I'll show you a time machine!

[timhorton]

Thanks for sharing these pictures. I was at every one of those shows-including Buffalo. They skipped Toronto due to overexposure & I had to take a road trip. The show at the CNE still remains one of my favourites. If I remember correctly, Geddy walked across the football field to the stage, while Neil & Alex took a limo.

 

Do you have any pictures from Ivor Wynne? I was at that show too.

 

There was something magical about seeing them in the '70's and early 80's.

 

Thanks man, you brought back a lot of great memories.

 

Ged walked and Alex rode in a limo eh? I couldn't see that from the floors. But yeah, that CNE show was my favourite by far. And no, I didn't make it to Ivor Wynne. I think there were just so many opportunities to see the band in Toronto at that point, there was no need to go all the way to Hamilton. Little did I know they wouldn't come back for a very long time.

 

I was at that Triumph show the reviewer mentioned. That was a great show-the "Just A Game" tour. There were some great shows at the CNE.

 

Does anybody have any pics from Massey Hall when they recorded ATWAS? That was my first Rush show.

[andreww]

Thanks for sharing these pictures. I was at every one of those shows-including Buffalo. They skipped Toronto due to overexposure & I had to take a road trip. The show at the CNE still remains one of my favourites. If I remember correctly, Geddy walked across the football field to the stage, while Neil & Alex took a limo.

 

Do you have any pictures from Ivor Wynne? I was at that show too.

 

There was something magical about seeing them in the '70's and early 80's.

 

Thanks man, you brought back a lot of great memories.

 

Ged walked and Alex rode in a limo eh? I couldn't see that from the floors. But yeah, that CNE show was my favourite by far. And no, I didn't make it to Ivor Wynne. I think there were just so many opportunities to see the band in Toronto at that point, there was no need to go all the way to Hamilton. Little did I know they wouldn't come back for a very long time.

 

I was at that Triumph show the reviewer mentioned. That was a great show-the "Just A Game" tour. There were some great shows at the CNE.

 

Does anybody have any pics from Massey Hall when they recorded ATWAS? That was my first Rush show.

 

I was just a little too young for the Massey Hall shows. One of the good things about vinyl was the large jackets. ATWAS had tons of nice pics in the middle.

 

And I was at the triumph show as well. I've got some pics from that show as well. Actually, one of the first shows I ever shot was Triumph when they played my high school. Only wish I could find them!

[timhorton]

I still have my vinyl copy of ATWAS. The first time I saw Triumph was when they played our high school. Rik is playing in Etobicoke tomorrow night-I'm going.

[EagleMoon]

I have one of those. My first Rush concert. Moving PIctures.

 

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t180/imzadi-7/RushHaraArena81PK_zps5f4d21ba.jpg

[OGr8imL84AD8inF8sBlackSedan]

The pics make this my favorite thread....keep posting more.

 

THANKS!!!!!

[upstateNYfan]

Yep, $12.50 is about 50% more than I paid to see them the previous summer if I recall correctly. But it was a different time. Tours were made to sell records. They were cheap cause they wanted to attract more people. Now bands don't make any money from albums, it all comes from tours.

 

If you don't like the prices, don't go. I don't.

The first concert I went to was in 1969 at the Fillmore East. I paid $5.00 for the ticket.

 

What you wrote about all the money being in touring I've been told also - no money is really made from the sale of

CDs/DVDs. If a band wants to make money and continue to live in the style they have become accustomed to over the years, they have to tour.

 

Actually things were pretty stable as far as prices went back then. I saw Kiss two years previous to that Rush show at Varsity and the price was only $6 or $7. So from 1969 (your Filmore show) until 1976, prices were pretty stagnant. Two years after that they had almost doubled. By the 80s, prices were probably over $30. Prices just skyrocketed in a short period of time, and it was well before any internet and record pirating.

 

The big hit to prices came when the Eagles did their "Hell Freezes Over" tour. at the time prices for a concert were probably about $50, so the Eagles asked about $150. When they proved that people would still pay, everybody else jumped on board.

 

The Eagles might have been the first, but were not the cause. Technology was. From about 1997 on, music become much more accessible—often for free. As a consequence, album sales tanked across the board. Because of this, artists HAD to charge more to make a good living.

[CE24]

I have one of those. My first Rush concert. Moving PIctures.

