UPDATE - 9/28@1:48PM: Go vote for Alex Lifeson (thanks Aaron G) in Guitar World's Greatest Guitarist of All Time poll!
Rush's Clockwork Angels tour now has 10 shows under its belt with 25 more to go before year's end. This past week they played St. Louis, Minneapolis and their first Canadian show of the tour in Winnipeg. They'll continue a short run of Canadian dates tonight when they play the Credit Union Centre in Saskatoon and Rexall Place in Edmonton on Sunday. They'll then take a much-deserved break for 10 days before heading back east to continue the tour. The band continued to settle into their alternating Night A and Night B setlists this past week. They made one more small tweak to the Night B set in St. Loius when they changed out the last song of the second set, playing the same second set closer from the Night A setlist. They then played this same set in Winnipeg on Wednesday, and are expected to play the same Night A set that was played in Minneapolis at tonight's show in Saskatoon. So for now at least it looks like things have stabilized with the setlists. This past week tickets for next summer's Sweden Rock Festival - which Rush is headlining - went on sale. Only 3 and 4 day passes were available though; 1 day passes for June 8th when Rush is performing won't go on sale until the late winter or early spring (thanks trevor m). One of the big questions regarding North American ticket sales for Rush's tour has centered around the VIP ticket packages which are now handled by VIP Nation. The packages guarantee a seat in the first 15 rows, but fans don't know their exact seat until the day of the show, which caused a lot of anxiety and uncertainty among many fans. The good news is that VIP Nation seems to actually be handing out seats on a first come, first serve basis as promised. So several fans who bought the VIP tickets the day they went on sale have reported ending up with great seats in the first few rows. The bad news with the VIP ticket packages is that none of the swag has been sent out yet. However, VIP Nation recently sent out emails indicating that the packages were ready and would be sent out very soon, so keep an eye on your mailbox. Reader BrianO let me know that Rush and the Clockwork Angels tour got a mention on the CBS Morning Show today for a story about the opening of the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The story included a short clip of the band playing live with a closeup of Geddy wearing his RASH t-shirt. For complete coverage of the Clockwork Angels tour be sure to visit the tour page.
The Clockwork Angels album has once again fallen out of the top 100 on the Billboard 200 album charts in its 15th week of release, dropping to #117 from its #99 showing last week. The latest single from the album - The Wreckers - continues to move up the Mainstream Rock Chart where it currently sits at #7, up 2 spots from last week.
The November, 2012 issue of Guitar Player magazine features Alex Lifeson on the cover with the tagline reading Alex Lifeson: Blending Old & New on Clockwork Angels. The article itself is titled Alex Lifeson: Like Clockwork and John over at Cygnus-X1.net transcribed and scanned the article earlier this week, making it available online at this location. Alex talks in detail about his guitar playing on the Clockwork Angels album as well as his gear, along with a few other subjects. Here are his comments on the differences between the band's approach on Clockwork Angels compared with Snakes & Arrows:
I think the approach was a lot simpler with Clockwork Angels. We really made an effort to write Snakes & Arrows acoustically and when it came to recording, I missed those acoustics. So, we blended them in and consequently there's a density to that record that in retrospect I would have preferred to have thinned out. When we started working on this record, right from the get-go the idea was to make it more three-piece in order to make it a clearer-sounding record. So, for the most part, I might have double-tracked guitars and only on a few songs did I layer them up. "BU2B" has 100 guitars overdubbed on it, just playing the same thing to make it super heavy, but generally it's pretty much double-tracked guitar left and right. It was really refreshing to approach it that way. That's the way we used to record: two tracks of guitar and no rhythm guitar in the solo sections. Consequently, it's made reproducing them live simpler in some ways and also more satisfying in the context of having just one guitar player.
There's also a minor setlist spoiler of sorts where Alex states that the band would continue playing one particular track from the last tour that they actually didn't end up playing this tour - at least not yet (note that the interview was conducted in the summer). There's a sidebar interview with producer Nick Raskulinecz too, and another short one with Alex's guitar tech Scott Appleton.
Neil Peart was recently profiled in an interview for Sabian's Obsessed series of drummer videos. Neil talks about all of his various obsessions in the 10-minute interview including drumming, writing and motorcycling - along with a drumming demonstration featuring Sabian cymbals. You can watch the video on YouTube at this location.
Kevin J. Anderson and Neil Peart's Clockwork Angels: The Novel debuted at #18 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best Sellers list last week, and has since dropped to #27. The book was officially released in the first week of September and has been generally well-received by Rush fans and book reviewers alike. You can order the audiobook version of Clockwork Angels (narrated by Neil Peart) at this location, and the hardcover edition here.
