Bahamas

Some of my favourite lyrics are in Caress Of Steel, The Necromancer. "As grey traces of dawn tinge the eastern sky..." and "men of Willow Dale" and "fording the River Dawn"... These are actual place names from my home town, but spelled differently. As a kid my friends and I would play around in the Don River in Willowdale. We listened to Rush on our Sony Walkmans and felt super excited at being mentioned in a rock album.

Yum! We do a very similar soup. And brussel sprouts are actually the best cut in half and tossed in a little duck fat/spray with salt and pepper and roasted on parchment paper. About twenty minutes around 400 F. The gamey flavour of the oil matches the bitterness of the sprouts and equals caramelized sweetness.

Lately I have watched some shows and movies and thought "now there is a perfect spot for a Rush tune". I hope the popularity of our heroes gets the attention of movie makers across the globe, some amazing accompaniments could be used. Yes there have been some examples in the past, but I mean epic releases could use some Rush love! Just my thoughts, lately.

Tour of the Hemispheres '78/79. Not sure it has "lured out" other Rush fans, but I could try standing at Yonge and Bloor and count? I like it because I wore it to R40.

Thank you OBarry, and nice that you shouldered in respectively. We loves the Neil tributes :) He was an amazing person and so are the other two fellows, of course :) I think many of us will appreciate the nods to our heroes as time goes on. I hope it continues for a long time. I will watch for the issue and grab a copy when it comes around.

I honesty love how the material keeps emerging, and how fans are so interested in older material. Like the huge concert numbers, there must be a demographic/consumer study somewhere of how much we are willing and wanting to keep buying stuff! Maybe lots of bands have a dedicated fanbase that want to keep growing their libraries, but really, Rush fans must be right up there!

Pretty much an encyclopedia of sorts. Dates, attendance, local media articles, nicely made and a big, heavy book. My birthday present almost two years ago :)

Just saw this. Yikes! Keep on...keeping on :) Very happy to also see you seem to be in the clear :)

I read recently there is something to come early next year about putting his lyrics to artwork, the same folks that did the Farewell To Kings graphic novel - Fantoons. Apparently "Neil approved". I can't recall the reference, it started when I was searching out 2020 Grammy Awards tributes. Let the inter-web searching begin!

I know we should be respectful of other musicians, I like Van Halen and some of their songs. The older songs are good and hardy blues-rock fusions, but... I don't see any comparison. Hardly any. Edit: As individuals, as team players, as people with a job to do, I don't feel any sense of similarity.

Something I am working on, a little side project of compiling bike trips this summer with Rush songs during these weird times, I thought would be appropriate to post. I found this quote only a couple of weeks ago, from (CDN) national journalist John Ivison of the National Post: “I have never understood the outbursts of mass hysteria that have greeted the death of a celebrity that those grieving have never met. Yet I confess to finding myself moved to tears by the death of drummer Neil Peart, from brain cancer at the age of 67”. This from a guy who joined the Backstage Club - Newsletters, back in the 80s. I had to order them, but glad I did. Reading Neil’s short stories and answers to the mountains of band mail has been a very endearing journey of its own.

On one of the final shows of the Lovetown Tour, Bono says onstage in Dublin that "this is just the end of something for U2" and that "we have to go away and … and dream it all up again". 1990[edit] January: U2 begin its longest break to date, which includes a two-year break from public performance.[78] OK, I am mixing memories of this and a die-hard friend at the time saying it was the final world tour. I was not a fan and didn't like that turn of events because it felt sneaky. Thank you Weatherman, I stand corrected. Many bands (our included) took breaks. I was always under the impression U2 made a show of it and I am sorry. Cheers :)

Just want to say without quoting endless squares of text... It is not fair to even include U2 along these lines. They made millions announcing their "this is the end, we are done World Tour" and then came back and kept playing. Rush never pulled any kind of stunt like that.

Anything by Robin Hobb with Fitz and the Fool. Escapism, worlds away sci-fi in the most personal ways - awesome.

How many are there, now? I have actually read one of them, end to end. Just not sure it was the right one.

379 ?! I demand a re-count! No way. Utter bullsh*t. It should be at least in the top ten...of all time, of any music, of any group...of all time. Did I say "Of All Time"?. In any galaxy. In any solar system! Right? Says me. Ugh, popular radio play wins again.

