hey guys, been forever since i've visited the forum. been missing the band a bit lately, thought i'd come here and share my story, and hope some of you might have one to share as well. i should start a little earlier than the event, however. I met a friend online way back in '04 in a chat room when those were popular, because of our mutual love of rush. we stayed incredibly close all this time and always spoke about how we HAD to see rush together someday. while i did not realize/believe/accept/etc that R40 would be the end ( i had heard these rumors around just about every tour i'd ever seen,) she put me on the spot to come out her way and see a couple shows, which i'm incredibly happy to say i did. we went to tulsa and i made some great friends in her rush crew, and we had an amazing time seeing the tour kickoff (my second consecutive, as clockwork angels opening night was only about an hour and change away from where i currently live.) following this, we hung out in st. louis at her place for the week or so in-between, and had an incredible time. the day before the st. louis show, i happen to see a post on facebook that someone had met alex at their hotel on his way either out or returning from playing golf. we freaked out- they were in town, the city is not THAT large, and we didn't have any other plans that day, why not try and find these guys? i did a little detective work, looking at websites of various higher-end hotels around town, comparing their lobby pictures with the picture of alex. we narrow it down to two possibilities, and decide to go to one and have a couple drinks at the bar. maybe we will catch one of them going out or coming in, and get a super quick handshake, thank them for everything, maybe best case scenario a super quick picture. we definitely were not out to take up more than a minute of their time at most. worst case scenario, we drink a couple beers at the bar and hang out. at one point, i spot ray in the other end of the restaurant. holy shit!!!! we are in the right place, and this is happening! we try and stay chill, even though we are in this swanky hotel and all i packed for my trip were rush t-shirts and she had one on as well, we tried not to seem like we were...ya' know, stalking these guys! ray finished eating and was walking past, i wave and he acknowledged us as he stops for a minute. he came over and talked to us for a minute, he was super nice. he implied a little bit list she and i had hooked up at the bar over rush, which is hilarious. i wish i'd thought faster on my feet and mentioned the real reason we were together that week, i think he may have enjoyed that story. i mentioned the license plate in his office in the interview shots in the doc film (the MO license plate "rushhhhh") belonged to her friend, who is now my friend i met that week. ray somehow knew where our friend was sitting in tulsa, and mentioned he intended to say hello to him, which still blows my mind. he was cool enough to take a quick picture with us, and after he left, we are freaking out!! if that's as far as this goes, that was amazing!! following this, we are freaking out, and this guy sits at the bar next to me. he is wearing a suit, he orders a drink, and says "rush fans, huh?" we tell him yes, and he informs us he is here to meet the band for dinner. he owns a wine store locally and has known them for some time, geddy supposedly orders certain wines from his store. my friend asked if there was any chance we could meet anyone for a second, to which he of course replied no. oh well, we hang out with him there for maybe 45 minutes or so, talking and still in shock at this entire day. he then says something to the effect of "there's who i'm waiting for." the guy looks firmiliar but i can't quite place it. later i realize i'd seen him in the doc and the clockwork dvd, bringing the guys on stage, bald guy with glasses. later on looking at the dvd credits i see it's dominic. he is talking to our new friend, but we are all just kind of there together, so he is basically addressing all of us. he said the band already left, and if this guy wants to call an uber or cab, he will let him know where to go. the guy we have been hanging with is clearly annoyed by this news, and my friend, thinking fast on her feet, offers to give him a ride to the restaurant. he and dominic kind of exchange looks, and he says, " yeah, i'll take a ride from her." dominic shows us his phone to give the name and address of the place, and we take this guy there. we weren't expecting anything, although if something happened...hey we aren't saying no! he makes a call and says to someone on the other end he has two really big fans with him who would love to say hello. it sounds like we are going to have the chance, but who knows? i'm sure we could be turned away at any moment of this. we get to the place, there is a separate entrance for where the guys are from the rest of the restaurant (we have eaten there a few times since this and it always brings back some feelings when i see that door!!) someone is standing outside, and he lets us right past him with the guy we brought there. we go up some stairs and take a sharp left into this medium sized banquet room. it's hard to remember, but i'd say there were probably 15-20-ish people in there, probably closer to 15, all drinking wine. we walk in and alex is standing pretty near the door. everybody, including geddy and alex are in kind of dressy clothes, and here we are in this tiny room with these guys in rush t-shirts, it's actually kind of hilarious when i think back on it. alex immediately makes eye contact and smiles. we both shake his hand and thank him. looking back, i didn't say for exactly what, i hope he inherently knew i was thanking him for all the years of amazing work. he probably would have given us more time but he was standing with someone who said something to him and we didn't want to seem rude, so we kind of waved and said thank you, and walked over to geddy. the guy we brought was with geddy, he is kind of giving geddy a little shit, saying "the car left without me!" to which geddy replied to him by name (so he clearly did know him) "nobody expected to see you today." oh man. he then introduced us by name to geddy, and said we were his chauffeurs for the day. geddy was wearing a brown leather jacket and a scarf from what i remember, i'm fairly sure i'd seen him wearing the same jacket in video somewhere but i'm not sure. we both shake geddy's hand and say thank you. he smiles and nods. at this point we are all just kind of standing there awkwardly with geddy. my friend asked him if he had caught a cardinals game while in town. Geddy told us no, he doesn't do anything on his days off, he's not even supposed to talk. at this point he has been more than kind with his time and we thank him again, walk past alex, wave to him again, and go outside. i should note this entire time we are both completely freaking out on the inside, but externally we are being totally chill with everyone. we get outside and walk a bit down the street and completely start losing it, i may or may not have cried a little bit after that experience. sometimes i still can't believe it happened, it seems too outrageous to be real, but it most certainly did. we did not get any pictures, any autographs, nothing. it didn't feel like the right setting to ask that at all, although i'm pretty sure they both would have been cool to do so if we asked. we were clearly in their space, and did not want to be there long, the entire thing was maybe 5 minutes at most, but those guys were incredibly nice to us, especially given the situation. one funny thing of note is as we were leaving i noticed ray on the other side of the room see us, and had a look on his face like, "how did these two from the hotel get here?" however, we were gone before anyone had much of a chance to think about it. anyways, that's my crazy story of meeting 2/3 of rush. anyone else here have any similar encounters?
