Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Tue, Mar 19, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, May 7, 2010@11:50AM | comments removed/disabled

Things are finally beginning to quiet down a little in Rush-land, although things will quickly be ramping up once again later this month and into June leading up to the tour. The final round of pre-sales ended this week and general ticket sales for Tulsa and San Antonio will go on sale tomorrow at 10AM. The Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage continued to receive accolades this past week including the coveted Tribeca Film Festival Heineken Audience Award. It's also in the running for the Hot Docs Audience Award. A list of US cities that will be showing the documentary on Thursday, June 10th was released earlier this week, and the specific theaters and showtimes for a few of these cities have been popping up online ever since. They've also added 17 more cities since my original post. As of this post we know the film will be showing at both the Cedar Lee and the Capitol Theater in Cleveland, OH; the Rave Motion Pictures Colonel Glenn 18 in Little Rock, AR; the Riverview Theatre in Minneapolis, MN; and the Circle Cinema in Tulsa, OK. You can check out all the coverage of the Tribeca premiere including photos, videos, reviews, interviews and news articles in this post; for Canadian premiere coverage at Hot Docs see this post. And to listen to Geddy and Alex discuss the documentary on the radio interview circuit, see this post. The official trailer for the film can be seen at this link along with these 2 preview clips. The documentary will get its television premiere on VH1 and VH1 Classic on June 26th. The DVD and Blu-ray will contain about an hour of bonus footage. They are slated for release on June 29th and both are now available for pre-order (DVD, Blu-ray).

The second part of Alex Lifeson's Gibson interview was posted online yesterday. You can read part 1 at this link and part 2 here. The interview was conducted at the Gibson Custom Shop in Nashville and Alex revealed several details regarding the 2 new songs they just recorded including the Nashville studio they used. He also had this to say regarding their new material:

... it's in-your-face guitar stuff. It's awesome, great. In fact, I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out. Everybody's playing really well. There's great energy and there's great rhythmic funk-ability going on there and some really cool stuff and I am really, really pleased with it ...

Speaking of Lerxst, Power Windows recently reported that Alex may be making a switch to Bogner amplifiers for the upcoming tour. A translation of this site says that two Bogner amps have been sent to Alex Lifeson to take on the road this summer. Alex has been using Hughes & Kettner amps for the past few years.

Rush roadie/technician Jack Secret (aka Tony Geranios) sent out a MySpace bulletin last Friday stating that rehearsals for the tour start in the 2nd week of May - which means next week! Thanks to Joeykun for the heads up.

Former Rush roadie Skip Gildersleeve sent me these scans of a program from a Rush gig at Hamilton Place Great Hall in Hamilton, ON on February 9, 1976. This is the earliest known show on the 2112 tour. Very cool.

While on the subject of Rush roadies, Backstage Secrets is a 5-part documentary from WhistleStop Productions which aired on HD TV in Canada back in 2008. The documentary follows various members of the Rush road crew during a typical day out on the road with the band. It was shot in High Definition and Dolby 5.1 surround audio during the Canadian leg of the 2007 Snakes and Arrows tour. A 2-disc DVD set of the series distributed by Longtail was made available for purchase last year. As I'd mentioned on Wednesday, Longtail just recently replicated the series onto better quality DVD-5 media and will no longer be selling the series on the original DVD-R media. For those of you who have already purchased a copy on the old format and would like one of the DVD-5 copies, Longtail is offering a deal where you can get the DVD-5 version for $6 plus shipping. For all the details check out this link at the Longtail website.

I reported earlier this week that on April 20th the RIAA quietly certified the Snakes & Arrows Live video Gold, Platinum and Double Platinum. Snakes & Arrows Live was released back on November 24th, 2008 and was Rush's first to be released on Blu-ray as well as standard DVD. 2 of the discs in the 3-disc set were recorded at Ahoy' Rotterdam in Rotterdam, Netherlands on October 16th and 17th during the European leg of the 2007 Snakes & Arrows tour. The 3rd disc contained 4 additional tracks recorded at Encore Park in Atlanta, Georgia on July 24th, 2008. For videos, 50,000 units = Gold and 100,000 units = Platinum. Each disc in a package counts as 1 unit - so that's 3 units per package for Snakes & Arrows Live which actually sold 76,013 according to the most recent information. The video was nominated for a Music DVD of the Year Juno earlier this year but ironically ended up losing to Rush documentary filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scott McFadyen for their Iron Maiden: Flight 666 DVD.

