JARG

26 minutes ago, Principled Man said:

I have very mixed feelings about this.  
 

If Alex can’t play it anymore, and if Geddy can’t sing it anymore, then I have no interest in it.  
 

They are most certainly not doing it for the money…..right?    RIGHT?  

I'm in the same place as you. I've seen Rush often enough, and luckily during their peak years, that I personally don't need to see them again, especially given Alex's and Geddy's respective losses of facility on guitar and vocally, but my daughter actually shed a tear when we saw Geddy on the book tour. For her, just being in the same room was significant (she felt the same way at The Who and Paul McCartney shows). I get that - I was starstruck in my youth as well.

8 minutes ago, BastillePark said:

The "travel package" for Chicago includes:

 

- Two (2) night stay at the Hyatt Regency Chicago in Chicago, IL (Check-In: Wednesday, July 15th, 2026, Check-Out: Friday, July 17th, 2026)

- Two (2) Reserved Seating tickets to see Rush perform at The United Center on Thursday, July 16th 2026

- Two (2) limited edition Rush merchandise items**

- Exclusive Rush Travel Welcome Pack to give you the supplies for a successful weekend

- On-site host at the hotel to provide local recommendations during your stay

 

For a mere $1839 and they don't specify where the seats are, only that there will be two of them. The room part of that is about $840 according to the hotel website. Smells of cash grab.

Yeah, we'll pass on that and book our travel and accommodations ourselves.

24 minutes ago, Xanadoood said:

Will it just be instrumental versions of the classics? Geddys voice must be beyond cringey at this point., it was rough 20 years ago 

Geddy said they'd have a keyboardist for some stuff, maybe they'll get a vocalist as well.

25 minutes ago, edhunter said:

If you truly cared about the pizza, you’d be looking at the Madison Square Garden shows. You’re just a bad person.

No cheese and crackers for me, thank you. And yes, I'm a bad person, but I know where to go to get good pizza.

21 minutes ago, Linguine Lee said:

 

I wholeheartedly agree...and I'll add Mike Portnoy to your list.

 

Portnoy is an amazing drummer, but he kinda sucks playing Rush for some reason; he doesn't know the fills intimately, and for some reason sounds very stiff when only playing Rush; he doesn't sound so forced playing ANYTHING else.  It's very odd.  He lacks finesse and dynamics...buy again, seemingly ONLY on Rush material.  When I watch him play with YYNOT, he just sounds off...very off.

 

Now who DOES nail Neil is someone rarely talked about...Jason Bittner.  He gets ALL the intricacies just right.  He is a metal drummer, but he nails Neil just about better than ANY drummer I've seen, and he isn't even playing on his OWN kit!

 

 

 

Bittner is the most relaxed-looking-while-playing-Peart drummers I've seen. He makes it look easy.

17 minutes ago, Entre_Perpetuo said:

You two have to go.

We're gonna' try. I'm worried tickets will sell out in minutes. I told her "nosebleed seats are better than no seats".

We're looking at either a Ft. Worth or a Chicago show. The draw for her is Rush, the draw for me is, respectively, BBQ or Pizza.

Excuse me while I remove my foot from my mouth. I was one of the "Rush is done touring" crowd. I'm shocked, and my 19 year old daughter is beside herself with excitement at the prospect.

30 minutes ago, 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 said:

 

 

Isn't there a live version where he says "Hey Ellie" or something like that?

If memory serves, it was "Cookie" on the ESL-era shows and "Allie/Ellie" during the ASOH-era shows.

Hey baby, want to see my totem pole?

40 minutes ago, liquidcrystalcompass said:

I went to the 1989 one also.  The Fabulous Thunderbirds opened and Stevie Ray Vaughan was next before The Who

Despite my proximity to Austin in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, I never did catch the T-Birds. I luckily got to see SRV several times.

5 hours ago, taurus said:

Maybe someone wanted to leave the door open just a crack in case someone changed their mind later. We don't know, but somehow doing it the way they did suits them better imo. I think we all pieced it together that it was the end of the road.

Indeed. Never say never, even when never is by far the most likely scenario.

5 minutes ago, New_World_Man said:

 

I had some negative personal experiences (getting to the show, parking and hitting a car when I finally did get to do parking) that affected my enjoyment somewhat but the actual show was great. I'd say they went out with a bang. I won't mention any spoilers though. All I'll say is if you are a WHO fan you'll enjoy it. I even saw one other attendee there wearing a Rush shirt. As I walked past him I said "there it is..." He just nodded or something after seeing my Rush shirt. Soon after that I bought a WHO shirt which I'm wearing right now (50 bucks but I'd rather buy it the proper way then give money to a drug addicted scalper).

