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tomhealey

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About tomhealey

  • Birthday 03/06/1963

Member Information

  • Location
    Oak Park, IL
  • Gender
    Male

Music Fandom

  • Number of Rush Concerts Attended
    50
  • Last Rush Concert Attended
    LA, August 1, 2015
  • Favorite Rush Song
    Limelight. Best. Solo. Evar.
  • Best Rush Experience
    Any show that I attend with my brother, He Plays Bass.
  • Other Favorite Bands
    Porcupine Tree, RHCP
  • Musical Instruments You Play
    OK, I can do the Subdivisions intro on my keyboards

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  1. Last show at LA Forum. I had the great good fortune to be there, and I still have a print of Neil's picture of the crowd at the end because I'm in it. Seven years. Practically half of my son's existence on the planet. Amazing how time flies. I miss the shows, but I mostly miss the meetups with folks I met on this and other Rush boards. Thinking of all that's happened these last seven years. Wow. Tom Healey (yeah, my real name) Shameless Plug - Please check out Kubla Ken's www.rushradio.org and donate if able. Random Rush on demand is a beautiful, and valuable, thing.
  2. I was there (driving through floods in Chicago to fly there the day of the presentation, but that's another story). Yes, there were a huge amount of Rush fans in attendance. Maybe 75% of those with some band's attire on were Rush fans. But living the audience response in person, there was so much vengeance to it. We knew who kept them out all of those years - Jann Wenner. To see him have to announce and acknowledge their admission was significant. I know I wanted to stick my cheers in his ear. And I didn't stop yelling until I could yell no more. Did their admission mean much to the band? I think so. But I walked away thinking the band got it right - it was more important to their fans, who felt vindicated. Just one man's first-person views. Share your own, please, but don't crap on mine. s/ Yes, my name it really Tom Healey
  3. I had it really great. Went to the showing in Rosemont IL (up near O'Hare, maybe a 1/2 hour drive for me) on the second screen they opened (7:40 PM showing) when the first screen (7:30 PM showing) pretty much sold out. Only had about ten other folks in the theater - great social distancing for those of us that are at increased risk. Had on my Toronto Blue Jays "Weinrib 3" jersey. Said I would stay until I got bored, and wound up staying for the whole thing. Sound was great, viewing was great. Just had a blast. Also going to see Primus in Chicago in a few weeks. My brother - He Plays Bass - and I are going. Primus is his favorite band, and they'll be playing the first album I heard from my favorite band, in a landmark Chicago theater. Doesn't get much better than that.
  4. I wore a custom designed, official MLB-issued Toronto Blue Jays home jersey, number 3, with "Weinrib" on the back. I'm always impressed when people recognize what it is. I'd call it one of a kind, but I know that two exist (or existed), as the first one I ordered in large was too small, so I gave it to FS2112 to give to his wife. The next one, in extra large fit perfectly.
  5. tomhealey