 

http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t180/imzadi-7/RushHaraArena81PK_zps5f4d21ba.jpg

 

I have my Moving Pictures stub. Price was $8, like yours. Oddly enough, success must've helped the band from that album/tour, because my Signals Tour stub a year later is priced at $11.

 

For Clockwork Angels, I paid $400 a seat for second row.

Edited August 3, 2013 by CE24

[The Analog Grownup]

I paid an amount corresponding to $82 (US dollar), and I could have got first row if I had shown up earlier. That's the beauty of non-seated shows because those who will stand in line for hours, will be rewarded :)

 

Must point out my concert was in Amsterdam.

[greyfriar]

1983 Signals from Rush. I paid 24 D-Mark which is about 15 Dollar.

 

http://i1253.photobucket.com/albums/hh597/greyfriar2112/830511ad_zps55fb9c63.jpg

[andreww]

Yep, $12.50 is about 50% more than I paid to see them the previous summer if I recall correctly. But it was a different time. Tours were made to sell records. They were cheap cause they wanted to attract more people. Now bands don't make any money from albums, it all comes from tours.

 

If you don't like the prices, don't go. I don't.

The first concert I went to was in 1969 at the Fillmore East. I paid $5.00 for the ticket.

 

What you wrote about all the money being in touring I've been told also - no money is really made from the sale of

CDs/DVDs. If a band wants to make money and continue to live in the style they have become accustomed to over the years, they have to tour.

 

Actually things were pretty stable as far as prices went back then. I saw Kiss two years previous to that Rush show at Varsity and the price was only $6 or $7. So from 1969 (your Filmore show) until 1976, prices were pretty stagnant. Two years after that they had almost doubled. By the 80s, prices were probably over $30. Prices just skyrocketed in a short period of time, and it was well before any internet and record pirating.

 

The big hit to prices came when the Eagles did their "Hell Freezes Over" tour. at the time prices for a concert were probably about $50, so the Eagles asked about $150. When they proved that people would still pay, everybody else jumped on board.

 

The Eagles might have been the first, but were not the cause. Technology was. From about 1997 on, music become much more accessible—often for free. As a consequence, album sales tanked across the board. Because of this, artists HAD to charge more to make a good living.

 

By 1997 tickets were at the $60 - $80 range. What was the excuse for raising prices from $5 to $80 from the period of 1976 - 1997? Pirating certainly wasn't and issue at that point, it was simply greed.

[EagleMoon]

I think ticket prices are all relative to the times.

[Retrospective]

This topic should be pinned - these pictures are fantastic.

[Syrinx]

I still have my vinyl copy of ATWAS. The first time I saw Triumph was when they played our high school. Rik is playing in Etobicoke tomorrow night-I'm going.

I was at the Triumph CNE show also. I saw Triumph at Etobicoke Collegiate. Was that the high school you saw them at? They used their flash pots and burned the ceiling. We were lucky it wasn't an earlier Great White tragedy!

[Syrinx]

Final review of the Varsity show. This one wins the hyperbole contest!

Rush at Varsity Stadium, Sept. 2, 1979 – Review #3

 

By Bruce Blackadar – Toronto Star

 

“Rush tries to bludgeon audience”

 

Attending a Rush concert is like being a masochist who’d enjoy a heart transplant operation in his friendly neighborhood hospital.

 

But the Rush fanatics – who used to be legion in these parts – seem to be losing their addiction to pain. Only 8,000 showed up last night at Varsity Stadium to happily endure the three-man Toronto heavy metal group’s mind-shattering barrage of technological and electronic wizardry that it cunningly disguises as music.

 

It’s meaningless to attempt to review what Rush is doing; that would be like trying to explain the political necessity of planting bombs in churches to a sweet old nun running a children’s orphanage.

 

However, we can say that the trio – Neil Peart on drums, Geddy Lee, vocals and bass, and Alex Lifeson, guitar – are certainly professional, like a team of frogmen who possess an exquisite mastery of technical matters.

 

First, there’s the overwhelming bass line, always present, steering the electronic carnage that makes up the bulk of the band’s albums, like Hemispheres and 2112, this way and that.

 

Then there’s the dentist drill voice of Lee, which after not all that many songs becomes a deft instrument of torture for the listener. It’s a voice that begins immediately at the level of pain and, miraculously, and very unfortunately, proceeds to a higher plane.

