Rush opened up their stint in the Big Apple this past week with a pair of epic shows at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Fans for nights 1 and 2 in LA, Fort Worth and Chicago were treated to the same pair of setlists in each city (Setlist A and Setlist B respectively) and they did the same for New York City... almost. They changed things up slightly by swapping Caravan and Headlong Flight between the 2 nights, giving us new A-2 and B-2 setlists. We'll see if they do something similar with the C and D setlists over the last 2 shows. Speaking of which, RushCon will be hosting a Madison Square Garden pre-show party for tomorrow's show at The Rutherford a 3PM, and it's SOLD OUT (but there is a waitlist).

Rush also treated NYC fans with first dibs on a new limited-edition liquid vinyl version of 2112, which was sold exclusively at NYC's UMusic shop over the past few days. From the press release:

... The anniversary pressing takes visual cues from Hugh Syme's original 2112 artwork and features a die-cut opening in the front cover designed to display the liquid-filled record. Fans visiting the store will receive first access to the release alongside a selection of other Rush titles. UMusic Shop NY is located at 2 Pennsylvania Plaza and is open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. ...

After their NYC run ends this coming Monday, the band will take a relatively short 4-day break before heading back home to YYZ for their final 4-night stint, starting next Friday evening at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena, where several competing Rush fan events will be taking place. The first of these is RushFest Canada, which takes place this coming Thursday before the band's first show on August 7th at The El Macambo with host Cathy Rankin and featuring special guests Terry Brown, Hugh Syme, Nancy and Judy Peart, and Bob "Starman" King. Next up is the big event - the return of RushCon - which will kick off Friday night and run through the entire weekend. And last but not least, Henderson Brewing will be hosting their annual Rush Day on Saturday, August 8th between Rush's first pair of YYZ shows, and there will be an official Rush Fifty Something Pop-Up Merch Shop set up on-site from 10am-6pm the entire weekend. Henderson has also introduced three new exclusive releases to celebrate Rush's return.

Vulture.com wrote a piece (bypass paywall here) on the popular 2009 bromance film I Love You Man this past week, where they chat with writer/director John Hamburg. The film featured Rush as an integral part of the storyline and even included a concert performance cameo from the band. As an ode to the band's appearance in the movie, Segel & Rudd along with Geddy, Alex and Neil filmed a short 5-minute-plus sequel to the film called I Still Love You Man which was shown at the end of Rush's live shows on the 2010 Time Machine Tour. The pair of actors reprise their roles for both the intro and outro videos on the Fifty Something tour as well. Hamburg explains how he approached Rush for the gig - the only band he ever really considered:

... In order to get Rush, Hamburg's first and only choice, for the concert scene, he wrote to them to explain his own fandom and how their involvement wouldn't be played for cheap laughs. "I made that very clear because you never know in a comedy if they're poking fun at somebody," he recalls. "I was like, 'I'm embracing who you are and what your fan base is. It's all coming from a good place.'" The trio understood Hamburg's vision and agreed to a day of filming for the scene, which solidifies just how close Peter and Sydney have become while they do some inspired air-bass moves. "I didn't know if they were going to be like, 'We're going to do three takes and then we're done.' I mean they're Rush," Hamburg adds. "But they were so game and they gave me everything I wanted. They even asked, 'Do you need more?' That was a big stressor for me beforehand. I was like, 'Am I going to have words with Rush?' You just don't know. It turns out they're literally the nicest rock stars ever." ...

Business/Marketing consultant Oriol Guitart recently published an interesting academic case study to his blog on the financials of Rush's Fifty Something tour, coming up with a model that describes the Revenue Per Attendee metric (how much total value can we capture from every fan who walks through the door). He ends up estimating that this number is $382 for Rush, and - based on that - Rush's tour will end up generating $6.88 Million. Although there are some issues with his analysis, particularly his inclusion of digital add-ons, which he describes as, High-resolution download of the concert recorded that same night, available within 24-48 hours, with an estimated price of $20-30. While some bands do this (Metallica comes to mind), Rush most certainly does not. Outside of that and a couple other odd assumptions, it's an interesting analysis. Thanks to Jay R for the heads up.

Sketch artist Mike Noren, aka Gummy Arts on social media, draws sports trading cards based on original cards from the past, and occasionally makes cards of musicians, actors, pop culture figures, current events, etc. On Wednesday he posted a card featuring Rush's new lineup with Anika Nilles to celebrate Geddy Lee's birthday, which you can check out here (thanks Chuck W).

There was a Rush reference on this past week's edition of the classic TV game show Password, where contestants and celebrities team up to guess secret mystery words using only single-word clues. One of the passwords was RUSH in the category Passwords that are also rock bands as seen in this screenshot.

Guitarist Devin Townsend was recently interviewed for Metal Global and shared his feelings about Rush's decision to carry on with new drummer Anika Nilles:

... I mean, I love the fact that they got Anika, I guess that's her name, playing drums. I love that. Because even within our little genre, there's all this chest pounding about who would get the gig. Everyone's like, 'Well, that guy would get the gig for sure. And that guy, he can do it perfect,' and all this stuff. And so, when they chose somebody that was completely out of that realm, I just felt like, 'Oh, that's fucking funny, that's amazing.' And the fact that she can do it really well, too, is like even better. ... But I like that decision that they made. I think that they seem like kind-hearted people. And I like Rush. I never was, like, obsessed with them, but I like them. And so I can relate to the fact that even being off the road for a year, you can't tour for your entire fucking life, and then just be home and expect your brain to cooperate. And that's for someone in my position, let alone Rush, right? So, I can't imagine that Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson at some point weren't just like, 'Get me the fuck out of Toronto' or wherever they are." ...

Wilco's Jeff Tweedy and drummer Glenn Kotche attended the 3rd Chicago show and hung out a bit with Ged/Al backstage as seen in this Instagram post. Tweedy was so impressed that he wrote a review of sorts to his substack including an acoustic cover of Tom Sawyer that he recorded (thanks Aaron K). Speaking of Rush's Chicago stint last week, Rush posted a pro-shot video snippet of a nice little moment during one of the shows where Ged and Al are riffing off one another during Working Man:

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Season 4 of Amazon Prime's Reacher TV series launches on September 16th and a new trailer was released this past week which features Rush's Tom Sawyer as seen below or on YouTube. The show is based on the Jack Reacher novel series by Lee Child, and stars Alan Ritchson as Reacher. The trailer runs over 2 minutes and features Tom Sawyer throughout:

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