A few nights ago I was late and in a RUSH to get to the show. I am not a Glynn Shannon type RUSH fan, but I definitely rocked hard in my early years to my Moving Pictures album. Since then the band and I have grown apart a little. I have been to two of their concerts - one in the late eighties when I had long hair and an earring, and one this week as a clean-cut working man. I was excited to hear they were playing their entire Moving Pictures soundtrack, and the fact that I had box seats didn’t hurt either.
We (my high school buddy and huge KISS fan and me) got to the show just before the intermission. We had missed a couple of good classics such as the Spirit of Radio and Free Will, but hadn’t missed any of what we were there for - Moving Pictures. After a dog and some fries, the 2nd half of the show was ready to begin. From the opening chord of Tom Sawyer I was immediately taken aback to why I loved Rush as a kid. Where Geddy Lee’s voice wasn’t all that it used to be, he still shredded the bass guitar and combined with Alex and Neil – they blew me away! Limelight was my favorite growing up and didn’t disappoint last night, as the others in our box probably thought I WAS Getty Lee when I started rocking the house.
I’m not sure I was a huge fan of the video display in the background, but soon realized that it was probably a lot cooler to all those that were taking advantage of southwest Washington’s liberal medicinal marijuana laws! I noticed there were several of them in attendance – maybe it was part of their assigned rehab? Or maybe it was just all of the Canadians touring with the band.
What I didn’t expect was how much they played to their strength and just jammed on stage – without vocals. It was killer to see three old dudes (very young at heart) up on the stage doing their thing. Neil Peart (how can you not like someone who’s middle name is Ellwood?) had a 10 minute drum solo in the middle that looked like he didn’t even break a sweat. By the time he finished, everyone in the place was on their feet – even the sales manager's wife who was playing soduko the whole time. Maybe it was the second hand buzz, maybe it was the 32 ounces of caffeinated root beer, or the fact that I didn’t have three young kids crawling on me - but I was buzzing – buzzing on some seriously awesome RUSH music. I AM a fan again and am excited for their next show!
