tomhealey

Holy shit, I hadn't seen those before! That is so amazingly wonderful! Wow! I can't wait for the R40 DVD to come out so I can see what else I've been missing. The one downfall to having great seats for every show, eh? From what I'm told, you really needed to be towards the back of the venue to have the best view of the light show. I regret not making it a point to get a seat towards the back for one show. Howard really out did himself on this tour. Crap! There was a light show too? One drawback for having totally awesome seats. We didn't get the entirety of the light show. I still take the seats I had I'm not complaining, and I feel a little awkward in the smugness of my comment, but I have to say that the show is much prettier on the DVD than it was up close. The light show is amazing, really just captivating.

Holy shit, I hadn't seen those before! That is so amazingly wonderful! Wow! I can't wait for the R40 DVD to come out so I can see what else I've been missing. The one downfall to having great seats for every show, eh? From what I'm told, you really needed to be towards the back of the venue to have the best view of the light show. I regret not making it a point to get a seat towards the back for one show. Howard really out did himself on this tour. Crap! There was a light show too?

Headlong Flight is a great song. The first time I heard it, I thought to myself "this is what this band should be doing right now." Still bringing it with conviction, and retaining the twists and turns we'd come to expect. When put into the context of having been written and performed by guys around 60 years of age, it really becomes an impressive work. Put another way, if you had told me in 1981 that Rush would create music like this in 30+ years, I would have been absolutely thrilled. Of course, I also wouldn't have guessed that we'd be bludgeoned by the likes of Superconductor in the interim, but that's a tale for another thread. I also like most of the rest of the CA album, as it displays some solid ideas and solid playing. I've got the album in my top 5 Rush albums.

Thanks for reorienting our thinking, TM. I can positively say that I hate Superconductor.

I received the three bobbleheads years ago as a Christmas gift. "There's no place for those things in our bedroom" (per my wife), and I was worried about putting them into my nine year old boy's bedroom or our basement, as they might become playtoys and get quickly demolished. So instead they rest on a high shelf in my son's bathroom. Yes, Geddy and Co. has overseen the entire toilet training process, and as he'll be a teenager soon, they'll shortly enjoy the privilege of watching him engage in equally appalling behavior, I'm sure. Such is the existence of a bobblehead.

Bump <--low tech guy

Most of the other live Rush DVDs I've watched once and put on the shelf. I've seen R40 front to back three times, and thinking about a fourth this weekend. I think it's my favorite of the authorized releases.

I will never forget your reaction when we got wind of the fact that they were rehearsing the song during soundcheck. :) I'm disappointed in the lack of couch burnings. :lol: You have a good memory, I forgot about that. :) If I remember correctly, we had to talk him out of actually doing it. Cygnus and Lorraine, if you recall further, it wasn't just a couch that was burning. Rather, there was a stated intend to defecate on the couch, which may in fact have been the reason that said couch was to be dragged onto the front lawn and burned. I know if that happened on my couch, I'd be burning it on the front lawn pronto.

I hear the discussion, but when is enough? How many more concert dates are enough? How many more tours? Albums? The reality is that no amount of additional dates or tours or albums are going to make everyone happy. Tour Europe and not South America? And what of the US and Canadian cities that didn't get included in the last 35 dates? I get the disappointment. We all want it to continue. I had some of the best times of my life with people I met on this and other boards, looking forward to shows, drinking before shows, arguing about shows we saw, seeing cities I'd likely never see in my life, like Albuquerque and Manchester NH and, yes, Moline. But it has to end at some time. Going out while they're all playing pretty well, working through a lot of highlights in a big catalog, leaving a really good DVD of the experience, and never once, to my knowledge, halting periscoping during a single one of the 35 shows, seems preferable to me to seeing them half-assedly play Sawyer/TSOR/Limelight/Subdivisions live before 350 people at a county fair in ten years. My memories are of a band on top, and I'd like to keep it that way. The way I see it, Neil owes us nothing. At least, he owes me nothing. Stripped of emotion, he helped produce a product that I enjoyed consuming. But just as I didn't call the Hostess folks assholes when they stopped making Twinkies, and just as I didn't say that Coca-Cola owed me something when they stopped making regular Coke, I don't begrudge Neil a damn thing. In my opinion, it's unrealistic to think that any of us have a right to expect more. A band is a band only so long as the members want it to be so. There's some significant chance that this ain't a band any more. No reason for name calling.

I recall one night chiding Tombstone Mountain who was going to bed before Xanadu that in one year, he'd give the right aspect of a very private bodily part to see Xanadu live on his computer, so he just couldn't go to bed. Nonetheless, he elected to sack out and miss it. I'm really sure that in six months, he'll confirm that I'm right.

Amen, Lorraine. I loved watching the scopes, I loved finding the scopes, and on rare occasion, I loved providing the scope.

Well, I liked Audrey a lot...

Yes it was. They also, all three of them, took lyric-writing credit for Chemistry. And they apparently hate that song. What's the saying about having more than one quarterback...? :) Well I like it so I'm happy. :smoke: Yeah, interesting use of the word "credit" here, Blue J. "Responsibility" is more neutral, but I'd go with "blame."

Wow,, weird that I channeled Motorhead and I didn't even know the news about Lemmy when I wrote this.

"Goatropolis, when world's collide Ain't noba-ba-bady on the other side..."

Nighthawk!

