Rush Concert

thanks for the review DL, good to hear the "Working Men" are still at it.

A great rendition of Natural Science and Circumstances.

Ah, too bad I missed it. They didn't play those on the R30 tour, at least not that I recall. Couple of my favorites. However, I'm not too wild about the new album. Did Lifeson play mandolin on one of the new tracks?

How long was the set? I think R30 was around 3 hours. Amazed the old guys can rock for that long. :lol:

Yes, Lifeson played the madolin, and also a Taylor 12-string. BUT, they were used to playing outdoor venues (someone told me it was the first show this year indoors) and the bass drum was WAAAAAAAYYYYY too loud. First half of the show you could barely hear the electric guitar and could not hear the acoustic guitars at all.

They corrected it on the second set.

Yeah, they played for 3 hours. And ripped for three hours. You know Rush - no talking to the crowd. They jammed for two 1.5 hour sessions straight.

Saw them in Saratoga Springs and Buffalo in the last couple weeks. Buffalo was the first show (SPOILER ALERT) with the setlist change of Distant Early warning for Summertime Blues, so it was neat that I got to see both. The guitar was very drowned out at the Saratoga show, where I was in the balcony, but it sounded great in Buffalo where I was on the lawn. Both shows' sound quality was a bit better in the second set, I thought, and the Buffalo show (whether because of seating or something else) sounded a million times better. The Main Monkey Business at the first show was kind of a letdown - one of my favorite songs and I could barely hear the guitar - but the Buffalo viewing made up for it.

Definitely a couple awesome shows, for me. I love the new album, but it's definitely different. I was into Rush as a youngen (Roll the Bones, Counterparts) and just got back into them (and heavily) since the R30 tour, so these were my first times seeing them live. Had high expectations, and I'm not disappointed!

I noticed all those Les Pauls, too. Those were some really gorgeous guitars he was rocking there. On the Rush in Rio DVD (Vapor Trails tour), he played only PRS's IIRC, and on the R30 DVD he plays lots of different guitars, so I wasn't expecting to see him playing only Les Pauls this time around. Not that it matters too much, but it was something I couldn't help paying attention to ;)

I was on the balcony too, perhaps it had something to do with the balcony? Set two was much better.

I would have preferred to hear Summertime Blues, but that's ok. I like some of the songs on the new album, but I only listened to it 2 or 3 times so hearing 9 songs at the concert was a bit much.

(er, SPOILER ALERT again ... I'm hypersensitive to that, ok? :oops: )

Hey, if she says that again, remind your Mom that:

* When they toured for all those old songs, they had an opening band and only played one set, instead of two!

* Other than the 9 songs off new album (most ever, but 2 of them were 2 mins long), there were only like 3 songs off the previous FIVE albums! That's back to like 1990, I think? It actually was a really old setlist. ;)

Just kidding, I don't encourage talking back to one's Mom. Way cool your parents took you to see Rush!

Ok, for all you Rush fans out there... saw the show last night and it was pretty good. They played a shocking number of songs fomthe new album (like, 9) which I thought was weird since everybody in the theater probably already bought the album.

Rush have always included lots of songs off their new albums in the show when they've toured the new albums. I have tickets to see them in London in October and I'm really looking forward to hearing how the new material holds up in a live show.

Best,

A :-)

Not a big fan of the band, but sounds like they give VFM. As for the new songs - well, look at it from their POV - they've got the new album to promote, so of course they're going to plug it, and also if they're playing so many new ones, it shows they're confident with the material, AND it's a chance to try-before-you-buy, so to speak. Don't you think it's good to see a band who've been around so long not having to rely on past glories?

:D :D :D

Vic

Rush got a lot of local press as they were gearing up for this tour and I remembered this interview with Neil Peart, including this bit:

'...To keep things interesting, though, he promises Rush feels somewhat "liberated" from its catalogue after doing a pure greatest-hits tour three years ago, and will this time be honing in on new material and "old songs that we haven't played for years or that we've never played." One such gem from 1979 is in the works, although he won't say which...'

The full article is here:
http://www.thestar.com/article/207669

I'm not a Rush fan, but he's an interesting interview. Definitely worth a read.
:)

I saw them in Atlanta on the first night of the tour. I liked that they did so many songs from the new album, they did the same when I saw them on the Vapor Trails tour. Plus you have to remember, they're last tour was basically a "greatest hits" tour.

Spoiler Alert, I'm going to discuss some of the songs they played...

Like someone mentioned, 2 of those 9 songs were under 2 minutes: Malignant Narcissism was the intro to Neil's solo and Hope was Alex's "solo". I had been listening to the album and was curious how they would pull off some of the new songs when there was such a combination of acoustic and electric guitars. So it was great seeing them playing those songs live.

In addition to the guitars listed above, I think he used a Gibson ES-355 for Passage to Bangkok and Summertime Blues. And I'm pretty sure he used a PRS for at least one song, just don't remember which. I know I was drooling over all those LPs he kept parading out on stage.

(SPOILER) Oh yeah, I didn't know what the name of it was, but (after Googling it) he did play an ES-355 (or similar) for the whole encore, IIRC.