coventry

It's not the frustration one can feel when repeated requests for "Best Seats Available" go rejected some few seconds into the sale. That's understandable. It's the tone, the whole "I'm through.." and "It's not fair..." and such. That's whining. Research how large venues release tickets (as has already been pointed out a few times in these threads). Figure you'll get decent tickets if you really want them. Keep TM up and running and check it each day. Look for postings alerting fellow TRF members that new seats are available, etc. You want frustration? What about the South American or Scandinavian fans who quite possibly will never see the band again?

Stop being so fourth wall, lorraine. I'm not whining about things. I'm admonishing those who are. I don't get your "fourth wall" reference - Call it admonishing if you want. I say you are whining about whiners. Fourth wall is calling attention to the very medium one is using (like an actor talking to the camera, or someone acknowledging she's whining about whining). By your generalization, any critical observation is whining. Which is pretty general.

Stop being so fourth wall, lorraine. I'm not whining about things. I'm admonishing those who are.

Its not about whining, More about frustration. Yes I agree. There are a lot of people that have been long time fans that can't afford the tickets this time. Especially if it's going to be their last decent sized tour. I can understand thinking this, but sometimes it's better to just keep quiet. People just need to vent their frustration and this may be the only outlet they have with people that would understand. Except it's been going on since the first pre-sales started. And it went on during the CA tour, and the one before it. People blame scalpers, they blame, ticketmaster, they blame the band. I get the frustration, but accept the fact that this is the current paradigm in big-name ticket sales, especially hyped ones. You're a really big fan of the band? Good. Then be happy with upper-level nosebleed seats. At least you're seeing them live.

Not to be acerbic, but whine, whine, whine; "in the past it was this"; "it used to be so easy to do this"; "what happened to the days of.."; "I'm frustrated with how I'm not able to get seats that befit my love of the band..." I'm sorry - did a bunch of my self-entitled high school seniors just take over this forum? I mean, I understand the frustration, but we're adults here. This is a capitalist, supply/demand system. Yes - there are slimy scalpers with professionally-written bot algorithms who scoop up all the good seats and then make obscene profits on them. This has been going on for how long now? Why is this news? I agree - its a deplorable, albeit legal practice that somewhat deadens the whole experience. And yes, sometimes I too would like to be able to stand in line at the local venue or TM outlet overnight and proffer up $30 for a 2nd row seat. I'd also like to open up a brand new "Missile Command" cartridge while listening to the Police's new album, Synchronicity, but that's not going to happen again, either. You want tickets to a major draw, arena rock band? Then this is part of the game. You want good seats consistently? Start seeing smaller acts in smaller venues. Try general admission shows. Try the symphony or a good jazz club. But please stop whining about your frustration at being outwitted in the ticket game.

I hear a rumor back in '86 that Neil was a fish...the proof being his mullet.

True. If Neil were still a tractor-parts and farm-supply salesman in some nondescript Ontario town, would any one of us - had we the circumstance to stop in the store - want to talk with him or hang out after the sale?

I mean, on this reseller site: http://www.ticketnetwork.com/tix/rush-05-14-2015-tickets-2485726.aspx tickets for floor seats 15 rows behind me are going for $132, basically $35 more than what I paid for my fanclub presale Row 11 tickets. That's easily worth it if I didn't already have tickets.

Don't be such a drama queen. I can understand you're frustrated that you didn't get tickets, or even the tickets you would have wanted. But as many people have already pointed out, decent tix are available closer to the show date, even is you have to pay x-amount of dollars over cost.

Most of the time a skip can be countered by adjusting the vertical tracking force on your tone-arm. And just like used vinyl, a used CD comes with its wear and tear. I would advise newcomers to give vinyl a try, especially with the quality pressings being issues more and more frequently. A reputable site like this http://store.acousticsounds.com/cat/5/Vinyl_Records has plenty of audiophile-quality new and old vinyl. While discogs.com (http://www.discogs.com/ has researchable pressings to see which one is the best sounding. It may be a bit more fuss than popping in a cd, but again, most cd players have subpar DAC's in the first place.