Cool. I saw them back in about '82 and once was enough for me, but my 19 year old daughter has a strong desire to see as many classic rock acts as she can before they all give up the ghost, so it's the Who for us this month and Heart/Cheap Trick (neither of which I've seen live) in November.

3 hours ago, New_World_Man said:

Last night I saw the final tour for the Who and it got me to thinking about this. The Who t shirt I bought says "farewell tour" but the Rush t shirt I have and none of the announcements say anything about the 2015 tour being the final tour for Rush. My suspicion is that either they didn't know at the time when they first announced tour dates that it was going to be their last or they wanted it to just be for the hardcore fans who knew through the Rush "grapevine" that it was going to be their last. I guess we can all speculate all we want but does anyone know for sure what the reason was? Did have something to do with Neil and his need for privacy?

 

As I mentioned last night I saw the Who in Philly (on their rescheduled show) and it dawned on me to creat this post after noticing how it says "farewell tour." I have seen a total of four bands on their final tour and they are The Who, Genesis, Black Sabbath and Rush. Rush is the only one where it wasn't formally announced.

How was the Who show? We're seeing them later this month.

17 hours ago, FlowerbedPiano said:

Aside from what my own personal tastes and preferences have led me to think and feel about HYF (and indeed the two albums before and after it), both then at the time and now, I completely and utterly understand why Rush HAD to do what they did during the 80s.

I witnessed the same thing happen with many bands and artists I love from other genres too, particularly in soul, funk and pop. Much as I enjoyed the 1980s (they were my own formative years as a teenager, becoming a man, etc.) and lapped up the bright, glossy production palettes of people whose careers started in that era (eg. Scritti Politti, Thomas Dolby, Prefab Sprout, the whole ZTT stable, etc.), I was sorry that a lot of the 70s artists I loved were forced to keep up with the times, forced to adapt their sound, encorporate the mechanised sounds of the day, reduce the organic nature of their musical voices...all of that, in order to stay marketable.

Interestingly I still found the progression of Moving Pictures to Signals an exciting move. Despite the production being saturated with keyboards, the digital themes fully emerged, the shorter radio-friendly pieces, Geddy's basslines being less sinuous, etc.etc, I loved Signals from day one.
Grace Under Pressure though....and I'm sorry if this doesn't resonate with a lot of Rush fans...I had difficulty with. For several years after in fact, I tried really hard to love the new material as it emerged throughout the decade.

In retrospect though, I see it entirely from THEIR point of view. In order to survive as a rock band in 1983, they couldn't very well expect to remain relevant and contemporary using purely the resources they had on Permanent Waves. Once we progressed into the postmodernist 90s, it was 'ok' to be organic again, to be 'epic' again, and more self-referential to an earlier style....hence the emergence of Dream Theater, Spock's Beard and the return of Yes to their classic sound. Perhaps it's a sign of the integrity of Rush that they didn't return in the 1990s to temple blocks, tubular bells and medieval themes and continued to search, explore and evolve (even though I would've happily devoured a Cygnus X-1 Book Three!!).

I think in the final assessment for me, it's interesting to watch A Show Of Hands on DVD.
I was at that show. In Block C, Row D, seat 9...quite near the front. I remember longing for the older material and being elated when it came. I remember being close enough to see Geddy's more solemn face at the keyboards for the 80s material (much as he might deny it, I think he was forced to become less animated and less supple in order to fulfil his 80s-era live duties!!). It was a MAGNIFICENT show and don't get me wrong, I did enjoy every song....BUT watching it now, it's so obvious when they play 2112, Closer To The Heart, La Villa Strangiato, In The Mood, Spirit Of Radio, etc. everyone in the band COMES ALIVE. They kick, they buck, they groove...they rock. They have more fun. Alex smiles from ear to ear, Geddy is freeeeeeeee and can rip into his sinuous bassliines again, Neil drills across his entire kit from timbales down to the floor tom rather than being tied up with motorised patterns (however ingenious those were) or wearing headphones to follow a clicktrack....
And perhaps most evident of all, the crowd (with me too, out there, among them) go WILD with joy.

BUT I also appreciate that business is business. Had Rush NOT simplified and streamlined their chord sequences and NOT used the flashy, glossy, stabby production elements of the day....in order to produce Hold Your Fire....arguably they would've struggled to keep their contract and therefore their distribution (and therefore their careers) in a decade where resting on your laurels wasn't an option.

 

Very thoughtful (and thought-provoking) post. I get your point: in order for Rush to endure, Rush had to mirror current trends (and still try to be Rush while doing so).

