparts for "Animate." The first set was finished up with a couple of synth era songs - "DEW" and "Subdivisions."

It was hard for me to get into this part of the show. I'm not all that familiar with Clockwork Angels. I loved the two songs from Snakes & Arrows but after that I wasn't extremely enthused. The sound wasn't great, and most importantly, we were way in the back, only a few rows from the top. It was just harder to feel it from back there.

Workers in red coveralls kept coming out to adjust the set. They began with their steampunk set up, but shortly, a couple of guys came out to replace some of Geddy's gear with his trademark washing machine, like he had used in prior years. This continued through the set. At the same time, Alex's steampunk stuff was gradually replaced with a small Marshall stack. complete with dinosaurs and Barbies.

The second set continued the journey through time. It opened strong with Moving Pictures and Permanent Waves. "Tom Sawyer," "YYZ," "Spirit of Radio." Next was a song that I'm not thrilled about. "Natural Science" is not only dull but nine minutes long. I was thinking that as long as they were playing a long dull song, they should have done "Jacob's Ladder," since I like that one marginally better. They played it next. Both of them? Guys, they're nearly interchangeable - what were you thinking? Speaking of long dull songs, on other dates they dropped "Natural Science" and "YYZ," and did "The Camera Eye." Okay, I actually like that one.

But then they got into my favorite part. "Cygnus X-1." This one sounded a little different. Something about the live experience, I guess. It's not often a Rush song sound different live, so that was cool. They followed it up with "Cygnus X-1." Since they were going by album in reverse order, they had to play "Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres" which was from the Hemispheres album, before "Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage" which was from A Farewell to Kings. They did "Prelude" from Book II, and then the first and third parts from Book I. Yes I know how pretentious that all is. Shut up. Neil did his second drum solo during that one. The solo was quite enjoyable, though not as long or as technical as his previous solos have been. I assume that has something to do with his chronic tendinitis.

After the whole Cygnus thing (or the various parts of the whole Cygnus thing) they did "Closer to the Heart." Beautiful. My favorite song of the night. The next one, "Xanadu," was a close second. It seemed abbreviated, though. Geddy played his double-necked Rickenbacker and a Minimoog, and Alex his double-necked Gibson. They finished up with Overture, Temples, Presentation and Finale from "2112." Fun stuff.

After a short break, they came back for the finale. "Lakeside Park" (from Caress of Steel), "Anthem" (from Fly By Night) and "What You're Doing" and the classic finisher "Working Man" from their debut album.

Before the start of the second set, they showed a video made up of outtakes from many of the videos they've showed at their concerts over the years.

When the curtain went up on "Tom Sawyer," their gear on stage consisted of Alex's huge Marshall stacks, and Geddy's similarly sized stacks of bass amps. Throughout the set, stagehands would come out periodically to remove some, until the end of the show when there were only a couple left. During the finale, their set resembled a school gymnasium. The video wall showed a basketball court and there were a few institutional chairs onstage. Geddy and Alex were each reduced to a single amp, Geddy's sitting across a couple of the chairs. And there was a big disco ball. While I sometimes found the stagehands distracting, it was a fun concept.

The sound started out horribly. It seemed like the sound crew was frantically trying to get everything set during the first song, like they hadn't had a soundcheck. It took a couple more songs to really get things dialed in, but things didn't sound quite right for several other songs or sections. The second half sounded pretty good, with the exception of 2112. It sounded thin, like they lost the tune, except on the most bombastic riffing.

The light show was good. A video wall on the back, with a couple of tall, narrow screens to each side. Two additional projection screens hung farther out to the sides of the stage. Lasers in a few songs. Spotlights shining upwards sometimes. Dear lighting designers. You always have spotlights shining on the audience at some point, and that's great, as long as they keep moving. Last night you had lights shining directly on my section of the audience for the entire drum solo. They were shining directly through Neil's kit, so I couldn't see him, and had to watch on the video screens. Not cool.


Section 313, row 14.

( more pics, and setlist )

I'm surprised that they're on tour. It seemed like they didn't used to like touring. At least Neil didn't. And this time, they don't even have a new album. They were in the studio in the spring, and recorded a couple of new songs. Geddy says they'll resume recording when the tour is over. Maybe they wouldn't have gotten the album released until fall, and then summer touring season would be over.

