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Oops, Your...memories!

 

With new members looking for older topics, with older members looking for newer topics I thought perhaps another go at concert stories might be in order?

 

To start, I am almost certain I attended the Grace Under Pressure concert at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in September of 1984. Friend's mom worked at Chum FM and gave us decent floor seats.

I can't find my ticket stub, and don't see a reference to "baseball" in the literature of the time, but have seen it elsewhere...

 

When Geddy sang "One likes to believe in the freedom of BASEBALL" the crowd went nuts!

 

Anybody else?

Edited by Bahamas
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Oops, Your...memories!

 

With new members looking for older topics, with older members looking for newer topics I thought perhaps another go at concert stories might be in order?

 

To start, I am almost certain I attended the Grace Under Pressure concert at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in September of 1984. Friend's mom worked at Chum FM and gave us decent floor seats.

I can't find my ticket stub, and don't see a reference to "baseball" in the literature of the time, but have seen it elsewhere...

 

When Geddy sang "One likes to believe in the freedom of BASEBALL" the crowd went nuts!

 

Anybody else?

 

When I saw them in Cincinnati in 1982, Geddy sang that line. The crowd loved it. :D

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I only saw them the once, on the Clockwork Angels tour.

 

My main memories:

The place going totally nuts after Alex finished his Analog Kid solo

The string section (mainly the Cellist) rocking out with Alex during YYZ

Geddy looking amused at the volume we were all singing The Spirit of Radio back at him

 

but most of all

 

Making eye-contact with Alex during the 2112 "Heys"

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Most obvious would be front row in Ridgefield, WA (Portland, OR area) for the 2nd leg of the Time Machine tour in 2011. I had no "in" whatsoever but rather just was lucky enough to hit the online sale at just the right moment as tix were being released electronically. My guess is that they may have been the only 2 tix in the front row released to the public though I don't know that for sure. Plenty of eye contact with especially Al that night as the stage configuration had us nearly directly in front of him even though we (wife and I) basically had the center 2 seats and some with Ged when he came over our way as well.

 

Had 3rd row at the same venue for R30 just off of being directly in front of Ged. During Subdivisions I had my eyes closed and was singing away and when I opened them I made eye contact with Ged and he gave a brief smile.

 

Song highlights include the realization they were going into all of 2112 on the first leg of the T4E tour rather than a truncated version (did it in its entirety on the 2nd leg as well but of course I knew it was coming because of having attended the first leg) and doing the full version of Passage to Bangkok on the S & A tour.

 

Also saw them twice at The Gorge (including the last show of leg 2 of the TM tour when Geddy said "fukk"....gasp!) and had awesome weather both times. Such an amazing place to see a concert..........

Edited by driventotheedge
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I remember a couple interesting ones:

 

At a S&A show the previous night another band had played at the same venue, and apparently there was an incident with birds shitting all over them, and Geddy quipped during his banter that they can shit on Alex all they want, they weren't gonna leave the stage!

 

At the Kansas City show on the Clockwork Angels tour, Paul Rudd ran onto the stage during YYZ and started slappin' da air bass and "conducting" the strings behind Neil.

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I saw the opening show in America for the Clockwork Angels Tour with my dad in Manchester, NH. There were problems with Geddy's keyboards and Alex told this joke:

 

Very juvenile, but also quite memorable.

 

I also saw the "Still No Guitar" rant during the Time Machine Tour in Boston.

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Late 1970's Rush played a show at Varsity stadium in Toronto. Pouring rain and the crowd tore the field up in a huge turf war - there was sod flying everywhere.
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At the R40 on the Friday night in Toronto, I swear this guy booked two seats half way up the risers. He needed the space.

He was warming up his air drumming before the concert started, black leather vest, big mullet-long haired and sweaty before the show started!

 

I would look over once in a while and he wailed away the entire show, droplets flying off his head, lots of room to move.

 

Edit: And @ driventotheedge I have read and personally hated the whole Live Nation/Ticket Master experience of booking tickets.

I think you lucked into an amazing situation, nice score on the tickets!

