Rush is a Band

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

Fri, Mar 29, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, May 23, 2008@5:53PM | comments removed/disabled

The 2008 Snakes & Arrows Live tour is back in full swing and heading to the East. Rush played Moline on Tuesday and St. Paul last night. This weekend and through next week they'll be back in the Motherland to play dates in Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton and Vancouver. Attendance continues to be relatively low but I think that's more due to an overloaded summer concert circuit and a poor economy than anything else. Despite this, the feedback from fans and critics alike remains very positive. The only new official attendance figures that I have are for the Los Angeles shows at the Nokia (thanks Mark S). Billboard Boxscore for some reason lumped the attendance and sales figures together for these 2 shows since they were back to back. They have the attendance listed as 9,861 out of a capacity of 12,616 with gross sales totaling $1,185,575. That averages out to around 4,930 per night although the first night was close to sold out. That second night must have been very intimate indeed. One other tour-related note; apparently Neil's riding buddy and head of Rush security Michael Mosbach took a spill on his bike back before the Oklahoma City show and sprained his wrist (he's fine now). So Chris Stankee of Sabian Cymbals filled in as Neil's riding partner and - for the last couple of shows - also helped out as Neil's drum tech because Lorne Wheaton had an emergency appendectomy! Quite a lot of drama. You can read some more details at this Counterparts thread and at the This Gig Sucks Blog.

Late last Friday Geddy and Alex released an official statement via Rush.com regarding John Rutsey's death. You can check it out here. Since then, several news sites on the net have picked up the story. When Rush returned to the tour Tuesday they did not pay any kind of tribute to John or acknowledge his death in anyway. I am told that Geddy and Alex did both attend the funeral though. Reader Vince R also let me know that DJ Eddie Trunk paid tribute to John on his radio show this past Monday and played a couple of songs off of Rush's debut album in his honor.

Earlier this week I told you about a Star Tribune article from last week where Alex Lifeson was interviewed and essentially confirmed that there would be no further setlist changes on the tour. He also remarked on a possible Rolling Stone feature story on Rush. If you haven't checked out the interview yet, you can read it here.

Speaking of Rolling Stone, reader shakeitmadam let me know that in the latest issue (#1053) there's an interview with Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard titled The indie rocker on Obama, Rush, and smashing guitars. In one question the interviewer asks:

Your first single, 'I Will Possess Your Heart,' is over eight minutes long. Do you have any favorite long rock songs? Maybe you love Rush's 'By-Tor and the Snow Dog'?

... and Gibbard replies ...

A friend suggested I listen to the Rush album 'Grace Under Pressure.' He said, 'They do some of the same things you guys do.' I was into the idea that there may be some kind of aesthetic connection between Death Cab and Rush. But when I heard the album, I was like, 'Is my friend high?'.

Heh heh.

Spindrifter pointed me to a new article at AZCentral.com that features a short Alex Lifeson interview. It's titled 30 years later, Rush broadens fan base and you can check it out here.

Wednesday I let you know that Thiago Sarkis of Brazilian heavy metal mag Roadie Crew recently organized a poll in which 330 prominent guitarists were asked about their favorite guitarists of all time. The results were published in the May 2008 issue (#112) and Alex Lifeson came in at #34. You can see the complete list and all of the participants at Blabbermouth.net.

Reader Scott_PA let me know that the May/June issue of Drumhead Magazine contains a cover story and interview with drummer Stewart Copeland (The Police). There's a little sidebar article that Stewart himself penned and in it there's a humorous mention of Neil Peart:

WHAT A RUSH

"There are two indignities of being me that I have put up with on an almost daily basis. I'll just tell you about them and you can tell your readers about them so that they don't think that I just live in this perfect, unblemished world.

One is, "Hey, aren't you that guy that used to work for Sting?

The other is, "you're my 2nd favorite drummer, next to Neil Peart" Who, just to make life a real bitch, is a capital fellow. He's a wonderful man. I mean, I do have a hit squad looking for him, but I hired these assassins with love in my heart for this wonderful man. Since meeting Neil, and discovering what a great guy he is, I've intended to iTunes one of their albums. Goddamnit, I've been intending to do that for years; just haven't gotten around to it."

Rush will be included on yet another classic rock compilation album due out June 3rd. It's titled Now That's What I Call Classic Rock and will feature 20 tracks from artists such as The Who, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Queen, Foreigner, Cheap Trick, The Steve Miller Band and of course Rush. Rush's contribution will be The Spirit of Radio. A VH1 Classic special promoting the album's release will premiere May 31st at 8PM EST. Thanks to malterb for the heads up.

Reader Nettie reminded me of the ongoing Meet and Greet contests that the Rush Backstage Club is running. If you haven't entered yet, you can do so at this link.

Actor Josh Holloway of the hit ABC series Lost was recently on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. He plays the character Sawyer and when he came out on stage they played ... Tom Sawyer of course. You can see the video here. Thanks to Drodham for the heads up.

For those of you with a website, blog, etc. I found this cool Rush tour widget that you can stick on your site. It shows all the tour dates and venues including an interactive Google Map. Pretty cool.

Have a happy and safe holiday weekend everyone!

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