Not only are they touring in between albums, they developed a new stage show. The stage was decked out in steampunk, with a bit of alchemy. For the first time in about fifteen years, there were no washers or other large appliances onstage. Instead, Geddy had a "time machine" behind him. With sausages being extruded. Alex, instead of his usual wall of amplifiers, had three large amplifier-looking things. They were reminiscent of old-time console radios, with sci-fi accents. Does this mean that Alex was feeding his guitars straight to the board, like Geddy has been doing for many years? The wall behind them was one huge screen. They showed their usual videos, some new work, some on-stage video, or no video for many songs. Sometimes video of the band was surrounded by steampunk frames. I was amazed at the resolution of that screen.

I had had trouble logging onto the presale to buy tickets, so I was a little disappointed that our seats were so far back. We were near the back of the reserved seats, but I was happy that we were almost dead center. We had a great view. Rush fans are a dedicated bunch, and the crowd was a curious mix of old and young. The average age keeps going up, but there are always teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings there. There were several families around us. One family of four - mom, dad, girl, boy - all in various tour shirts from years past. A mother and her teenage son, a couple with a four year old girl (okay, that seems a bit young), and in front of us was a man and two (probably) nine-year-old boys. One of them was air-drumming during one song. Either he knew the song, or was good at air drumming in general. It was cute. The guy next to us shot some video. I hope he posts it on YouTube or something.

The set list: The Spirit of Radio (the perfect high-powered intro), Time Stand Still (for the Time Machine Tour), Presto, Stick it Out (hard rocking), Workin' Them Angels (overtime), Leave that Thing Alone (the most "different" of their instrumentals), Faithless, BU2B (a new song, Brought Up to Believe), Freewill (crowd pleaser), Subdivisions. Intermission. Tom Sawyer, Red Barchetta, YYZ, Limelight, The Camera Eye, Witch Hunt, Vital Signs, Caravan (new song), Love 4 Sale (drum solo), Closer to the Heart (with new acoustic guitar solo intro), 2112: Overture/Temples of Syrinx, Far Cry. Encore: La Villa Strangiato, Working Man (with extended reggae into).

The first thing that an astute reader will have noticed, is the second set includes all of Moving Pictures straight through. Aside from being a surefire way to get people to show up when there's no new album out (as if they needed the boost), there are a couple of songs that they don't play. They haven't played "The Camera Eye" since the Signals tour in 1983. They also played Vital Signs. I thought I had never heard them do that one, but I apparently did, as late as 1992.

There were the two new songs, that I hadn't heard. They've been out for a few weeks, but I hadn't gotten around to buying them. I was impressed with BU2B. Very heavy. I was not as impressed with Caravan. It was very heavy, but it seemed a throwback. Rush of 1974 would have creamed their pants if they'd heard this song. Alex followed up Neil's drum solo with a new acoustic solo, which led into "Closer to the Heart".

I thought Neil's drum solo was a little different. The first part, on his acoustic kit was very different. Instead of his usual rhythmic pounding, it was somewhat atmospheric. More like waves of sound. The second part, on the electronic kit, was all African and Asian sounds. I liked it a lot. The third part, was his usual (as of late) big band bash, with full orchestration on backup tape.

I really didn't care for Geddy's bass sound. He's getting harsher. He played a four-stringed Fender. He had a really hard attack, going for a funky sound, but it didn't suit much of their music well. It was a hammer and chisel, compared to the jacknife of most of their work (Alex has the scalpel). For the most part, it lacked musical tone. On top of that, it was too loud in the mix. Just plain too loud, really. The plonk actually bothered my ears on occasion. The drums and guitar seemed to be mixed well, but the bass sound was overpowering. The attack was too much, and the bass fill was too little. It wasn't just Geddy, I don't think - it was the sound crew too. It's kinda been brought on by the subwoofer culture. Too much bass oomph. You know that sound - less musical than simply percussive. Boom... boom... boom... It's kinda cool if used properly, but for a band like Rush it can become annoying.

On the other hand, Geddy's voice sounded great. He's really becoming a better singer. Yes, for you anti-fans, you still wont like the sound of his voice, but he's definitely been working on his voice. And he can still hit some high notes. Not all of them, but I thought he did really well. Geddy didn't seem to be in a very good mood. He wasn't smiling or clowning around like he usually does.

Alex seemed to be his usual self, save for the lack of goofing around with Geddy. There were two songs where either his guitar didn't work, or he had the wrong one, and he had to run offstage and grab a new one.

