Breaktime is almost over! Rush will begin the western leg of the Snakes & Arrows tour tomorrow in Calgary - their first Canadian stop. They'll play 16 dates out West and then take another 9 day respite before hitting the Middle West. The first leg of the tour was a huge success and ticket sales continue to do well. The Mansfield show was a sellout and according to the July 14th issue of Billboard, Rush's June 23rd date at the Nissan Pavilion in Bristow was number 27 in terms of gross ticket sales for that week; attendance was 12,203 out of 22,661 seats and the gross ticket sales were $708,378 (thanks Julia C for the numbers).

Now to get some random Rush stuff out of the way before the tour gears up again.

Several folks emailed me to let me know that there was a Rush sighting on VH1's game show the World Series of Pop Culture last week. Contestants were read a section of the lyrics to a song and had to name the song title. One of the songs was Rush's Tom Sawyer and the contestant thankfully got it right.

Last month I'd mentioned the upcoming movie Fanboys (trailer here) and how several publicity photos of the cast from the film that were floating around the net showed the character Hutch (played by Dan Fogler) wearing a Rush t-shirt. The film, due out in January in the US, follows a group of Star Wars-loving geeks in 1998 who travel cross country so that their dying friend's dream of watching Star Wars: The Phantom Menace at Skywalker Ranch before its release can come true. Reader Alex from Glasgow was lucky enough to see the first showing of the film at Star Wars Celebration Europe. Apparently the film is chock full of Rush references. Several Rush songs are on the soundtrack including Working Man, Spirit of Radio and Tom Sawyer. One of the main characters (the aforementioned Hutch) spends most of the film in a Rush t-shirt and there is a superb scene where his buddies pile into his van, open the box of tapes to find something to listen to only to find that every tape is of Rush. In fact, he says words to the effect of only three rules in my van: rule number one - only Rush can be played. After the screening someone asked the director whether he had any problems getting permission to use the songs and he stated how easy it had been and how keen the Rush guys were to let their music be in the film.

Sully Erna - frontman for the metal band Godsmack - was involved in the 2007 World Series of Poker and was captured on film wearing a Rush t-shirt. Thanks to nposter for the heads up. Sully is a big Rush fan.

In a post at USA Today's Pop Candy blog last week, blogger Whitney Matheson posted photos of readers wearing their favorite concert t-shirts. Among the bunch was this priceless photo of one such reader wearing a very snug vintage Signals shirt. Her comment:

Michael M. cracked me up with this photo of his snug Rush T-shirt from their 1982-83 Signals New World Tour. "Amazingly, 25 years later -- and 60 pounds later -- it still fits like a glove!" he said.

Thanks to robertkincaid96 at Counterparts for the heads up.

In a recent issue of The Observer Music Monthly, British TV and radio presenter Adrian Chiles had his iPod collection doctored. The article states:

... Chuckling, Chiles searches for a Spektor track to play. 'God' he says grimacing at his computer screen ' look at all that crap I've amassed by fecking Rush. ...

Thanks to Ben at TNMS for the heads up.

In the August 2007 issue of RHYTHM Magazine, Megadeth drummer Shawn Dover describes Six Drummers You Should Hear Before You Die. It's no surprise that Neil Peart is on the top of this list. Here's what he said:

Neil would be my Number One choice just because of the influence he had on me. When I started playing, he was my guy. Rush was my band and he was my drummer. This was back in 1976 when All The World's A Stage first came out. I'm Canadian and everybody knows that if you listen to rock music, Rush is one of the bands you listen to. When I was younger I was trying to play along to him but I couldn't pull all of it off because I didn't have a 98-piece drumset!

Thanks to pdw 1 at TNMS for the tip.

And I'll close with this pic of the official 2112 garbage truck, courtesy mfratt from The Rush Forum.

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