As someone who, when first hearing Permanent Waves when it came out, felt that Rush had let him down, I can say that perhaps Rush didn't need to endure much past Moving Pictures. Sure, the are songs on later albums that I connect with and enjoy, but those connections were the product of effort on my part whereas my connection with their earlier material was effortless. Maybe I'm just a lazy bugger, but that I had to work at enjoying Rush was a cue for me that maybe Rush, laurels or not, should have quit while they were ahead.

30 minutes ago, HemiBeers said:

Well done as usual! It shows how amazing Alex and Geddy was to write these complex songs without much formal musical training. Just add a little substance for inspiration and tada!

 

Now that you adapted this to piano, the bass part at 3:05 sounds like The Peanuts theme song. Maybe Geddy used this as an unknown influence. I know, it's weird what my ears pick up. It would be funny to insert a few measures Peanuts theme song at that part, but probably blasphemy to Rush fans. 

 

 

I picked up on the Peanuts theme, too. I think that's mostly just an artifact of how Geddy's bassline sounds on piano.

6 hours ago, FlowerbedPiano said:

Please do let me know what you think of this, Rush fans!! The latest instalment of my piano project. RUSH FOR SOLO PIANO Episode Three: XANADU!!! Just uploaded it to YouTube this morning. I don't get a lot of viewers but it's about quality, not quantity!! Ha ha. If you like it, please do share and let other Rush fans know. Thanks everyone.
 

 

Sublime from start to finish. I don't know which impresses me more, your skill as a musician or as a composer. You make such clever decisions when transposing from the original. My true hope for you is that this somehow gets the attention of Geddy and/or Alex and they reach out to you to express their admiration and gratitude.

22 hours ago, PurpleHayes said:

I just realized one of my major problems with HYF...

 

Imagine that you've never heard HYF before. Now imagine that Geddy's vocals have been removed, and you have to guess what band it is based purely on the music.

 

I would never have guessed HYF was a new Rush album.

 

Supertramp? Maybe. ELO? Possibly. Toto? Probably.

 

OK, some might say they have the same problem with Signals, that it sounds like a new Police album. Yes, the influence is there...but it still sounds like it could be Rush.

 

HYF just doesn't do that for me. Preso and RTB don't either, but not nearly as much as HYF.

Interesting take. Yeah, if you had time-travelled back to 1977 when I was obsessive about Rush and played for me a vocal-less HYF, I would have said, "what the f**k is this shit?" You would have had a hard time convincing me that it was Rush.

10 hours ago, 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 said:

 

 

The electric and acoustic parts are played the same, variations of C and F chords at the first position. The high notes your hearing on the second part ("An angular mass of New Yorkers") are from the acoustic -- you're getting those high notes because it's a 12-string. It's the same as in Xanadu when he switches to the 12-string neck for the "To stand within the..." section.

Just stumbled across this. Confirms the first position of the C and F chords, but what this made clear for me was that he's also dropping in Csus2 and Csus4, and Fsus2 and Fsus4 chords during the verses.

13 hours ago, 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 said:

 

 

I'm 99% sure he used a 12-string acoustic in the studio, doubled with a clean 6-string electric. I use a Digitech 12-string simulator pedal for that part.

I can certainly hear the acoustic, it's the electric part that mystifies me, particularly while Geddy is singing the verses.

1 hour ago, 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 said:

 

I'm still trying to recreate the sound he gets in Camera Eye, the chords just before the verse vocals start. They're the only spots in that song that I haven't nailed tone- and effects-wise. it sounds like it'd be easy to get but it isn't, at least for me.

 

 

For me the far more elusive-sounding part (I've only tinkered with the song, so this is really more me trying to figure out how I'd actually go about it) is actually what's going on during the verses. It's almost like he's using some weird tuning.

1 hour ago, liquidcrystalcompass said:

A nod to Spinal Tap?

100%

We tied into Rush as well. The slogan on our logo was "we dance on the strings".

1 hour ago, liquidcrystalcompass said:

 

“If I told them once, I told them a hundred times to put Spinal Tap first and Puppet Show last.”

The Rush tribute band I was in was called Puppet Show.

11 people?

1 hour ago, PurpleHayes said:

I can remember when CoS was at the bottom of my ranked list of albums, but that was back when there were only 5 albums to rank. Now CoS is considerably higher in the list.

10 minutes ago, liquidcrystalcompass said:

I didn’t care for it.  Maybe I should give it a dozen or so more listens to see if it grows on me.

That hasn't worked for me. Measured against its non-Rush cousins, it's a pretty good album; measured against its siblings, it's so-so.