Speaking of live Rush dvds, reader RushonBlu-Ray reports that a DJ for 102.5 The Bone in Tampa announced on the air that Rush would be filming the Tampa show for their next live DVD. Whether this is true or not I haven't been able to verify. It's probably safe to say that they will be filming somewhere though - since that's been their modus operandi on recent tours. Whether it's Tampa or somewhere else remains to be seen.

Although it hasn't been officially announced yet, singer/songwriter Jacob Moon will be performing at RushCon in Toronto on July 16th according to this recent post on his Facebook page:

'Drawn like moths we drift into the city...' I'll be playing at the Rush Convention this year in Toronto on July 16th. Tuesday at 11:45am

Jacob was one of the performers who helped induct Rush into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame back in March with his rendition of Subdivisions. Thanks to Rob S for the heads up.

Bubba's Bar -n- Grill manager - the infamous Brutus - has opened up a beta-test version of the Bubba's Bar -n- Grill forum at NeilPeart.net. It's a place to share your favorite recipes, cooking techniques, restaurants and to listen to Brutus rant. You can check it out at this link. Thanks to Nettie for the heads up.

A few weeks ago I let you know about a new Rush tribute album from Magna Carta Records due out May 18th titled New World Man: A Tribute to Rush. It includes tracks taken from 1996's Working Man and 2005's Subdivisions, the Alex Skolnick Trio's jazz interpretation of Tom Sawyer previously released on Last Day In Paradise, and 4 new tracks. 3 of the 4 new tracks - New World Man, Fly By Night and Force Ten - were recorded by members of Coheed And Cambria, The Dillinger Escape Plan (Chris Pennie), KORN (Shane Gibson) and The Mars Volta (Juan Alderete). The 4th new track is a cover of Tom Sawyer by I Omega. Thanks to Power Windows for the heads up.

Rush gets a negative mention in an article by writer Joe Daly of The Nervous Breakdown titled Five Bands I Should Like But Don't. At All. Here's what he says:

I just don't get these guys at all. More than any artist on this list, Rush does nothing for me. It might have something to do with Geddy Lee's voice and his semi-intelligible lyrics. I understand that these guys are to prog-rock what Sabbath is to metal. But that and a token will get me on the subway.

Neil Peart is pretty amazing. I love seeing his solos on YouTube, with his four thousand piece drum set. I've also read quite a bit about Rush and how they came to record the music that has made them legends. Rush is one of those bands that the hardcore music snobs that I know seem to universally embrace. In fact, some of these people would give me a harder time about not liking Rush than not liking the Beatles. But nothing about Rush inspires me. Maybe it's the profligate use of laser-like sound effects (like rocking out to a video game), or maybe it's simply the whole Canadian thing. I just don't get it.

Instead I like: Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Dead Confederate

I've seen worse. Thanks to Patrick Madden for the link.

Reader, Rush fan, and composer/performer Ben Sommer has a music discovery podcast and blog called Bands Like Rush where bands that have some kind of connection or similarity to Rush are interviewed. In his latest installment Ben talks to another Ben - Ben Averch. Ben Averch is a one-man progressive rock band from Seattle, WA and also happens to be an avid RIAB reader. Ben speaks at length about his music, Rush, and Rush's influence on his music and his life. It's a great interview and Ben's music is definitely worth a listen for any Rush fan. To find out more about Ben Averch and to listen/purchase some of his tunes, check out his website at this link. You can read the entire interview or listen to the podcast at this link.

Last Wednesday evening (April 28th) at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill in New York City former Anthrax singer Joey Belladonna got up on stage and performed a cover version of Rush's Tom Sawyer with Brooklyn-based trio ZO2 who was opening for Fozzy. Here's a YouTube video of the performance (thanks Blabbermouth.net):

That's all for this week. Have a great weekend!

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