analog guy

I already predicted Denver's slogan; now I'm gonna predict they have the creepy blue horse.

The car sculpture for Lincoln is "carhenge", which is a Stonehenge-like sculpture somebody did in rural Nebraska using old cars. Yes, I have seen it. They may want to check their geography though, as this is located near Alliance, which is several hundred miles away on the other side of the state. http://www.roadtripamerica.com/roadside/Nebraska-Carhenge-08.jpg

Denver: One mile high isn't just our altitude....

Neil explains in the RTB tourbook that eliminating the second bass drum was getting rid of "an empty reverberating chamber" or something like that. I suppose it would be better to have one from the engineer point of view. It's been probably 25 years since I've played a kit with two bass drums. My brother had one in the 80s. From an ergonomic standpoint, I think I'd stick to single w/double pedal just because I can get the hi-hat closer that way. I've had a DW 5000 double for awhile. Used to have a Yamaha and it was very good; there isn't much between the two.

You need to learn setlist pacing. A slow, soft song like Halo Effect in the second spot? Same with Losing It in the second set. Both are fine songs but talk about killing the mood right away. EDIT: The same goes for the poster who put The Garden second. Seriously? Let's rock for a few songs before you slow it down so much. It's a personal setlist with no realistic chance of being played.

Set One 1. The Anarchist 2. Halo Effect 3. Far Cry 4. Ghost Rider 5. Carve Away The Stone 6. Alien Shore 7. Ghost of a Chance 8. The Pass 9. Open Secrets 10. Marathon 11. The Body Electric Set Two 12. Subdivisions 13. Losing It 14. The Camera Eye 15. Tom Sawyer 16. Jacob's Ladder 17. Different Strings 18. Prelude / Armageddon / The Sphere 19. Cinderella Man 20. Xanadu 21. A Passage to Bangkok 22. 2112 (full) Encore 23. Bastille Day 24. By-Tor & The Snow Dog 25. What You're Doing 26. Garden Road

Ben Mink comes out with a violin and they do Losing It.

I hope I get this setlist in Denver but the math doesn't seem to work out. Seems like whatever pattern they use, I end up with #1.

Bangkok with ESL style bridge (Geddy playing bottom of double neck & Taurus) would be the icing on the cake.

So, one extra song?

Good. The Cygnus double is untouchable and must not be messed with.

P/G, Vapor Trails, Snakes & Arrows - hard to separate them, but they all qualify IMO. P/G as a general bleak worldview... the heaviness. Vapor Trails is obviously got the hand of Neil's personal grief all over it. Snakes & Arrows is probably the most caustic album in Rush's catalog.

Anagram (for Mongo) - really is a great song with that nice piano bridge.... I just wish Geddy didn't completely oversing the last line The Speed of Love - favorite song on Counterparts Open Secrets & Second Nature from HYF

I like knowing, because it prevents huge swings of emotion and some inevitable disappointment. When I don't know, I get my hopes up for certain things to appear, which inevitably do not. I also get more disappointed when something I'd rather not hear comes around, and that will happen once or twice as well. Really, I actually enjoy it more when I know ahead of time.

If charting meant anything, they'd play New World Man every show.

The first set seems like it's one song short. A Presto cut would have been nice.... maybe The Pass alternated with something rare, like Available Light.

I'm so, so glad Prelude is there in some form.

Taking a wait and see. If it is legit, then perhaps there's gonna be some A/B ing going on. I could also see medleys. Lots of medleys. The first time I saw them in '92 they did a bunch. I'm not terribly fond of that approach but I guess 2 minutes of something is better than not hearing it at all. For me, Prelude and Jacob's Ladder would be worth the price anyway.

I think the best description someone had for this album was that it didn't offend them, but it didn't make them feel much of anything. I kind of feel the same way. It's hard for me to rate it highly, but there's also nothing here that I'd classify as offensive or controversial to the Rush canon, like say the Roll the Bones rap. I'll go on record as saying I have always liked Half The World, even if there is a triteness to the words. In general, I'd agree with the consensus that this is a weak album lyrically; it's hard to think of too many worse. I think the album just comes across as somewhat listless.... there doesn't seem to be a clear cut direction or accomplishment that Rush is going for here... some of it sounds kind of phoned in. It came out a full three years after Counterparts and I remember in the interim period between the two that it seemed like it was taking them a long time to produce this album. Of course there have been larger gaps between albums since, but at the time they had never gone more than two years without a studio album. I wonder if they were simply short on material because there are many parts of this album that seem forced. There are some bright spots on it, though. It is also recorded and mixed well, considering what came later.

Hemi Prelude / Armageddon Cinderella Man Jacob's Ladder Lessons Bangkok (ESL style) Losing It Open Secrets

1. Hemispheres Prelude / Armageddon 2. Cinderella Man 3. Xanadu 4. Bangkok (with bass pedals and doublenecks) 5. Jacob's Ladder

Hemispheres Prelude would be fine as an instrumental. There's only like 8 lines in the whole thing anyway.... they aren't necessary. Hell, let the audience do it or something.

The Anarchist is a great song but I really, really don't need to hear it. I have, and it was with strings. These guys can play whatever they want to play; they have certainly earned that right. But I don't think their audience is going out for this tour so we can hear a bunch of Snakes & Arrows deep cuts. If they wanna market this as a nostalgia tour, then I wanna see obscure. And I mean real obscure, like 2112 second side obscure.

Early digital synths in general are pretty nasty. One of the worst developments IMO was when producers started replacing Fender Rhodes with Yamaha DX-7s. Thank you, David Foster. The worst single synth sound on a Rush record, IMO, is whatever Geddy uses to play "Subdivisions" on A Show of Hands. I don't know what that is but it's awful, and does great disrespect to the studio version, which contains some of the best sounding keyboards ever put to tape (Oberheim OB-X/Xas). Otherwise, some of the brass stabs on Power Windows are pretty naff. I don't really dig the PPG era. I'm really an Oberheim guy more than anything.

Lately I've started to wear one in my left ear, but not the right. I do this when I am playing drums, as well. Oddly enough, it seems to balance itself nicely this way. I usually take the pair anyway just in case I get fatigue, which in an indoor venue sometimes happens. The Pepsi Center sound was very, very harsh last time.