Edited by Bahamas
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I've only seen RUSH twice in Vancouver, BC at Rogers Arena.

 

June 30, 2011 - Time Machine Tour

July 17, 2015 - R40 Live Tour

 

I met Ben Mink at the first concert. He was a row behind me two seats down in the stands on Geddy's side of the stage.

 

I met Geddy and Alex at the second concert. I also ran into Ben Mink again and we talked for 5 minutes.

 

'Marathon' was the highlight from the Time Machine Tour as it close to the 30th anniversary of Terry Fox's passing (June 28, 1981). He was in my thoughts when the band played the song.

 

'Losing It' was the highlight from the R40 Live Tour. I was glad Ben came out to perform the song in Vancouver, like he did in Toronto.

 

I should add that after the first RUSH concert and meeting Ben, I delved into his career as a musician, which goes back to the early 70's. He's done some great stuff.

Edited by RushFanForever
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At the R40 on the Friday night in Toronto, I swear this guy booked two seats half way up the risers. He needed the space.

He was warming up his air drumming before the concert started, black leather vest, big mullet-long haired and sweaty before the show started!

 

I would look over once in a while and he wailed away the entire show, droplets flying off his head, lots of room to move.

 

Edit: And @ driventotheedge I have read and personally hated the whole Live Nation/Ticket Master experience of booking tickets.

I think you lucked into an amazing situation, nice score on the tickets!

Yeah it was one of those "God was smiling on me" moments in life.

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Grace Under Pressure tour. Chicago's Rosemont Horizon stadium. We had seats in the upper level, back right-hand corner (as you're looking at the stage.) It was a short ways into the show, so everyone had actually taken their seats and were all really enjoying the show.

 

All of a sudden, this one guy - about 19 years old, blue jeans, blue jeans jacket over a black t-shirt, wild black hair. He stands up on his own and just TOTALLY WIGS OUT! I mean this guy just GOES NUTS. He was holding a drink of some sort, which just went flying all over the place as he did this bizarre shaking-thing - his arms swinging all over the place. His body in convulsions. His head flinging back and forth and back and forth. His wild black hair going even more wild as it led the way back and forth for the rest of his head.

 

The only light in the area was basically originating from the stage, so the lights were changing colors, creating all sorts of horrifying effects on this guy.

 

And the SOUNDS that were coming out of him! Just absolute SCREECHING like a banshee. A completely out-of-control banshee!

 

Everyone around him - and I mean EVERYONE, both sides, behind and in front of where this guy was freaking out - for rows - just ran for their lives. Thing was - security was on this guy in like, seconds! There had to have been like 8 guys (security) that jumped on this guy and wrangled him out of his aisle, up the steps and out of the venue. He never stopped his bizarre behavior all the way out.

 

Afterwards, everyone just returned to their seats. The ones that had gotten the drink splashed all over them just had to deal with it. The people who were next to him - had to be friends, right? - just went back to their seats. Didn't give a rats ass about their friend having freaked out - and dragged out.

 

I wish I could remember which song Rush had been performing at the time. After all that, everyone and everything was fine and a good time was had by all.

 

The guy who freaked out and was dragged out by security? He was never heard from again... well, at least not that night during the concert.

Edited by Geddyleegenes
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From what I have read in Neil's writings, Michael, head of security, and his team seemed to have a pretty good focus on who and when fans might be an issue.

Pretty impressive really!

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Oops, Your...memories!

 

With new members looking for older topics, with older members looking for newer topics I thought perhaps another go at concert stories might be in order?

 

To start, I am almost certain I attended the Grace Under Pressure concert at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in September of 1984. Friend's mom worked at Chum FM and gave us decent floor seats.

I can't find my ticket stub, and don't see a reference to "baseball" in the literature of the time, but have seen it elsewhere...

 

When Geddy sang "One likes to believe in the freedom of BASEBALL" the crowd went nuts!

 

Anybody else?

 

Could that have been the Signals Tour? He also sung "We are the Plumbers, who fix your sinks," during the Signals tour as well.

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I so wish I had the ticket for reference.