My favorite songs from the set list are "La Villa Strangiato" and "The Spirit of Radio". La Villa seemed a little loose for my taste. "Far Cry was one of my favorites of the show. I wasn't all that excited by "Tom Sawyer" (as usual), and "Red Barchetta" didn't thrill me (unlike usual). "The Camera Eye" was enjoyable. I'm guessing the reason the band hasn't wanted to play it is that it's long and a little dull, but I like it a lot.

The films... The intro film was pretty good. Who writes these things? Geddy played a way-over-the-top, old-time Jewish sausage store owner. Neil was an Irish cop, and Alex was an enormous eastern European... inventor? It involved a Rush-like trio of kids (playing "Tom Sawyer" on drums, tuba and accordion), and a time machine that changed the style of music they played. Damn funny. The into to the second set involved a similar group of people shooting a video. They had another film at the end of the show. Two uber nerds got into the band's dressing room after a show, and the band came in, and... hilarity ensued. Okay, this one wasn't all that funny. After that, there was a recorded version of "Closer to the Heart" played by the band in Polka style. It seemed almost like it was made for Milwaukee. :-)

We had a good time at the Snakes & Arrows show. They always put on a good show.

But... I was disappointed. I knew going into it that they weren't going to be playing many of my favorites. They're closing in on 20 albums, and I could pick one or two from each that I just love, and I probably heard three of those. My main problem with the show was the sound. All through the first three songs, I was waiting for the sound crew to get it dialed in. They never did. The drums were a bit loud, and the guitar very easily gets lost in the mix. Geddy's bass was too thundering and not musical enough. It was a very deep sound, but it was so low, that it never seemed to be in any key.

They played a few surprising songs - "Circumstances," "Witch Hunt," "Entres Nous, "Passage to Bangkok" and "Between the Wheels." These were songs they hadn't played in many many years. Knowing the set list ahead of time, I was a little curious as to how some of these songs would sound live. They sounded great - "Entres Nous" was given a certain amount of punch, and "Circumstances" has it anyway. "Witch Hunt" may have sounded better than on the album. It seemed to have a little more darkness and foreboding. I definitely liked the video during that one. Distorted and grotesque faces. "Misson" seemed a little low-key for the fourth song.

My absolute favorite song of the night was the first half closer. "Dreamline." Their best song from their best album (IMHO, of course). Another highlight was "Far Cry," the second set opener, and the lead track from their latest album. This one rocks. And that one led into a nice string of good music. The band grouped most of the songs from the new album together in two sets. "Far Cry" led into "Workin' Them Angels," "Armor and Sword" and "Spindrift" which were very cool. I wasn't as thrilled with "The Main Monkey Business", which possibly lived up to its name, being very chaotic and hard to follow. Similarly, "Tom Sawyer" was disappointingly muddled. I remember it being one of my faves, their last time in town. It followed "Spirit of Radio," which was excellent. The still amazing "YYZ" closed the show.

I really enjoyed Neil's drum solo (I wonder what he's calling it this tour). He started out with a traditional-style drum solo, which didn't excite me all that much, but then he spun around to the back kit for a very interesting electronic section. I sure appreciated having the big screens up so I could see what he was doing. After that, he spun it back to the acoustic drums for a swing-based set. It was probably his shortest solo in many years, but it was definitely a good one. That was followed by Alex's acoustic solo song, "Hope." Very nice, though it reminded me of some old Page/Zeppelin sounds.

