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, Aug 20, 2010@11:04AM | comments removed/disabled

UPDATE - 8/20@8:01PM: Here's a late addition to the updates straight from NASA. NASA's Space Rock contest is asking folks to vote for their favorite wakeup songs to be played on the upcoming STS-133 Space Shuttle mission. One of the songs being considered is Rush's Countdown. You can vote for Rush at this link. Thanks to durga2112 for the heads up.

After tonight's show in Wichita Rush's Time Machine Tour will have reached the halfway point with 22 shows behind it and 22 more ahead. They'll then head back East to play shows in St. Louis, Chicago, Omaha and St. Paul next week. This past week Rush played Irvine, Vegas and 2 shows at Red Rocks. There had been several rumors flying around that one or both of the Red Rocks shows would be filmed for a live DVD, but that turned out to not be the case. From the latest rumors I've been hearing over the past several weeks, the show at Nationwide Arena in Columbus will be the one that gets filmed. It's unlikely that they'll officially announce anything regarding this in advance so we'll have to just wait and see.

Several prominent rockstar Rush fans were spotted at the show in Irvine including Tom Dumont of No Doubt, Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters and Tool drummer Danny Carey. Carey hung out with Neil at soundcheck and posted a photo of himself and Neil with the Time Machine Tour kit to the News Page on his website.

On Tuesday Rush.com finally made an official announcement regarding the October 17th date in Santiago, Chile. Tickets had already starting going on sale this past Sunday and according to several reports are selling like hotcakes; apparently over 10,000 tickets were sold on the first day! Here is a commercial from Chilean TV promoting the event. So unless Rush adds any more dates, the Santiago date will be the final show on the Time Machine Tour.

Rush lighting director Howard Ungerleider was kind enough to give Paul of The Canadian Music Scene the opportunity before the Las Vegas show to sit with him and watch him run through all of the different lighting combinations that are used throughout the show. You can read about his experience at this link and check out a bunch of great photos here.

On the band's day off between the Red Rocks shows last week reader Todd V reported sighting Alex and Geddy in downtown Boulder, CO and was able to snap this photo. The two were having dinner at Frasca with Alex's son and two other guests and graciously took some time out to talk briefly with a few fans. Apparently they were drinking a 1974 vintage wine in celebration of the anniversary of their first US show with Neil Peart - the August 14th show at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh opening for Uriah Heap.

It seems that bicyclist and Rush fan Lance Armstrong recently watched the Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage and was so impressed that he had considered flying out to the 1st Red Rocks show according to a tweet he posted early Monday (thanks David):

Just watched the RUSH doc "Beyond the Lighted Stage". Loved it. May have to head down to Red Rocks tomorrow night and check em out.
12:33 AM Aug 16th

It doesn't look like he ever made it though. The DVD/Blu-ray continues to get good reviews including this one from Glide magazine and this one from LAist.com.

Speaking of the Rush documentary, Just like they did 2 years ago VH1 Classic will be airing a special in celebration of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah on Wednesday, September 8th called Rush Hashanah where nothing but Rush programming will air for 24 hours straight. Programs will include the Rush documentary, the premiere of the 2112/Moving Pictures Classic Albums special, Rush in Rio, and the That Metal Show episode with Alex and Geddy. In addition to getting its TV premiere during Rush Hashanah, the Rush 2112/Moving Pictures Classic Albums documentary will be released to video on September 28th and is now available for pre-order on both DVD and Blu-ray. They also are making a special DVD/Blu-ray combo version of the special available which also includes 2 CDs (4 discs total) that I assume are copies of the 2 albums. You can pre-order it at Amazon for $27.99. You can check out a short minute-and-a-half preview video at this link.

The 2011 Rush wall calendar was recently released by NMR Distribution and is now available to purchase at this link. The calendar celebrates the 30th anniversary of Rush's 1981 classic Moving Pictures album and feature several photos from that era. You can view a preview by clicking on the thumbnail above.