Tell me about it. I wish I had known when I was younger what it was going to be like for me now. I would have had a bigger blast than I had. What was that thing Oscar Wilde said? "Youth is wasted on the young."

I remember back in the 90's days of tNMS, rumors were being stoked about the next release (T4E) and someone posted that it would be the album and be called "All Good Things". Seems a bit more fitting now than 18 years ago.

Edit: Dismissing most adult listeners' use of vinyl as "nostalgia" is condescending at best and completely misinformed at worst. You sound terribly petulant, but with a little real information, you should be okay. Preface: Don't be fooled by the Crosleys they sell in Barnes and Noble, the current hipster turntable equivalents of a 70's Speak-and-Spell. Don't also be fooled by the $10K boutique behemoths fawned over in audiophile rags. Both are completely unnecessary to good analog reproduction. 1. It's really not a lot of work. You clean your vinyl once a year or so with a cheap ($99) rotary machine, clean your stylus every few weeks with something as simple as Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, and avoid dropping your albums, and you're good to go. If you want to invest $5K in a top-of-the-line vacuum and liquid cleaner, you can, but that's really not necessary. 2. Expensive is relative. For the price of 2 Silver VIP Rush tickets, you can have a really good, dependable turntable and cartridge and some well-reviewed interconnects. 3. Vinyl sounds as muddy as the pressing, plus whatever speakers you're playing it through. A good pressing played through decent speakers sounds transparent and holographic. You can get Stereophile Recommended Components speakers for under $300. You have to do some research about which old pressing is the best, of course. And keep in mind that many new releases are mastered and compressed at levels that WILL muddy up the sound over sub-par home stereos. Many new releases are recorded and mastered with car stereos and earbuds in mind. 4. An old record is going to have pops and cracks unless you thoroughly clean it - and even then it will as the grooves have probably been microscopically scratched and have dust ingrained within. Still, a "continuous analog wave" is going to present itself much better than a sequence of ones and zeroes played by a cd player with a high jitter rate and decoded by a pedestrian DAC. Most people have crappy cd players. Most also listen to horribly compressed mp3's, eschewing lossless FLAC's and the like because of the space they take up. 5. Yes, much depends on the amp. The same can be said for any sound source. If you're using a Best Buy-grade Pioneer or mid-level Onkyo or the like, you're not going to get much in the way in fidelity, especially if you're using a receiver designed for home theatre. For the price of two VIP Gold Rush tickets, you can have a good TT, cartridge, IC's and phono stage amp, and listen to years of music as opposed to three hours.

Idk; by selling my STL floor seats on StubHub, I could make a 400% profit minimum and take the family on a nice, long weekend getaway. I'm not going to do that, of course, but I can see why others are in this for the money.

No. The sound quality wouldn't be worth it. Unless one had a $5K set-up, you'd get a muddy brickwall of sound.

This is why I'm glad I'm as ardent a Phish fan as I am a Rush fan. The former never play the same setlist twice, ever. The latter repeat the setlist impeccably with minute variations. Each is equally emotionally cathartic, each would find it impossible to replicate what the other does live.

To quote Neil, who was quoting Capote, who was quoting a Bedouin proverb: "The dogs bark, but the caravan has moved on."

Rolling Stone had a good article about how the VIP trend is ruining concert experiences and ticket trends. The gist was that the VIP tickets also drove up other tickets, discouraged hardcore but not-so-well-heeled fans from trying to get tickets, and rewarded businesses who would buy VIP tickets for clients, etc. Essentially, how concerts were going the way of major sports venues a la sky boxes executive lounges, and the like.

Depending on whether the reissue has been remastered; or is based on the original recording; or is pressed in a quality environment on quality lacquer, results will vary widely based on which parameter and what set-up you have. Truthfully, I find most Rush vinyl to be ill-suited to quality playback. You may as well listen to CD what with all the compression of the later, post-Signals recordings. Still, if you've ordered a new copy, I hope it brings you sonic bliss!