The show held its usual large bowlful of humor. Filmed intros by Bob & Doug MacKenzie and the South Park kids ("That's not how it goes!" "Tom Sawyer built a raft and floated down the river with a black man. I know - I read the book." "Dude that wasn't Tom Sawyer, that was Huckleberry Finn, and that's not how the song goes!"). Another filmed intro was very weird. Not sure where that came from (and can't remember what song it was for), but it was Alex making with the weird, so I guess that explains it. I loved the show intro, involving the band and a weird dream sequence, and Geddy as a Scotsman. Scary, woo! Alex always has a big stack of amps, that are covered with plastic dinosaurs. In front of his pedal rig, he's got a small army of Barbie doll groupies. Apparently they're holding signs (made by the roadies) that say things like, "I Like The Drummer", "My Grampa Says Your Cool", "Can I Roll Your Bones?", "I'm A Dino-Whore AKA Suckasaurass", "I Was Conceived While My Dad Was At A Rush Concert", "I'm Not Wearing Any Panties", "My Mom Thinks Your Hot!","I'm Only Doing This To Pay For College", "Freebird!", "I Thought ZZ Top Had Beards", "Bass Player's Cute! Is That His Real Nose?", "I Golf Naked", "Nice Dinosaurs-You Must Be A Caveman" and "If It's Too Loud You're Too Old." Geddy feeds his bass and keyboards directly to the soundboards, and feels the need to balance his side of the stage with Alex's, so he's got appliances. Last time he had clothes dryers and a sandwich vending machine. This time he had three huge chicken rotisseries. Twice, they had people come out to "baste" them. Fans who won prizes, I'm guessing. Speaking of Canadians and cheese heads, the first guy who went out to baste, was wearing a cheese head (hat). The girl who went out during "Spirit of Radio" spent a lot of time posing for her boyfriend on the sidestage with a camera. They used to pull t-shirts from the dryers and throw them to the audience. This time, to avoid the barbecue sauce, they just brought them from backstage.

I guess it rained pretty hard around the middle of the show. The people in the bleachers and lawn got pretty drenched. The woman next to me got pretty drenched by beer. I missed that too. She wasn't too happy.

What should have been our armor, becomes a bright and shining sword

Rush's triumphant return to the stage after five years.

I took that Friday afternoon off to go camping. After running around trying to make sure I'd gotten everything important packed (which I didn't), I managed to get down to Cyn's nearly on time. I ordered tickets for the Tool concert. We got on the road. It took us nearly an hour to get to the campground, but we'd got a little bit lost. Jim and Peggy were supposed to be there before us, but it didn't really surprise me to find out that they weren't. We had to leave for the evening before they showed up. I was really hoping they'd be there because Jim was supposed to be cooking dinner. We had to eat at BK.

We had to get back to town to pick up Phil for the Rush concert. We barely got there before he would have left without us. We got downtown and waited in traffic for several blocks before finding out that all the parking lots on the south end were full and they were routing traffic back north. Phil got out there anyway, so he didn't miss any of the show, but by the time we got to our seats, the band was in their second song.

Phil told us they played the Three Stooges Theme as an into, as usual.

The first hour was all from Moving Pictures through Roll the Bones, with two exceptions. After that, they mixed in quite a few other songs. They played many of my favorites - "Dreamline", "Leave That Thing Alone," "La Villa Strangiato", "YYZ", "Big Money", "Driven" - my favorite songs from many of their albums.

Neil had a drum solo that was just awesome. The first one-third wasn't all that exciting - great moves, but it just didn't do anything for me musically. The second part was when his kit spun around and he played the back half. That was just great - very rhythmic and "melodic". Then the kit spun back and the last part was just as great. After that he left the stage (to recuperate, I'd guess) and Geddy and Alex played "Resist" on acoustic guitars.

Their humor was set on high. Alex had a stack of amps behind him, but Geddy had a row of clothes dryers going. They were even miked up just like amps. They had t-shirts in them, going round and round, which they threw to the crowd at the end of the show. During "La Villa" Alex quit playing, and Geddy and Neil went in to a little jazzy backing thing, and Alex went off on some weird stream of consciousness story - something about "and the sky was my ceiling, and the mountains were my door, and the lakes, well, they were my toilet, I guess, and I was floating, and floating and floating..." Weird. But funny.

It was during that part that we got some emotion out of Neil. He didn't have much to do at that point, so he was able to hear what Alex was saying, and he was just cracking up. The other time that Neil seemed to be having fun was during "Working Man". If you're familiar with the history of the band, you'll know why he didn't have any trouble paying attention to what was going on around him during that song.

Alex did a guitar solo that blew me away. They had cameras and big screens going, and during the solo, they showed a close up of his left hand. He was playing two different things. He was doing this "Chikka chikka" rhythmic plucking thing, but at the same time he was doing a standard slowish solo, with sliding notes. I can't imagine that they would have overdubbed such a major part of the music. It wasn't like a little synthesizer that was triggered.

The big screens were great. Even though our seats were pretty good (a little ways behind the sound board) we couldn't see them play very well. We could see that Alex has put on a little weight, and Neil's intense facial expression. And of course Geddy's amazing nose in profile.