 

Finally, there’s the drum work of Peart, the frightful heartbeat, the rhythm of doom.

 

Other ingredients of the Rush assault include a mind-bending sound system, full of hysterical – and meaningless – distortions, a perfectly synchronized light show, and the band’s weird philosophical stance of intellectually primitive conservatism.

 

Much of what the band does – such as The Spirit of Radio, a new song they introduced to their fans last night – is wildly exciting. But the other material is pointless electronic overkill of the highest order.

[Syrinx]

Here is my ticket stub from the Aug 23, 1977 CNE showhttp://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/GRohn/RushTicket2_zps08c5e9af.jpg

[Syrinx]

Rush at the CNE Grandstand – August 23, 1977

 

Review #1 by Peter Goddard – The Toronto Star

 

The exercise of power is never more menacing than when it’s done without humour. It seems so monstrously banal, so lacking in human qualities.

 

There’s nothing menacing about Rush’s three members, bassist-singer Geddy Lee, drummer Neil Peart or guitarist Alex Lifeson. Nothing personally menacing, that is, and certainly nothing particularly banal.

 

BIG NIGHT

 

But the moment they become a unit on stage, as was the case at the Canadian National Exhibition’s Grandstand last night, they seem thoroughly depersonalized.

 

It was the Toronto band’s most important concert yet. With 20,800 people jammed into the stadium, it was the biggest crowd the group had played to as a headline act.

 

It also gave Rush a chance to premier material from its sixth album, A Farewell to Kings, the most adventurous album in its career.

 

Yet it all left this reviewer numb.

 

RESTLESS CROWD

 

The crowd cheered everything and then fought or threw sparklers when the blunt, almost brutal excitement waned ever so slightly.

 

And the vast sound system – which seemed better tuned for the opening act, Max Webster, than for Rush – made every piece flutter like a flag to be saluted, even good songs like A Farewell to Kings.

 

There was no style, no grace, no touch of humor to leven this colossal display.

 

Like Peart’s mystical lyrics, there was little to respond to.

[The Analog Grownup]

Final review of the Varsity show. This one wins the hyperbole contest!

Rush at Varsity Stadium, Sept. 2, 1979 – Review #3

 

By Bruce Blackadar – Toronto Star

 

“Rush tries to bludgeon audience”

 

Attending a Rush concert is like being a masochist who’d enjoy a heart transplant operation in his friendly neighborhood hospital.

 

But the Rush fanatics – who used to be legion in these parts – seem to be losing their addiction to pain. Only 8,000 showed up last night at Varsity Stadium to happily endure the three-man Toronto heavy metal group’s mind-shattering barrage of technological and electronic wizardry that it cunningly disguises as music.

 

It’s meaningless to attempt to review what Rush is doing; that would be like trying to explain the political necessity of planting bombs in churches to a sweet old nun running a children’s orphanage.

 

However, we can say that the trio – Neil Peart on drums, Geddy Lee, vocals and bass, and Alex Lifeson, guitar – are certainly professional, like a team of frogmen who possess an exquisite mastery of technical matters.

 

First, there’s the overwhelming bass line, always present, steering the electronic carnage that makes up the bulk of the band’s albums, like Hemispheres and 2112, this way and that.

 

Then there’s the dentist drill voice of Lee, which after not all that many songs becomes a deft instrument of torture for the listener. It’s a voice that begins immediately at the level of pain and, miraculously, and very unfortunately, proceeds to a higher plane.

 

Finally, there’s the drum work of Peart, the frightful heartbeat, the rhythm of doom.

 

Other ingredients of the Rush assault include a mind-bending sound system, full of hysterical – and meaningless – distortions, a perfectly synchronized light show, and the band’s weird philosophical stance of intellectually primitive conservatism.

 

Much of what the band does – such as The Spirit of Radio, a new song they introduced to their fans last night – is wildly exciting. But the other material is pointless electronic overkill of the highest order.

 

Conservatism? Hmm, they don't strike me as being conservative. Seems to me like some music reviewers still tries to be cool by bashing Rush. Hasn't that train left the station now?

 

EDIT: Oh, never mind. Just realized the date of that review

Edited August 7, 2013 by The Analog Grownup

[timhorton]

I still have my vinyl copy of ATWAS. The first time I saw Triumph was when they played our high school. Rik is playing in Etobicoke tomorrow night-I'm going.