    RRHF

    Folks, the intro to the HOF ceremony was the very best part of being there.
  6. Yes, I went for the faux-leather binding, and yes, they are certainly pretty to look at!! Got a few of these on the shelf - Neil Young and Van Halen, Dylan and so on. They are pretty, and I tend to use them for reference photos to paint or draw said musicians. I hadn`t considered actually reading them :cool: For reference I tend to use Wandering The Face Of The Earth. Now that is a mighty tome!! That book is so much fun to just read in bits and pieces! :) The touring stories from the early days really take me back to the 70's and the way things used to be. So glad I got it! Totally agree, Blueschica. I just finished this book, reading maybe 20 pages a night, and dreading the end, partly because I know full well how the story ends of course, but partly because I looked forward to my 20 pages before bed. Just bought the first two volumes. I haven't been overly impressed with Popoff's other Rush works, but this was good.
  7. I'm getting a strong 'get off my lawn' vibe here. No it's all good. I just can't fathom a real Rush fan quitting on the band despite a bad album or two. Well, one can drift away and maybe come back later like I am with the latest Steven Wilson record. Dreadful. Agreed. Personal Shopper is 9:49 of my life that I'll never get back. While listening, I kept thinking that it was a joke, as if he was just testing fans to see how much of the dregs we'll listen to, or that it eventually would segue into some guitar-fronted blasting riff. Disappointment was all I experienced.
  8. Easy for me. Signals. No question. I undertook a complete and total separation from the band. Like walking into your bedroom and finding your spouse in bed with your worst enemy, and his pals filming it and laughing. Never going back. I felt humiliation, like my heroes had waved the white flag. I couldn't deal with that Subdivisions keyboard shite. Didn't listen to anything else on that album. Didn't listen again to Rush for many years. Not at all. Gave away albums. And turned the channel when they came on classic rock stations. Didn't even read stories about them for many years. I felt complete betrayal. And that merits complete exclusion. You've got to understand. I'm 57 now. I still remember sitting in my friend Gary's bedroom after school and listening to his just-bought, just-released pressing of A Farewell To Kings. Blown away. Totally. Blown. Away. Literally, and fundamentally, that album changed how I listened to music. This band changed what I expected, and now demanded, from music. Hard rock can be like this? So thoughtful, yet so rocking. An instant fan. All the thoughtfulness I'd been looking for and couldn't find in hard rock. All the stuff to make me think deeper into the thoughts I'd been thinking on my own. I followed and listened, and (at least I felt like) my mind expanded. And then, to have them turn to keyboards, like A Flock of Seagulls or Duran Duran? Can't do it, won't do it. And didn't do it. 16+ years passed. I heard that Neil's wife and daughter passed. And that they released a live album, A Show of Hands. So many years since I cared a wit about this band. Somehow, for reasons I don't recall, I asked my sister to get me ASOH for Christmas. At least I wouldn't be paying any money for it. Might as well see what they've been up to since my betrayal. And I will admit, it wasn't an instant sell. I wasn't convinced that it was all classics in the interim. But some of the music that had happened during my self-imposed exile appealed to me. Maybe I listened with a more mature ear. Maybe the writing of the music matured since the early keyboard days. And maybe, just maybe, the two veered toward the happy middle in those 16+ years. And I'm very glad I came back. For all of the friends I made on this and other boards. For all of the amazing live shows I saw, from seats I didn't dare dream of as a teenager. For the fantabulous pre-show parties with you lot. And for all of those many Friday nights, sitting up after my son went to bed, listening to my friend Kubla Ken's rushradio.org and playing computer games.To paraphrase Freddie Gruber, "I wish that I could live it all again."
  9. Ugh. Five years. Looking at my Aug 1 2015 poster for the LA show. What an evening.
  10. Hi All: As some of you know, I work as an attorney, so my whole working day is spent thinking about words. I often tell people that words are the only tools that lawyers have in their toolbox. The literal meaning of words, along with the images they connote, are powerful and heavily premeditated elements of any legal document. Persuasive legal writing depends upon a robust - but exactingly accurate - vocabulary. And so it is that the other day, while listening to YYNOT's live cover of No One At The Bridge (it's awesome, check it out on YouTube), I focused on the word "supplication," which is defined as asking or begging for something earnestly. And I realized, while thinking of that word, that I have known its meaning for many decades because of Neil's decision to use it in The Fountain of Lamneth. Neil contributed to my view of life by presenting me with a very different perspective than the one I had those many decades ago. But he also contributed to my life by using words that I didn't know, and that were unlikely to have ever appeared before, or since, in a rock song. What about all of you? Are there any words that Neil taught you?
  11. A special song for me. It was off the setlists during my early (1980-1981) Rush concerts, and I figured by my later years that I'd never ever hear it live. Then, late in the first set at Hi-Fi Buys in Atlanta on the tour opener in June 2007, they pulled it out. From the fifth row Alex side, I went just-a-wee-little-bit crazy. "Berserk" is not a word often ascribed to corporate lawyers (outside the courtroom anyway), but it accurately described me that night. Fits of my version of "dancing" and various ill-timed paroxysmal spasms from which some witnesses have surely not recovered without a decade or more of therapy ensued. Particularly memorable because I almost missed the show entirely due to a traffic jam getting to American at O'Hare that afternoon (don't ever fly on show day, idiot!!!), but my now-ex-wife convinced me not to head back home but instead to buy an entirely separate ticket on United (bless her soul), which got me there too late for the always fun pre-game festivities, but right on time for the show opener. It was like an entirely gift show bequeathed to me, and Circumstances, the cherry that was on top. So, yes, superb song.
  12. Was wondering the same thing myself.
  13. You go, Grey! Those who weren't there can write about it. Those who were there can sit back and smile!! Although I have to admit, my confusion rests not so much with how I got to the LA concert, but rather, with how I got back to my hotel room from the desolate parking lot of Steve Harvey's Chicken Shack!! Thank you Tombstone Mountain, wherever you might be!!
  14. Hi All. I was lucky enough to see the 2015 tour (I still cannot bring myself to call it "The Last Tour," even after four years!!) from pretty good seats on several occasions, start of the tour to finish. I never thought Alex as down. Unlike Geddy, who played to the top of the house most of the time, Alex mostly focused his performance on the first few rows. And he never disappointed us. If he was unhappy to be there, I never noticed it. Not once. I never had the feeling he mailed it in. Now, Neil. on the other hand, never mailed it in either, but unhappy?...
  15. Indica commented in this thread in 2005...good memories.
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