Back in June, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were guests on Q with Jian Gomeshi. The full interview has been available for listening online at this location since it first aired back on June 12th. Last weekend CBC Television aired the video of the interview and made it available for viewing online on YouTube earlier this week. Geddy and Alex talk about a number of subjects but most of the focus is on the Clockwork Angels album. You can watch the interview at this link. On a related note, Ghomeshi released his first book earlier in the month titled 1982. It's a collection of biographical stories from the year when Ghomeshi was 14 years old. Each chapter of the book is named after a rock song from 1982, and in Chapter 7 - named after Rush's Subdivisions - Ghomeshi describes the summer when he and his buddy Toke spent weeks stalking Rush outside their Thornhill studio. He even spoke with Alex and Geddy about the stakeout in the uncut version of their interview from a 2009 appearance on Q.
Sam Sniderman - founder of the iconic Toronto music store Sam the Record Man - died at the age of 92 this past weekend. Sniderman was instrumental in the promotion of the Canadian music industry, helping several Canadian acts such as The Guess Who, Joni Mitchell, Gordon Lightfoot and Rush get their careers off the ground. Here's what Geddy Lee had to say about Sam in a Winnipeg Press article from earlier in the week:
"Sam took great pride in being the best friend of Canadian musicians," Rush frontman Geddy Lee said in a statement Monday. "I remember the first time we were awarded a Canadian Gold Record; it was presented to us by Sam at a dinner arranged at Sam the Chinese Food Man restaurant," he said, a reference to one of Sniderman's other ventures. "Sam truly helped change the way Canadians view homegrown talent."
Sam began selling records out of his family's College Street radio store in 1937. After Sam's business began to thrive, his family changed the name of the store to Sam the Record Man in the 1950s, and in 1961 Sam moved the store to its iconic Yonge Street location with its huge flashing red neon record sign. The store and this sign are prominently featured in Rush's Subdivisions video. The store would eventually close its doors in 2007 due to sagging sales. In 1977 at the Juno Awards Geddy Lee first met Sam's son Jason - then Vice President of the Sam the Record Man chain - and developed a friendship with him. Jason provided additional keyboards on Rush's Presto album, later on Geddy's My Favorite Headache solo project, and most recently played piano on The Garden from Clockwork Angels. Here's a great video slideshow tribute to Sam the Record Man played appropriately to Rush's The Spirit of Radio.
Jammit! has added Headlong Flight from Clockwork Angels to the list of Rush tracks already available for the Jammit! app which includes Tom Sawyer, Subdivisions, Closer to the Heart, 2112, Limelight and YYZ. For more information and to listen to some demo tracks, visit the Rush page at the Jammit website. The Jammit app is available for both the iPhone and iPad, as well as for Mac and PC.
Earlier this week Ultimate Classic Rock posted their list of the Top Albums of 1982 (thanks Kelly M) and Rush's Signals made the cut at #5. Here's what they had to say:
Released in the fall of 1982, 'Signals' found Rush jumping into a more keyboard-driven sound. Though guitars are still at the core, there's more modern influences creeping in. Songs such as 'Subdivisions' and 'New World Man' quickly became Rush standards that the band still dish out thirty years on. Other tracks like 'Digital Man,''The Analog Kid,' and 'Countdown' pointed toward the sound they would sail with throughout the rest of the decade. The fans ate it up, pushing the album into the Billboard top ten.
VH1 Classic has been running a series of polls on their website over the past couple of weeks to determine their list of the 100 greatest hard rock songs of all time. Last week for day 6 of the poll Rush's Limelight was one of songs up for voting and is currently in the lead. And this week for day 10 of the poll Tom Sawyer is in the running but is a bit behind in 3rd place. To help it out go vote for Tom Sawyer at this location.
Last week Gibson.com posted their list of the Top 10 Alex Lifeson Guitar Moments (thanks bervisx1) and topping the list was La Villa Strangiato. Here's what they had to say about the song:
Epic. From the first few delicate notes of Lifeson's classical guitar, notes that quickly cascade into a frenetic and blistering pace - and that's in just the first 20 seconds - "La Villa Strangiato" is at times beautiful, other times haunting and sinister. However you define Rush, this is the penultimate Rush song. Operatic and dazzling, this is Lifeson's greatest and most dynamic guitar moment.
Reader and geologist Stewart C clued me into an interesting story regarding a recent discovery of gold in Kirkland Lake, ON and how the geologists named the various gold zones after Rush songs including Freewill, Limelight, YYZ and many others. The discovery is described in detail in the Michael Barnes book Gold in Kirkland Lake. Some of the gold zones are also described in these PDF news releases here and here.
Dave Siff at HLNTv.com posted an article/essay today titled Rush: Still together, still awesome where he talks about his personal Rush obsession and why the band is so awesome.
Rushisaband.com reached another milestone this week when it passed the 10,000 registered members mark. This means that in RIAB's 7-year history, over 10,000 Rush fans have taken the time to sign up on the site in order to leave a comment, take a poll, or upload a tour photo. Thanks everyone!
Volkswagen released a new commercial this past week for the 2012 Passat which features a man stopped at a traffic light in a Passat rocking out to Rush's Fly By Night. You can check it out below or on YouTube at this link:
That's all for this week. Next stop Saskatoon for the Rush tour machine. Have a great weekend!
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