I know Geddy would switch up the words, but I was just scanning through the Signals shows and can't find a baseball reference.

Oh well - like so many details, Rush, I come across a factoid, read about a memorable moment and think "cool", but if I don't make a specific note it becomes part of the ethos.

Some day I will come across it again and wonder "why does that sound so familiar?".

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Oops, Your...memories!

 

With new members looking for older topics, with older members looking for newer topics I thought perhaps another go at concert stories might be in order?

 

To start, I am almost certain I attended the Grace Under Pressure concert at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens in September of 1984. Friend's mom worked at Chum FM and gave us decent floor seats.

I can't find my ticket stub, and don't see a reference to "baseball" in the literature of the time, but have seen it elsewhere...

 

When Geddy sang "One likes to believe in the freedom of BASEBALL" the crowd went nuts!

 

Anybody else?

 

 

 

Could that have been the Signals Tour? He also sung "We are the Plumbers, who fix your sinks," during the Signals tour as well.

 

I so wish I had the ticket for reference.

I know Geddy would switch up the words, but I was just scanning through the Signals shows and can't find a baseball reference.

Oh well - like so many details, Rush, I come across a factoid, read about a memorable moment and think "cool", but if I don't make a specific note it becomes part of the ethos.

Some day I will come across it again and wonder "why does that sound so familiar?".

 

The Grace Under Pressure - Live in Toronto September 1984 concert is officially posted

.

 

Geddy doesn't say "One likes to believe in the freedom of BASEBALL" in The Spirit of Radio.

 

However in this clip below, he does say the word 'baseball'.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrkDrgYR7oo

 

This trend appears to be only during the Signals - The New World Tour, according to my copy of Rush: Wandering the Face of the Earth: The Official Touring History.

 

From Sounds magazine here, published on May 21, 1983.

 

YOU MENTIONED earlier that you're concerned about Rush becoming 'too cold'. Last night l noticed that you've loosened up considerably onstage - you're more accessible, less aloof than you were a year ago. Is this as a direct result of your 'concern'?

 

Geddy: "I think so. On our last tour we really played too many shows, we were becoming too tight, too mechanical, a lot of the spontaneity had gone out of us. I found myself going out onstage thinking about baseball rather than the night's show!

 

"Things had become second nature to us ... the, if you like, telepathic links between myself, Alex and Neil, had become so well established that we weren't thinking about or particularly enjoying what we were doing.

 

"So for this tour we hardly rehearsed at all. We wanted to become less slick, more unpredictable. We figured people would prefer to see a human display with errors than something cool, calculated and mechanical."

Edited by RushFanForever
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Thanks RushFanForever, it was long ago. And the crowd hardly went "nuts". How our memories can create themselves?

The friend who took me to the show, I thought we had met in grade 10. It must have been grade 9 and even though we hadn't known each other long, he took me.

I was so focused on that and despite reading about Geddy's baseball obsession on the Signals tour, and ytserush's suggestion, I went with my "memory" instead.

I need to look him up on FB and thank him. Again!

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Thanks RushFanForever, it was long ago. And the crowd hardly went "nuts". How our memories can create themselves?

The friend who took me to the show, I thought we had met in grade 10. It must have been grade 9 and even though we hadn't known each other long, he took me.

 

 

I couldn't resist with posting this and you'll understand why when hearing the bit at the 1:58 mark.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQPYvoeOjtc

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@RushFanForever, awesome little capture! I called my wife over to listen together and we both got a good laugh. Oh Grade 9. Could be a Rush documentary all on its own.

I like BNL a lot, but don't physically own their albums. That track is awesome!

 

I have seen Ed Robertson a few times on Youtube - he can roll into a Fly By Night riff, has lots to say on the 2112/Moving Pictures DVD, all around great fan.

 

I was hoping to respond once my buddy found his ticket stub (does it really exist?) so I can clarify something that has had me wondering for years. But he is taking too long.

I asked him in detail and he said yes he absolutely remembers Geddy singing Baseball and that is was GUP. Seems we have some 'splaining to do? When he finds the Signals stub, I might finally rest.

 

Cheers :)

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