Rush Time Machine Tour

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1

Last night I saw Rush at the state fair.

I have lots of Rush concert DVDs, and none of them measured up to last night’s show. Alex, Geddy, and Neil were in top form. Best sound I ever heard, the band as a cohesive unit was the best, Alex’s sound has really improved from the DVDs I have, Neil’s drums were fantastic, and Geddy’s singing has never been better.

Geddy had the Phatty and Alex played one on his side during “Time Stand Still”. No sign of Taurus IIIs but there’s a lot more offstage that we can’t see and those bass pedal sounds were deep and authoritive, although they seemed to drop off below low E. All of the keyboard sounds were triggered samples with the exception of the Phatty which sounded great.

Steampunk is this tours’ style. Geddy hasn’t been using any bass amps onstage so his backline over various tours has been refridgerators, clothes dryers (mic’d, of course), rotisserie chicken cookers, and vending machines. This year he has steampunk sausage makers behind him, you could spot the links coming out one end of it and on occasion one of the crew dressed in grocer meat counter hat and garb would roll out a grocery cart and restock the machine, then give a quick polish to Neil’s drum.

Alex and Neil got into the steampunk fashion. Neil’s kit was all fashioned in steampunk complete with the decorative stampings on his cymbals, and Alex’s backline is a cool-looking steampunk rig. These guys have a sense of humor and they show it.

…and the film at the intro and intermission… I won’t give any spoilers here other than to say you will bust a gut when you see the boys in costume. The other running joke is their self-mockery with the onscreen band known as RASH playing accordian and tuba in place of guitar and bass, and the keen-eyed will spot the Rush shirt Geddy is wearing onstage actually says RASH.

They finished a new album but not yet released. They played some songs from the new album and a couple of them harkened back to the style they had on Moving Pictures. Neil’s playing had been kinda lame since he came back after his tragedy, but he is back in old form on the new stuff.

I had a great time… see this tour if you can!!!

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Mike, I’m glad you got a chance to see them. I just caught one of the 2 shows here at Red Rocks, and they were awesome. Neil was indeed in rare form, and the “steampunk” stage set was epic. A highly-recommended show to see for any forum members who want to see a legendary band still in their prime after more than 30 years of playing together. Both Geddy and Alex play Little Phatty synths, and they sound great. My only wish is that they would ditch the midi bass pedals for some genuine Taurus 3s - they could still trigger samples, but the older songs would sound even better with some real Taurus beef behind them.

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Word. Just back from the PNC Arts show tonight (Homedel, NJ) and a great show. But for me, the highlight was last Sunday when I caught them in Ohio at Nationwide arena, 8th row on Geddy’s side of the stage. Could be the best concert I’ll EVER see, being that close to a idol of mine, and part of a sea of rabid fan base.

Having seen them twice in one week (tonight’s show was from ‘the lawn’ aka general admission), I can certainly appreciate how bands as tight and talented as Rush play songs a bit better one night vs. the next. Highlights tonight included Camera Eye (in Columbus, Geddy has problems with his monitors, likely due to the booming bass), and the encore.

As MC said, Alex played a Phatty during Time Stand Still. Interestingly, it was a two note rif with one Phatty in a stand alone rack and the other offstage.

Of the two new songs played, Caravan is, I think, the winner; imagery behind the stage was outrageous and spectacular; they really put alot into this show playing for the better part of 3 hrs. in total.

As for Moving Pictures, what a treat… I read somewhere that they were actually planning on playing Camera Eye (not often, if ever played live) this tour and Neil, being inspired by Steely Dan’s tour and the fact that they were play entire albums on select nights figured that they were already playing so many tunes from Moving Pictures that they would adopt the same theme.

I have a few pictures of the Ohio show during setup and definitely see a pair of Orange Amps offstage on Geddy’s side of the stage… otherwise, it’s his 2 Fender Jazz Bass’es and a 3rd with no picguard strung for 2112.

If you have a chance to catch them, do so. As others have mentioned, Geddy’s voice sounded great, bass playing ferocious, Neil’s drumming absolutely effing precise and powerful, the man is a machine. Alex, doesn’t get much of the camera for some reason (at least in the 2 shows I saw) and in this particular show was hamming it up big time but his playing speaks for itself and I have no idea how he remains so nimble at age 57.

Word is that they have about 5 songs recorded for the upcoming album and will be writing a few more for inclusion before they head into the studio after the tour. Five years from now, I’m not sure they’ll be this good but I can say they are in games shape like never before. As I said, go, go now… they are playing some smaller venues so tickets for general admission where available might actually be affordable.

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A guy I work with is the lead singer in the Rush Tribute Band, 2112. They just played the band shell at Jones Beach, LI, New York.

http://rushtributeband2112.com/

MC, I was in your backyard about 3 weeks ago; Painted Post, Corning, Trumansburg, and of course, Lake Keuka. You live in a beautiful area. …Can’t beat the water in those lakes. Thank God my good friend has a house up there.

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I’ve only seen them once live and that was 17 years ago.
Great concert though.
I was also kindly treated to full backstage and tour-bus access, which made the night very memorable.
My claim to fame? I handed Geddy a beer in their dressing room afterward.
A Coors beer fwiw.

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Rush AND steampunk? And I missed it? I believe Darth Vader said it best when he said, NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! :angry:

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Translation:
Do not want

:wink:

I’ll probably never get within 5000 miles of a Rush concert, you lucky sods! Enjoy though!

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Yup beautiful area but too expensive to live here

9

Corrected translation:
Do not want to miss :angry: