snowdog2112

I don't think broad appeal has any relevance whatsoever with these things. No casual "I only like Moving Pictures" fan buys collector's box sets in the first place. These things for ALL big legacy bands sell in the few thousands to a few tens of thousands. There's virtually no crossover between mainstream fans and those who will spend hundreds to get a full GUP or PW show. And I'm confident GUP40 is coming. The 50th box set was just released in March, gotta space them out. I wouldn't be concerned unless we don't hear anything by early October.

Yeah, I’m aware, and that book, specifically Ian Grandy, acknowledges that ITIGB was played a few times. It’s extremely detailed. I wasn’t personally at every show in 1975 so I wouldn’t bet my life on it either way, but given that so far no audio has ever turned up of it and the crew who were at every show say it wasn’t played it’s probably borderline fantasy to keep up any hope that it was played.

Wandering the Face of the Earth, which is claimed to be thoroughly vetted and is certainly accurate overall to the extent of my own knowledge, addresses it in the intro to the CoS tour chapter saying "Despite rumors to the contrary, there is no evidence that any part of "The Fountain of Lamneth" was ever performed live, and crew recollections support that it wasn't." I doubt you'll ever get anything more definitive than that. Even though it's inevitable that someone out there will say "But I remember it at my show..." or something. Unless someone can provide actual audio, it simply didn't happen, period.

I can’t believe anyone has seriously believed they will tour in any form, and for multiple reasons.

Yeah, I understand that. I just meant I think it's a mistake to say "If they don't know what we want by now..." when the "they" in question almost certainly has never had any connection to us in the first place. It's not the band selling us something, it's effectively a generic chain store selling us something with the band's name on it. It doesn't surprise me that they don't know whether a show is from Germany or Arizona or what has already been out in bootleg circles or know how to find any of the 1979 Hemispheres Hammersmith recordings, etc. I would imagine that to the people in charge most of the leaked 50th track list has never been heard by anyone.

But who is "they"? It's not like Alex and Geddy are initiating any of this, I seriously doubt Ray does, and Pegi is gone. I'm sure that Alex and Geddy (and I assume Neil's wife or family) have some power to authorize or veto what's brought to them. But somebody is going to them, and/or to Terry Brown, etc. The whole catalog is in the hands of what was Ole, isn't it? I'd be curious what the specific process is like and who is actually involved now. Who is the person who actually says "I've decided we're going to prepare a GUP box set (or 50th set or whatever) for release next year." and who are the people that actually oversee the process of assembling it? I would imagine it's just some strategy committee at a table saying "We need some 2nd quarter product", not people saying "Hey, I'll bet Rush fans would be excited to have a complete live show from the GUP tour!" So I'm not sure that "by now" means anything if the people who own it have never really ever had a relationship with the fans in the first place.

Does it? I need to go back and read it again then. I don’t remember interpreting it that way but maybe my reading comprehension failed me.

Unreal. I can't believe I missed that until now. Thanks. But what a gut punch.

I am constantly blown away by the fact that the Hemispheres tour was filmed at Hammersmith in 1979 and it is never talked about. It was openly discussed at the time and since then just nothing. If it rotted away or got lost that would be tragic enough but I can't believe no one has even asked the band or Pegi or Ray or anyone who would know in decades to my knowledge. If it's gone at least give us some closure on it.

The drum solo also says 1987 instead of 1997 which threw me too, I hoped for a second it was from an unreleased HYF show but it's clearly a typo.

Exactly. It’s kind of amazing we have as many early non-album songs as we do. Garden Road, Fancy Dancer, Bad Boy, I’ve Been Runnin, The Loser, and of course the two songs of the first 45. It’s damn near another album’s worth. I wonder how many other pre-album songs they were still playing live in 1974 that we might have had if other nights were recorded.

There’s not one that anyone knows of.

There’s no guarantee, but everybody who stated that a 50th set was coming also said that its upcoming release was why GUP has been pushed back. As of very recently the consensus had become “See, fall is over and no 50th package, it was all BS.” Well, obviously we now know it wasn’t BS.

If nothing else this does show that the people who insisted a 50th compilation was coming were right. And it strongly implies that they’re also right that GUP40 has simply been pushed back, not forgotten. You’re right, most of this simply “makes official” a lot of things that we’ve all had over the years but at the same time as of a few days ago we’d all pretty much given up on there being anything anyway. If it’s a nice physical package I’m sure I’ll still get it and then wait for GUP news.

Exactly, I don't see the problem with this at all. It's not stupid just because some fans don't care or need it. I already have all the vinyl and won't be getting it either but I'm happy for the ones that are. I missed out on a few of the Jethro Tull box sets years ago and for a long time my only option was to go on ebay and pay literally $650 or more for a new copy. I'm so OCD and had to have them all but couldn't ever bring myself to pull the trigger. and they kept going up. And I'm glad I didn't because they've finally rereleased a bunch of them this past year for like $40 and now I have all but one that should be coming out next. So if the Rush albums were selling for that much then I'm glad they met the demand. I don't think this in any way had anything to do with a potential 50th package or a later GUP box. If we don't get one or both of those it's not because they said "Hey, let's do this 4-album vinyl box instead of that."