cmaj7flat5

anyone prefer one to the other? (referring to Contents vs. Chemistry. I'm not touching Visions!)

So the last tour was amazing fer sher, but I have to say I really did miss the jam space that they got into in "Working Man" last tour. It had an energy to it that you don't find anywhere else in their set. The problem is, of course, that nobody (me included) cares to hear "Working Man" for the ten hundredth time. So, boys, my suggestion to remedy this problem, if we are lucky enough to be blessed with another tour, is to pick another song to jam in! (Genuis, I know.) How about "By-Tor"? It makes a lot of sense considering parts of "ByTor" were originally pilfered from the Working Man jams of late '74, right? Or... I was listening to "Alien Shore" today and realized that this is another great candidate. The guitar solo starts out with a lot of space, and could build gradually until Alex & Ged hit that unison line together right before the super-funky (for Rush, anyway) breakdown that goes into the last verse. I know in interviews they talked about it as being one of the highlights of Time Machine for them. So c'mon, guys - bring back the jams!

For a fact-junkie who has read every article on 2112's transcript archive, etc, will I learn anything new in "Contents Under Pressure" or "Chemistry", or should I save my money?

Got tix from third-party broker called "The Ticket Hog" run by a guy named Brent Seuis. Anyone know anything about it/him? Would hate to drive three hours to Hershey to find out the tix are bogus...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hyO6x8e1Z8

...gotta throw "Turn The Page" in there too! Also, check out some bootlegs from '74 and '75. Geddy used to alter the vocal rhythms DRASTICALLY from the studio versions, dragging lines across the bar and all over the place, but meanwhile keeping the bass part tight like a tiger. RiDONKulously difficult to do, but as we all know, the man is a few notches beyond human!

If I can't get a War Paint > Bad Boy > You Bet Your Life > Countdown (with extended astronaut rap outro) encore, I'm selling my front row center tix for Toronto. Alex promised it when he was smoking a joint with his caddy.

explanation: at 3:25 the strings play the opening riff from Satisfaction

just sayin'

(kinda fits with what our homeboy would have been thinking at that point in his journey...)

I hate to be part of the negativity, but the first thing I thought when I listened to the first two tracks on CA was "Why don't I like them as much as I did before?" Then I went back to my "Caravan single" mp3s and lo and behold, there it was. CA was mastered with much more of a "v-curve" in the EQ than the single, and for me a lot of the punch and definition were taken out of Caravan and BU2B. I'm aware that this was done in the spirit of "mastering for iTunes" and to make sure that the tracks sound good on people's laptops and iPhones and everything, but c'mon - do Rush fans really listen to their albums through their laptop speakers?

Have to agree with Snaked - The Anarchist was THE tune that hit me immediately - made me laugh out loud, actually, at how badass it is. For me, that nasty flanged unison line w/ the bass pedals under it sounds the most like 1978 that they've sounded since, well... 1978. And adding the Arabic flair w/ the strings? Seriously! And the way Neil absolutely THUMPS it, Bonham-style, in the guitar solo - quite possibly his dirtiest moment on record. One of their best tunes ever, in my book...