I was at the Triumph CNE show also. I saw Triumph at Etobicoke Collegiate. Was that the high school you saw them at? They used their flash pots and burned the ceiling. We were lucky it wasn't an earlier Great White tragedy!

 

Gordon Graydon High School. They did use the flash pots, but I don't remember anything getting burned. They were loud though!!

[andreww]

I still have my vinyl copy of ATWAS. The first time I saw Triumph was when they played our high school. Rik is playing in Etobicoke tomorrow night-I'm going.

I was at the Triumph CNE show also. I saw Triumph at Etobicoke Collegiate. Was that the high school you saw them at? They used their flash pots and burned the ceiling. We were lucky it wasn't an earlier Great White tragedy!

 

Gordon Graydon High School. They did use the flash pots, but I don't remember anything getting burned. They were loud though!!

 

Haha, that is the show I'm talking about! I went to Graydon! Small world.

[timhorton]

I still have my vinyl copy of ATWAS. The first time I saw Triumph was when they played our high school. Rik is playing in Etobicoke tomorrow night-I'm going.

I was at the Triumph CNE show also. I saw Triumph at Etobicoke Collegiate. Was that the high school you saw them at? They used their flash pots and burned the ceiling. We were lucky it wasn't an earlier Great White tragedy!

 

Gordon Graydon High School. They did use the flash pots, but I don't remember anything getting burned. They were loud though!!

 

Haha, that is the show I'm talking about! I went to Graydon! Small world.

 

It was a Sadie Hawkins dance!!

[andreww]

message me your name. Maybe we know each other.

[ytserush]

I wish I could give more details. I know very little other than they were taken at the Whisky A Go Go in Los Angeles right after Neil joined.

 

If that's true, there is a bootleg show to go along with the pictures. From November 27, 1974 if I'm not mistaken. The quality of the recording isn't too great though, but it's not as bad as Neil's first show with the band.

[ytserush]

Did anyone know that Permanent Waves was supposed to be called Magnetic Air??

 

No...but could that have been a confusion with the Max Webster album "Live Magnetic Air" released around that time?

 

Edit...I didn't read the other responses to this. I'm still inclined to believe the reviewer may have made a mistake. Though it's certainly possible it was used after Rush rejected it given how close both bands were at the time.

Edited August 13, 2013 by ytserush

[andreww]

Did anyone know that Permanent Waves was supposed to be called Magnetic Air??

 

No...but could that have been a confusion with the Max Webster album "Live Magnetic Air" released around that time?

 

Edit...I didn't read the other responses to this. I'm still inclined to believe the reviewer may have made a mistake. Though it's certainly possible it was used after Rush rejected it given how close both bands were at the time.

 

Live Magnetic Air was released months before Permenant Waves, so I'm guessing it was a mistake by the reviewer.

[driventotheedge]

Yep, $12.50 is about 50% more than I paid to see them the previous summer if I recall correctly. But it was a different time. Tours were made to sell records. They were cheap cause they wanted to attract more people. Now bands don't make any money from albums, it all comes from tours.

 

If you don't like the prices, don't go. I don't.

The first concert I went to was in 1969 at the Fillmore East. I paid $5.00 for the ticket.

 

What you wrote about all the money being in touring I've been told also - no money is really made from the sale of

CDs/DVDs. If a band wants to make money and continue to live in the style they have become accustomed to over the years, they have to tour.

 

Actually things were pretty stable as far as prices went back then. I saw Kiss two years previous to that Rush show at Varsity and the price was only $6 or $7. So from 1969 (your Filmore show) until 1976, prices were pretty stagnant. Two years after that they had almost doubled. By the 80s, prices were probably over $30. Prices just skyrocketed in a short period of time, and it was well before any internet and record pirating.

 

The big hit to prices came when the Eagles did their "Hell Freezes Over" tour. at the time prices for a concert were probably about $50, so the Eagles asked about $150. When they proved that people would still pay, everybody else jumped on board.

Again I will post this.....The Eagles wre NOT the first ones to take ticket prices from the $50 range to the $150 area! It was Barbara Streisand that did it and once The Eagles saw it work for her, they jumped right on board. Everyone else pretty much followed thereafter.