So as I go through my extended post-tour Rush withdrawal, I've been listening to a lot of Rush Radio lately (thank you Ken Shipley for that glorious site!!), along with some of my favorite boots, and I'm absolutely fed up with the guy in the crowd that keeps yelling "woo hoo" at every opportunity (followed occasionally by the equally inspirational "woo hoo hoo"). I've been to a lot of shows, and I've never had to put up with anything quite this dismal, so it's a bit of a surprise how constant this outburst occurs. What could be behind incessant woo-hooing? Is there a thought that this repeated howl is somehow extending the enjoyment of the rest of the fans? Is there some notion that the band brings their playing to even greater glory when being bludgeoned with this phrase? Or is this spasm of euphoria merely an indication that the author is incapable of deeper expressions of emotion? Do you know this miscreant? Have you ever confronted this miscreant at a show? Is it possible that this miscreant is actually a series of miscreants, either coincidentally or through careful coordination expressing their shared belief in the religion of "Woo Hoo-ism? Given how often this miscreant winds up on boots, perhaps this miscreant is a recorder of many boots? Are you this miscreant? I'm challenging the readers of this board to out this guy (yes, based upon both mathematical probabilities and listening to the tone, I do not believe the offender to be a woman, although I'm happy to be proven wrong). All positive identifications, educated hunches, creative conspiracy theories, random observations, and general ramblings welcomed.

Lorraine, as you might imagine, I've had close encounters with the Red Men a number of times. As I recall, the first time was in KC (Starlight) maybe three tours back (I think), although I also saw them in Dallas one time that I recall, and then several times after that. They're actually pretty good guys, helping me move some little kids into the front row for a few songs on several occasions. I also think there's more then four, as I think I saw six at one show (two sitting second row), so perhaps it's a rotating cast of characters. While my jury is still out (no pun intended) on whether their attention-seeking garb is more about them or the band, and my perception is that Geddy and Alex don't interact with them as much as they do with most of the rest of us sitting near the stage, I will say that from what I've seen, they're quite knowledgeable fans that are into all eras of Rush, they're very respectful of fans around them re language, and they're happy to cordially engage "non-Red Men" in general discourse in between sets. At least, I never had any problems when I sat around them. And, yeah, getting four consecutive fronts costs some large dollars.

Really? Do explain, please! Blue J, either you're joking, or you didn't see the R40 tour or DVD.

You know, I've had this same idea. The thought of him up there on stage jamming away with two of the three original members is pretty scintillating. But over the last weekend, I saw parts of a recent Who concert (I think on Palladium) and they had like 8 guys on stage! I can see adding a keyboard player, but additional guitarists? Maybe I'm spoiled because Rush never went that way and that's what I expect all bands to do, and maybe having live musicians is preferable to some instead of the multiple layers of samples that Rush triggers on stage, but the optics of Geddy lost in a sea of backup musicians holds no appeal for me. I watched the show and thought about how bummed I'd be to see him amidst that clutter.That said, watching Geddy slay The Real Me would be worth the price of admission.

Eh, I prefer Moist. But that's a matter of taste.

I'm on board with TheAccountant here. Geddy's recent comments on the issue sound just a bit too biting. I don't know the man at all, but I've read a lot of his comments and seen a lot of his interviews over the years, and the veiled jabs he's been throwing are out of character. Whether they're read in context or not, it is hard to see how they will make it any more likely that Neil will want to do any sort of future projects with Alex and Geddy. And I understand Geddy's level of frustration. It's great when you find an occupation that you find highly satisfying, and that is well paying to boot. And I doubt there are many greater feelings in Geddy's life than when the band is cooking and the crowds are going bonkers and he's hitting all the right notes. With that feeling in mind, to have it all taken away by forces that are entirely out of your control has got to be difficult. It would be a shame if the legacy of three guys that stayed together for four decades was that they no longer talked to one another when it was over. No, that doesn't affect any of the music they made, or the many memories they gave me, but it would be a shame nonetheless.

Oh, I remember going there once, very well. The last show of the Snakes and Arrows Live tour was supposed to be at Atlanta, but as I recall, Denver got rained out, and the only rescheduling they could do for Denver was on the date that Noblesville was scheduled, so to accommodate Red Rocks, they kicked the Indy date to until the very end of the tour, and those who paid extra for Atlanta as the last show got screwed. As of 10 PM the night before, I didn't have a ticket to the Indy show, even though I live in Chi and could easily make it there. At about 10:30 PM, a great single ticket showed up on line (Ticketbastard or Stubhub, not sure). I scooped it up, got a quick hotel room reservation, and drove down the next afternoon. A pretty good seat, which I thought was 11th row, but turned out, because the seats sort of fanned around the stage rather than be arranged in a straight line, it was about the equivalent of fifth row in front of Geddy's keyboards. It was one of the most fun preparties I ever attended, capped off by a picture of my friend Christine (who sat with me for the Last Show Ever in LA) and I standing in front of some urinals. That tour opened with Limelight, and as the iconic opening riff blared out, I literally willed myself to always, always remember that moment, to remember the serendipity of finding a last minute ticket so close to the stage, of having so many friends that I saw before and during the show, and of having a band that could so thoroughly whisk me back to high school with a few chords. Needless to say, I haven't forgotten that emotion, and I often think of that show when I hear Limelight on the radio. So yes, to answer your original question, I remember Noblesville very well.

When I was just dating my wife, I stayed at her apartment for a weekend while she was traveling, so her new cat wouldn't freak out (the things we do for love, right?). During the course of my stay, I located my planned Christmas gift from her. It wasn't my fault, I swear, she left it out in plain sight, in an unmarked box totally covered by some other unmarked boxes under her bed. Because I very badly wanted to play with it, I c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y opened the box, had a blast all weekend, then c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y repackaged and replaced it for her Sunday night return, and feigned total shock and joy when I opened it on Christmas Day. I didn't tell her that story until several years after we were married. She was still pissed, after all that time. Huh. Anyway, to the extent that you can pull off a stealth early gift to yourself, I'd highly recommend it. Though I don't recommend ever copping to it, ever.

I've used it before, but it seems to fit... "His Momma name him Clay, I'm gonna call him Clay."