Rush kicked off their 2-day stint at Cleveland's Rocket Arena last night to another sold out crowd. Fans were treated to a unique version of the Bravo setlist which was actually closer to setlist D in set 1 than anything else, although set 2 followed the standard B pattern. You can get full coverage of the evening's festivities in the Cleveland open thread. They'll be back at it tomorrow night, where we are still expecting them to pull out one of their Charlie setlists. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in partnership with RushCon are celebrating the return of Rush to Cleveland with a 4-day fan event called Rush the Rock Hall. The event kicked off yesterday and will continue throughout the weekend. Today will feature a number of special panels starting with Rush album artist Hugh Syme at 1PM, author Kevin J. Anderson at 3PM, along with a special panel discussion From Working Man to the Spirit of Radio: Rush, Radio, and Industry at 5PM. Tomorrow features a Rush Nerds Rush the Rock Hall Panel at 2PM with yours truly (Ed Stenger), Jillian Maryonovich (RUSHCON), Matt Wardlaw (Ultimate Classic Rock), Annie Zaleski (author) and Rush superfan/archivist/historian Ray Wawrzyniak. Fans will need to purchase Rock Hall admission tickets to get the full experience, and then each panel is an additional $10. If you plan to attend more than one day, then it makes more sense to just purchase a year-long Rock Hall membership, which will get you in all 4 days (and beyond). The Hugh Syme panel is sold out, but tickets for the other 3 panels are still available. For all the details and to purchase tickets, visit rockhall.org.
The new documentary on the late Neil Peart titled No One's Disciple held its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this past Wednesday evening in the Princess of Wales Theatre, and both Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson along with drummer Chad Smith were there. All 3 ran the red carpet interview gauntlet, and there are several clips available to check out in this post, such as this footage from the Canadian Press where they also chat with the filmmakers. There's also this coverage from Toronto Today, and reviews from Next Best Picture and Rolling Stone, along with these 5 takeaways from the CBC. The film makes its TV premiere next week on September 23rd at 8PM on CBC Gem as part of the documentary series The Passionate Eye. RushCon will be hosting a watch party next Wednesday on their newly-minted RushCon Discord, and you can join the party at this link.
Former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur currently has a three-room, 6000-square-foot exhibit titled My '90s Rock Photographs at Toronto's presigious Art Gallery of Ontario, and she recently took some time out to chat with Now Toronto about it and how it came about. She credits Rush's Geddy Lee - who she affectionately refers to as "Witchy Poo" - for getting the ball rolling on what she calls a "dream come true" and a "midlife resurrection". From the article:
... "It's very exciting because all magic roads often went way back to a wizard," she said. "And so it starts with Witchy Poo, wizard bass player himself, Geddy Lee. "And it isn't because I was a Rush fan as a child. You can thank that, too. But no, it's because it is he who connected me to a couple of head-banging metal dudes at Banger Media, who then introduced me to the documentary director powerhouse, Jennifer Baichwal, who then brought my frozen-in-time photographic archive to the attention of the Art Gallery of Ontario chief curator at the time, Julian Cox, and the co-curators, Sophie Hackett and Jim Shedden. And this is how it came to be. Wizards and witches do most of the work in our lives, thank you, if you let them in, if you listen, if you follow."...
In a bit of sad news, Max Webster drummer Gary Stixie McCracken passed away this past Tuesday at the age of 75, and Geddy Lee posted the following tribute:
Just heard the very sad news that my old friend, drummer, Gary "Stixie" McCracken has passed away. Back in the late 70's Rush toured the world with Max Webster as our opener...needless to say, we became very close pals. When our show in Paris was cancelled, Stixie (right) myself, and assistant Sam Charters (left) headed there anyway for 3 crazy days of pommes frites, beer and berets... RIP Stixie ...(and Sam)
Oh what memories we made.
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend!