I agree with you. I think I read Geddy saying that Neil is in pain every day from the beginning to the end of the tour. Neil's pain, while partially due to playing, is likely also due to his insistence on riding a motorcycle between cities. I imagine that if he took... oh, I don't know.... the plane Alex and Geddy use... he might be a little more rested and comfortable! Well, he probably insists on motorcycling because A: That's one of his favorite things about being on tour, and B: He hates flying, and will only do it when he has too. If Neil started flying, all the pain would be replaced with stress and anxiety. Wow. Neil displaying stress and anxiety while on tour? No way. The again, Geddy said that the last few albums they've made have made enough for them to break even more or less on the recording process. Thus the myriad live releases and other money grabs.

At this stage, I believe Rush has pretty much given up any consideration of tickets and who gets them to their managing agency or the venue or whatnot. To paraphrase another poster, Rush "has other shit to do" than to worry about die hard fans getting decent seats. I mean, we're not talking Phish or GD mail order; this isn't Pearl Jam or Bruce Hornsby. This is an enormous business machine operating for maximum profit in a music world where the only money is in touring and downloads and merchandise. Whatever fee Rush charges for their appearances has got to be covered many times over to turn a profit. It'd be nice to think that Rush is looking out for the fans that stuck with them through the decades and slings and arrows of criticism and ridicule, and to some extent I think they'll always be appreciative. But this is also a band who has several songs in their catalog emphasizing the distance between they and their fans; this is a band who's prime mover, Neil, never passes on a chance to lament how difficult touring is and how much he doesn't like interacting with the ones who make his lifestyle possible. I'm not bitching here, nor am I castigating Rush for what they or their management do. But I'm not going to pretend that this is an organic, fan-friendly entity with a huge degree of pathos for those without a bot to buy blocks of tickets. With that in mind, I'll try my best to get decent seats and fume when I won't get them because Stubhub and other resale sites already have them for sale for thousands. But then I'll get a seat somewhere in the venue and enjoy three hours of music - whether or not Geddy sweats on me or Alex smiles vaguely in my direction. I'm not the band's long awaited friend. I'm just another fan with disposable income on a band that may or may not have become synthetic.

As long as people pay, prices will continue to skyrocket. I wouldn't pay $400 a ticket to witness the second coming of christ, let alone a band I've seen ten times already. Tickets will turn up. Stubhub gets cheaper closer to the show date. The venues often release good seats a few days before the show. It always pays to check. At this stage of their game, there's little to no intimacy at a Rush show, so I don't care if I get floor or bowl.

It's amazing how many parts of that solo made it into my own drumming repertoire. That's something I never really realized until I listened to that solo for the first time in years a few months ago and realized all these little rhythmic thingies and flams and rolls and such I had completely lifted from the ESL solo.

I assume you use the Decca for Rush, right? And im envious of the Nottingham!

True, though it depends on how clean the record is. There're lots of good, inexpensive cleaning devices out there, like this one: http://www.needledoctor.com/Spin-Clean-Record-Washer I use it whenever I have a new or a used vinyl; additionally, I clean all my vinyl about once a year or so. And as far as a cartridge, it all depends on your budget and listening habits. Also, whether you want a moving magnet (MM) or a moving coil (MC) cartridge. The former are much hgiher output at the cost of clarity (to an extent; I mean, we're talking audiophile levels here), while the latter are much lower output but much more detailed but require a phono stage designed to handle MC voltage. A high-output MC cartridge (2.5mV or higher) will work just fine on any system. For reference, the Koetsu that Smegger jokingly referred to is .3 mV (yes, POINT-3 mV). Some cartridges lend themselves better to Rush's dynamics than others. You really can't go wrong with anything in the Ortofon color line. The Ortofon Blue is the next step up for you: http://www.needledoctor.com/Ortofon-2M-Blue-Phono-Cartridge?sc=2&category=378 And the Goldring G2100 is awesome, though more: http://www.needledoctor.com/Goldring-GL-2100-Phono-Cartridge_3?sc=2&category=373 You can choose other MM or high-output MC's. I loved the Sumiko Bluepoint cartridge (high output MC) and currently am running an Audio-Technica 150MLX (MM) on my ProJect 5.1SE turntable. It all depends on your budget. As an audiophile and a color/tone synesthete, though, I'm pretty finicky about my sound.