RUSH IS A BAND

Friday, January 18, 2008

Rush 2008 tour date questions and answers

UPDATE - 1/18@3:56PM: The Quebec City 400th anniversary concert will not occur in July as I'd originally thought. It will take place on the Plains of Abraham on August 22nd. Celine Dion (yippee) will headline. Currently from what I know Rush is still penciled in to appear along with Bryan Adams, Sum 41, The Tragically Hip, Nickelback and others. So if the South American dates occur in early August it looks like Rush would then head back to Canada to close out the tour in style in front of their largest crowd ever. Cool.

I've been inundated with questions about the tour over the last several hours. So I decided rather than try to respond to everyone individually, I'd put up one post where I'll attempt to address everyone's questions/concerns as best I can with the information I know. First I'll re-post the tour date list just to keep it above the fold and have it available for reference.

APRIL 2008

11: San Juan, PR - Coliseo de Puerto Rico
13: Ft Lauderdale, FL - Bank Atlantic Center
15: Orlando, FL - Amway Center
17: Jacksonville, FL - Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena
19: New Orleans, LA - Arena
20: Houston, TX - Woodlands Pavilion
23: Austin, TX - Frank Erwin Center
25: Dallas, TX - The Music Center at Fair Park
26: Oklahoma City, OK - Ford Center
29: Albuquerque, NM - Journal Pavilion

May 2008

1: Phoenix, AZ - Cricket Pavilion
3: Reno, NV - Reno Events Center
4: Concord, CA - Sleep Train Pavilion
6: Los Angeles, CA - Nokia Theatre
10: Las Vegas, NV - Mandalay Bay Events Center
11: Irvine, CA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
20: Moline, IL - iWireless Center
22: St Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
24: Winnipeg, MB - MTS Center
25: Regina, SK - Brandt Center
27: Edmonton AB - Rexall Place
29: Vancouver, BC - GM Place
31: Seattle, WA - The Gorge Amphitheatre

JUNE 2008

1: Portland, OR - Clark County Amphitheatre
3: Boise, ID - Idaho Center
5: Denver, CO - Red Rocks
7: Kansas City, MO - Starlight Theatre
9: Chicago, IL - United Center
10: Detroit, MI - Joe Louis Arena
12: Montreal, QC - Bell Center
14: Philadelphia, PA - Wachovia Center
15: Boston, MA - Tweeter Center
25: Indianapolis, IN - Verizon Amphitheatre
27: Milwaukee, WI - Summerfest
28: St Louis, MO - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
30: Cincinnati, OH - Riverbend Music Center

JULY 2008

2: Pittsburgh, PA - Post Gazette Amphitheatre
4: Atlantic City, NJ - Marc Etess Arena
5: Saratoga, NY - SPAC
7: Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun
9: Toronto, ON - The Molson Amphitheatre
11: Manchester, NH - Verizon Arena
12: Holmdel, NJ - PNC Bank Arts Center
14: Wantagh, NY - Jones Beach
17: Hershey, PA - Hershey Stadium
19: Washington, DC - Nissan Pavilion
20: Charlotte, NC - Amphitheatre
22: Atlanta, GA - Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at Encore Park

1) How does the fan pre-sale work? How do I sign up?

First off, there is NO OFFICIAL RUSH FAN CLUB. :) Rush thankfully does not charge outrageous fees to their fans for the privilege of access to their pre-sale. However, you do need to sign up for the pre-sale through Music Today. That's step one. You simply go to the Music Today Rush pre-sale site and enter in your email address. Then you'll be on their email list and have access to their systems. The first round of pre-sales will occur next week from Tuesday, January 22nd to Thursday, January 24th for the following shows: New Orleans, Phoenix, Reno, Las Vegas, Red Rocks and Detroit. Fan pre-sales for subsequent shows will happen the Tuesday-Thursday the week prior to the regular tickets going on sale. I'll have a lot more details regarding the fan pre-sale in the coming days, don't worry. In the meantime, you can check out some of the posts from last March to see how the pre-sale worked on the last leg. Just go to the March 2007 site archive and check out all the posts towards the end of the month (the official tour date announcement in 2007 was on March 26th).

In addition to the fan pre-sales, there are various AMEX, Ticketmaster and radio-station-sponsored pre-sales that will take place on a per-show basis. Check Ticketmaster, AMEX or your local radio station for details on these. I'll also try to provide details or at least a heads up as these pre-sales start.

2) What happened to South America?

From what I'm hearing South America is still on. Be comforted by the fact that the band doesn't even mention it at all in their press release. No news is good news. Right now they are still attempting to work out the logistics. The original plan was to move from Puerto Rico to South America and then Mexico. This plan got completely turned on its head in recent weeks. I'm not clear on the specific issues involved in why the South American dates had to be shifted out to August, but that's what happened. So right now they are trying to confirm dates/venues and if/when they do, I'm sure they'll let us know.

3) What happened to the Mexico dates?

Those are still on too, but will now be part of the South American route. The plan is to go through Mexico on down to South America.

4) What happened to Atlantic Canada?

I know that no answer will satiate you Atlantic Canadians - and I don't blame you. But I'll give it a shot anyways. Once again, the abrupt change in plans mentioned above in 2) caused the band to completely rethink their routing. The short answer is that Atlantic Canada just did not work out with the modified schedule. Once it was apparent the South American dates would not happen in May, they had to scramble to shore up the Eastern US venues before other artists/events did. The Maine show was knocked out, then Rhode Island and from that point it just came down to logistics and cost of travel in between shows; Atlantic Canada just didn't fit in unfortunately. They instead found that a Montreal show would fit in, and went for that instead.

5) What about the Quebec City 400th anniversary show?

UPDATE - 1/18@3:56PM: The Quebec City 400th anniversary concert will not occur in July as I'd originally thought. It will take place on the Plains of Abraham on August 22nd. Celine Dion (yippee) will headline. Currently from what I know Rush is still penciled in to appear along with Bryan Adams, Sum 41, The Tragically Hip, Nickelback and others. So if the South American dates occur in early August it looks like Rush would then head back to Canada to close out the tour in style in front of their largest crowd ever. Cool.

I'd first mentioned a while back that the band may play at the 400th anniversary of Quebec City celebration this July. They are still trying to finalize plans for this. This is partly the reason you don't see a Quebec City gig on the tour itinerary. This may still happen if they can fit it in.

6) What about the potential second show in Puerto Rico?

The band had originally left the option open for a second show after the first in Puerto Rico assuming it sold well. That second show morphed into the late addition of the Ft. Lauderdale show. However, they have left open the possibility of adding the second show on the day before - April 10th.

7) What about the potential second show at the Nokia Theatre in LA?

They still plan on adding this. That's why there are 4 open days after the May 6th show there.

8) When will you update your tour section with the 2008 dates?

Soon. :)

Hopefully this will allay some of the concerns many of you had. More to come.