Jomboni

Neil can groove when Rush songs call for it, they just don't call for it very often.

tempos on all the synth songs on the CA tour were pretty much on point with teh albums, i think

I may try and hit up the Tom & Jerry's show in January!

They announced the tour in January and it ended August 1st. Not abrupt. Most people give 2 weeks notice when they retire!

Maybe Neil doesn't feel he owes the fans an explanation, any more than an insurance guy owes his clients an explanation when he turns 63 and decides it's time to go. Is an insurance guy in the limelight? who cares? why is Neil more obligated to give everybody a definitive answer on his retirement just because he's more visible?

I'm not really huge on bootlegs but this is definitely my favorite! I have the Desert Passage version. Are there any that sound better? This one could amost pass for an official release.

I'll just go with the ones I saw, which is Vapor Trails on. Here they are, from worst to first! Time Machine: It wasn't as horrible as edhunter said, but the first set was pretty weak, and the whole show did seem pretty "phoned in" from a band that in my eyes doesn't normally do that. Geddy was sounding pretty rough on this tour. One thing that always struck me as odd was, shortly after they started playing on opening night, they put the official setlist up on their website. I don't think they've done that before or since. It was almost like they were saying "Yep, this is the set, get used to it guys" Snakes & Arrows The setlist is better than Time Machine, even with me not being a fan of S&A the album. They dug out a lot of rarely or never played songs. Entre Nous, Digital Man, Bangkok, Circumstances. But the tempos on a lot of the songs drrrrrrrrragged, and this was the first tour where I could really hear Geddy struggle on some of the songs. R30 This and the Vapor Trails tour had fairly similar setlists and the performances were pretty strong across the board. I go back and forth but ultimately I think I give VT a slight edge. Anyway, R30 was still a great show - my only complaints being the cover songs, and no setlist changes. MAYBE they could have snuck in a few more "deep cuts" but overall a good selection. Vapor Trails This is the first time I saw them, after getting into them during a period where I wasn't even sure if I would ever even get the chance to see them. So I obviously have some sentimental attachment to this tour. But still a great tour! I like Vapor Trails so I won't even complain about the new songs. Just like R30 everybody played great, Geddy was in fine form, etc. This was definitely the closest thing to a "greatest hits" set they've done (even moreso than R30), but all the hits were great, and for somebody like me who had never seen them before, it was all new to me, you know? You can't get tired of them playing Tom Sawyer when it's your first time seeing them play it :) Clockwork Angels Tour In my opinion, the album is Rush's late-era masterpiece, and I was fully expecting them to play the entire album as one of the 2 sets on this tour. They obviously didn't play the whole thing, but 9 of 12 songs is close enough. The string section sounded great on the CA songs and gave a new twist on a few older songs. The first set was a huge treat for me to, with them basically pulling out every synth-era song that I still wanted to see live. R40 On the CA tour they brought out all the old '80s songs I'd never seen live, R40 brought the rest. By far the single best concert I've been to. The amount of time and energy they had to spend to re-learn these old songs as opposed to doing another R30 type of set is astounding, and it showed in their performances. This was 100% a tour for the die-hard fans. I think the general opinion on this board is that this tour was amazing and the only thing I have to add is that I loved both sets (but the 2nd was obviously better!) My only cricitism is that I would have gotten tickets to more shows if I would have known it was going to be this good.

Apparently it is airing on November 25th at 6 PM, with several repeats afterwards! http://www.rushisaband.com/blog/2015/11/08/4522/Sirius-XM-town-hall-interview-with-Rush-this-Friday-in-New-York-City

Exactly, this should erase any doubts in most people's minds.

Weird, Ole bought the publishing rights over a year ago: http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/publishing/6099385/ole-acquires-rush-catalog And then just decided to buy the whole label outright?

The broken-ness is part of what makes it work.

Yep, I'm listening to it now. Tom Sawyer just started!

They must have SiriusXM, they are playing it live now!

I do prefer the raw sound of the original mix, but have the remix on my phone so my car stereo doesn't sound like it's on fire.

I'm listening to the replay right now. After hearing a bunch more of it the production is definitely the best on a live album of theirs in a long time. Very similar to Different Stages' mix. And lots of low end :) It's loud (in a good way, not a Vapor Trails way!) Really looking forward to hearing more of the second set in 45 minutes or so. It sounds great in my car and still sounds surprisingly good on my crummy speaker at work, which has almost no bass presence at all: http://cdn.blessthisstuff.com/imagens/stuff/x-mini-2-capsule-speaker-3.jpg I can still hear everything Geddy's doing! This is great!

I wasn't able to listen to the whole thing last night, but I'm going to listen to the replay at noon. I did catch RTB - Losing it & YYZ-Natural Science in my car last night! It sounds great! All 3 of them have their own space in the mix. The bass is really loud and growly and awesome, you can actually hear everything Neil does, and Alex's tone is great. The crowd is not overwhelming but definitely audible. Ben fits in the mix nicely on Losing It - and Geddy is doing some really cool stuff in the solo that he either made up for the live version, or I was never able to pick up on the studio version. Geddy's voice is what it is. I'm not going to lie and say he sounds amazing but probably the best since the S&A dvd. R30 is the last time he really sounded on point for most/all of the show. He sounded better on Between the Wheels than the S&A version. TSOR is the only one he noticably struggled on, for the rest of what I heard he seemed to be pretty comfortable in a lower register.

11/9 at 9 pm ETon Classic Rewind 11/10 at 12 pm ET on Classic Rewind 11/12 at 1 am ET on Classic Rewind 11/14 at 3 pm ET on Classic Rewind 11/16 at 4 pm ET on Deep Tracks 11/18 at 12 am ET on Deep Tracks 11/20 at 3 am ET on Deep Tracks 11/21 at 10 am ET on Deep Tracks 11/23 at 6 am ET on Ozzy’s Boneyard 11/25 at 3 am ET on Ozzy’s Boneyard 11/26 at 7 pm ET on Ozzy’s Boneyard 11/28 at 12 am ET on Ozzy’s Boneyard 11/30 at 6 pm ET on SiriusXM Comes Alive 12/2 at 12 am ET on SiriusXM Comes Alive 12/4 at 3 pm ET on SiriusXM Comes Alive 12/6 at 6 pm ET on SiriusXM Comes Alive

It is 6 PM EST tonight, not 3!

Any recordings of that I could listen to? I don't remember it sounding bad when I saw them play it, but that was a long time ago at this point.

And then in the car on the ride home!!!!

Yay, I just bought a new car that came with 3 months of Sirius free so I can actaully listen to this at work on their phone app!

I do have to say it's kind of impressive that people are taking the time to press bootlegs on vinyl nowadays. The St. Louis 1980 bootleg is great and for a split second I consirdered getting this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/RUSH-Live-In-St-Louis-1980-2x-LP-NEW-VINYL-Dol-180g-Permanent-Waves/191722718505?_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982&_trkparms=aid%3D777000%26algo%3DABA.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D33863%26meid%3D975d912024d4407781c7429e76986961%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D291608237731

Ohh yeah. I figured that might be what you meant. The whole song is pretty dang hard but that's probably one of the easier parts.

I don't know what part you're talking about!

The solo is a little tricky but overall it's not hard. Most of the stuff on Grace is not very hard.