Presto is my most challenging listen. Tinny in mixing, difficult to blend with a song list. But we would never have gotten The Pass, Presto, Superconductor. That is why I find it very, very difficult to discount Rush albums and songs. Honestly, they finished a song (in all its agony or glory), or else it got tossed. They included every single song because they felt it was worth including. Remember, they earned the right to choose their songs and work it to release production. If they didn't like something, it got tossed.

I get that. And when I said 2112 is like COS on crack, that was wrong, but the Edit option expired by then. Really, I meant 2112 is like Caress Of Steel on steroids. Some single tracks with the prog-operettic creativity, both similar that way. But I don't think 2112 would have been so amazing if not for the experimental leave-us-alone creativity of COS.

Voted the first choice, Epic! You folks make a topic expand like an elastic-gone-wild, I can't read all the replies. I was just saying the other day, on Neil's birthday, this album is very Neil. Lucky for all of us, this "down the tubes" was just a temporary pause - let the world really hear us, we have a lot to say! I played it two nights ago on the "house stereo", read the lyrics, listened to everything. All of it. Some of the lyrics are very childhood memory-like for me, the River Dawn (is the Don River), Willow Dale is my home of Willowdale, three travelers, really. We used to fetch golf balls from the Don River and sell them back to pudgy men for a dime so we could buy a coke. The sony walkman playing in our ears, always Rush. Caress Of Steel is awesome! I love this album. Yes, Edit: I some times think of 2112 as COS on crack! Neil was doing a lot of quiet snare, then full throttle into rolling toms, the soft music going into slamming hard music, they were getting a groove on! Geddy's voice prime. Alex was able to play whatever he wanted. One of my favourite albums, for sure.

Definitely look into Jonathon Dinklage, the violin bit. Even a google hit might get you some good footage. The song Losing It. If you have a Kindle, or such, Neil's books are pretty much everywhere now. So much detail about local history, and thousands of miles of travel. And getting more albums, don't sweat it, friend. I don't think they are going anywhere for a long, long time :)

The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold, Tim Moore. British travel writer who rides the old "Iron Curtain" in Europe, on an old German shopping bike - the ones with a hinge and small wheels: The MIFA 900! (about 10,000 km, from Finland to the Baltic Sea). Also just read French Revolutions, riding the route of the Tour De France without much practice, or ability - just a love of the history. Very out of shape, he writes about the historical cheats, the deaths, the funny. He suffers, greatly. But is chronically humorous. He rode a bike with wooden wheels, lead a donkey along a Spanish pilgrimage route, has done lots of fascinating trips. Truly, his historical notes and research are amazing. Edit: And The Cyclist listed above includes bits of Poland 1939, for sure. Lots of East/West history and talking to people, seeing old buildings and the people who's relatives were re-located, controlled, and such.

Well New Brunswick, they are always too busy shoveling snow, no matter when :) I already love the book. Cool binding. Something that caught my attention just on the initial flip-through, Neil answers a question about the parts of Fear. He explains that yes, there are only three parts. I was like, what? Immediately went to Vapor Trails to double check, and I realized how much I will love this book collection. Ending with 1994 that was before the fourth part. And so I had to ponder again how awesome their time together was. The volume of early work, the years to come, so much of it written down. We are very luck fans indeed!

librarian, tell us you made that drum set !!!!!!

Got it !!!! But to this minute the Tracking still says "Cleared Customs August 31" (I guess above I was checking on it, on Sept. 3). I was just out the front door and it was leaning outside the door frame. Happy to get it, but this time around, not great service.

Ok here are the Neil celebration T-shirt pics. The hi-vis biking shirt might be a knock-off (lol), I am sure Alex is already leaning in to scrutinize its authenticity. Challenge to wear shopping, perfect for sharing city streets with vehicles. The Hemispheres is an oldy but it accompanied me and my brother to R40 in Toronto, very memorable for us both. He highly doubted the rumours, I was thinking we were all gathering for the last time. So yes a pain to post, but I was determined! As Union 5-3992 helped me a few months back to post some Algonquin Park pics (Oh, alright, feel free to check them out under Photography). Make an account at imgur.com (easy), post on their page, Public. Then from there you can copy/paste to these forums. Cheers!