Phil and I (are Rush geeks and) always try to predict what song they will open with and what songs they will play in the encore and all those sorts of guessing games. Never in a million years would we have guessed that they would have opened their three song encore with "By-Tor and the Snow Dog". It also included the intro to Cygnus and "Working Man." All I have to say about that is: !!!

They didn't play "Closer to the Heart". That was fine with me. I have no particular attachment to any particular song, especially the older ones. It is a great song, but I'm not going to get all upset if they decide to skip a song. This had to be the first time I've ever seen them where they didn't play that song.

They played only four songs off the new record. That was fine. They started at 7:45 and ended at 10:45.

Partway into the intermission, a sound of crickets started up, very loudly. Pretty soon the video screen showed a mountain scene, just before dawn. The light grew brighter until the sun finally came over the mountains. There was a deep, slow rhythmic sound, like drums, and the camera zoomed in, to see some dragons rise out of a stone pit. One of them pulled out a cigar and lit it, along with part of the stage. Later on in the song ("One Little Victory") he came back and attacked the stage. I'd never seen Rush use pyrotechnics onstage. They've always had a great light show, and I'm happy that they still do. That's kind of dying out.

I think Alex played seven different guitars, but Geddy only played two - he's that good. :-D He played only two varieties of Fender Jazz basses, and the one was only used on "Driven". Oh - Geddy played an acoustic guitar, once. And keyboards and pedals, of course.

The sound very good, but it seemed like something was always too high in the mix and something else too low. In the first set, the drums were too loud, and Geddy's voice was too quiet.

I don't remember this at all. I wish I did - it's an awesome setlist. (I took Bill.

( setlist )

Alpine Valley. Second-to-the-last show of the final leg of the Roll the Bones tours. Mr. Big was the opener. I can't believe I had to sit through that band again. I was sitting in my seat doing a thumbs-down, like the guy in the "festival crowd" at the amusement park in This is Spinal Tap.

Rush at Alpine Valley. Presto tour. The first tour of many with the giant dancing bunnies.

The ticket-buying experience is here

A whole bunch of us went. Pam ended up with an extra ticket to sell, and Phil somehow needed one. So I was to meet him by the box office. I drove down with a guy I knew, named Nate. We took an alternate route, and came into the theater from the north, rather than the usual freeway exit. If you do that, you park at the back of the place, near the stage, rather than the main parking lot. I was to meet Phil by the box office. There's no way to get from the back to the front on foot... except climb the hill through the woods. And you're not allowed to go up there. I didn't get caught, but by the time I got to the top of the hill, I wished I had been turned back. I was hot and tired, and waited a while for Phil. He had arrived long before me, got tired of waiting, bought a lawn seat and went in, and sat with us anyway. *sigh*

Mr. Big opened. The audience went wild for their song, "Addicted to That Rush". The only thing I recall about them was when Billy Sheehan used a cordless drill in his bass solo. I hate hair metal. This band was hair metal without the glam.

$26.75, center section, row HH. Good seats at Alpine.

Hold Your Fire. Had seats on the floor. Rather far back, left side. I know Phil and Bill were there with me, probably Jim. Phil's first time to see the band.

We were somewhat excited for the opening act, which was supposed to be Tommy Shaw. By the time we got down there, we learned that Shaw had canceled. He had dropped out of the tour a month before. Rush tour dates show that he opened the show in Detroit one night, and there was no opener the following night. The Rainmakers opened this show instead. They performed in front of the big beige curtain, and didn't wow the audience. I thought they were kind of interesting, even if I wasn't enthused, but not many people seemed to agree with me, and the band was booed. I'm sure they wouldn't have gotten that bad a reaction if the audience hadn't been expecting their Styx guy.

The setlist shows a similar set to last time, leaning heavily on the latest three albums, and the standard list of hits from "2112" through "Subdivisions". "The Big Money" was now their opening song, and for a long time after. Their opener was always a rocking tune from a recent album.

(setlist from www.cygnus-x1.net)

Intro ("Three Stooges Theme")
The Big Money
Subdivisions
Limelight
Marathon
Turn The Page
Prime Mover
Manhattan Project
Closer To The Heart
Red Sector A
Force Ten
Time Stand Still
Distant Early Warning
Lock And Key
Mission
Territories
YYZ
The Rhythm Method (Drum Solo)
Red Lenses
The Spirit Of Radio
Tom Sawyer
Encore
2112: Overture/The Temples Of Syrinx
La Villa Strangiato
In The Mood