MusicInTheAbstract - owner and operator of the MitA's Rush Oddities site - recently posted several new Rush audio oddities/rarities to his website. You can check them all out in this post.

Alex Lifeson is featured on page 26 of the September issue of Premier Guitar magazine. A full-page photo of Alex is pictured in the Opening Notes section with the following caption:

Rush's Alex Lifeson wails with Al, his Floyd Rose-equipped Les Paul prototype, during Rogers Bayfest in Ontario. When putting the guitar together, the Gibson Custom Shop assisted Lifeson in experimenting with a number of trems. He says he eventually settled on a floating Floyd due to its responsiveness and natural feel.

Thanks to Power Windows for the heads up.

Geddy Lee was featured at TMZ.com yesterday as part of their 'Memba Them series where they show past and present photographs of famous people. They first show one of the Rush glam photos from the mid 70s and invite the reader to click through to see a recent photo of Geddy from Wednesday's Red Rocks show. Thanks to Craig C for the heads up.

This past March a Rush compilation titled Time Stand Still: The Collection was released in Europe. It contains 13 tracks from Rush's 1974-1987 Mercury era. The artwork that comes with the album features several rare and interesting band photos from the 1970s. Eric at Power Windows with some help from John at Cygnus-X1.net recently posted the photos to his wallpaper gallery at this link.

Consequence of Sound featured an article earlier this week where they attempt to list the 10 best songs over 10 minutes long. Rush's Cygnus X-1 duology made the cut and here's what they had to say:

In multiple circles, Rush fans dub "2112" the band's magnum opus. Here, today, I say unto you: read the storyline for these two pieces from Cygnus X-1 (courtesy of Wikipedia), both of which run over 10+ minutes each, and tell me that is not a bad-ass science fiction short story waiting to happen. While "2112" is a significant work in the Rush catalog on even concept alone, the Cygnus Duology, linked between Fly By Night and Hemispheres, is a definitive pair of pieces in terms of scale, style, and depth of subject matter. Thank you to Neil Peart for bringing that kind of fantasy mentality to Rush, otherwise we would still be sitting on the Canadian Zeppelin sound of Rush '74 (though "Working Man" still kicks ass).

Speaking of Cygnus X-1, reader chutch15 noticed that in last night's episode of Futurama (season 6, episode 10 - The Prisoner of Benda) the opening credits featured the subtitle What Happens in Cygnus X-1 Stays in Cygnus X-1. This is probably just a reference to the black hole Cygnus X-1 but you never know. Futurama has featured a couple of notable Rush references in the past including this classic reference in the episode Anthology of Interest II.

Neil Peart's former Slingerland drum kit - also known as Chromey - will be making a special appearance at Woodstock Harley Davidson in Woodstock, IL on September 5th to help raise money for Caden Mitchell, who has the rare genetic disorder Hunter Syndrome. You can check out this poster advertising the event for all the details and donate online at this link. Thanks to Andrew Olson for the heads up.

Reader random_sample recently sent me a couple of old Rush articles from Network - a now-defunct Canadian entertainment magazine that was distributed at Sam the Record Man stores. The first one is from the January/February, 1989 issue from just before A Show of Hands was released. It features interview segments from both Geddy Lee and Neil Peart. You can check out the scans be clicking the thumbnails.

The second article is from the November, 1993 issue of Network and also features interview segments with Geddy Lee and Neil Peart. The two discuss the making of the Counterparts album. You can check out the scans be clicking the thumbnails.

Rockabye Baby Music is an online record label that specializes in transforming songs from rock and pop acts into lullabies. They are currently running a poll on their website to help determine the next artist they should feature and Rush is one of the options. You can vote for Rush at this link. Thanks to RushFanForever for the heads up.

Here's a very cool time-lapse video of Wednesday night's concert at Red Rocks condensed down to one minute using still images from the Red Rocks webcam (thanks Nathan):

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

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