Sep. 13th, 2004 01:14 pm
And the meek shall inherit the Earth
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vin_petrolIt's remotely possible that some people may be aware I was a bit excited about the Rush gigs on Saturday and Sunday...
Rush don't play with a support band anymore, so when it says 19:30 on the ticket they really mean it. The lights dim at 19:35, and the show starts with a cartoon showcasing elements from the covers of all their albums. Then this old guy I don't recognise appears on the screen. He wakes up and wonders where the band are (they're coming onstage), then *BANG* the show starts! Follow spots pick them out and it's Alex! and Geddy! and Neil! live on stage and it's really happening! I'm there with a grin a mile wide 'cos they're live and playing their instruments and it's really Rush onstage! Old bloke appears on the screen some more, making \m/ signs and playing air guitar and looking as pleased as the rest of us. They start by playing snippets of all the great songs they're not going to play tonight (which takes a good ten minutes). Then they finally play a recognisable song: aaaarrgggh, it's The Spirit of Radio. Everyone there looks very, very happy. Loads of great songs follow. They played one of my favourites of all time (Subvisions) with a lovely trippy film on the screens, merging the housing subdivisions of North America with a fractal effect.
A modern Rush gig features an interval, where they go off stage for 20 minutes ("because we're old", admits Geddy). The second half starts with a cartoon sequence called "That Darn Dragon" featuring utterly crap puppets of the Rush members, fighting a hopeless plastic Dragon in their spaceship Cygnus X-2. Very bizarre, but beautifully funny. In the second half we also get a cut down version of 2112, but I *finally* get to see a legendary Rush moment I've never seen live - the last few seconds of the finale: "Attention all planets of the solar federation. Attention all planets of the solar federation. Attention all planets of the solar federation. We have assumed control. We have assumed control. We have assumed control." Fantastic! I can die happy now. Rush take the piss out of themselves somewhat at this point, by giving "Temples of Syrinx" a pirate flavour: "We are the Pirates of the Temples of Syrinx" sings Geddy, with a parrot perched on his shoulder and a skull and crossbones flag flying over the mixing desk.
Other daft comedy effects include having two clothes driers onstage for no readily apparent reason, which a roadie loads clothes into, and regularly checks over the course of the show. At the end, they seem to have dried out, and the band throw them out to the audience. I think Rush have been accused of being too serious, and are just going slightly demented in their old age and doing slightly bizarre things.
I'm also very conscious of close-ups of Alex's hands being shown on the big screens, and all the guitar players in the audience watching them intensely :-)
We also get some cover versions of old songs: The Seeker by The Who, Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran (!) and Crossroads by, well,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
resyk and I couldn't really agree on exactly which version they were covering. I think it's a originally a Robert Johnson song, although I think Rush are covering the Cream(?) 'instance' of it.
This finish with Limelight and it's all over. Utterly amazing. That could well be the last time Rush ever play in Europe. I'm pretty much resigned to never seeing them again, which made these nights even more special.
The audience is interesting. This band has sold out Wembley Arena, the NEC and the MEN Arena so they clearly have plenty of fans still out there, but they're clearly *cough* of more mature years. There's not a lot of long hair around anymore, and many people like myself sporting very short hair cuts (or no hair at all). I certainly didn't feel anything like the oldest person there! It was also interesting that having made no effort to dress up at all (black jeans, black boots, black t-shirt, BLJ) I still looked more Heavy Metal than the vast majority of people there. It's also not the kind of rock gig at all where you're going to get sexy rock chix.
I went twice, withresyk, to the NEC (Saturday night) and MEN Arena (Sunday). The latter was definitely the better gig. We were nearer the front (12 rows back) and at ground zero for the stage right speaker system. My ears are still ringing today. I really haven't been to a gig so loud and so clear in ages. Although the two shows made a nice comparison, as the overall stage and lighting looked better from the back of the NEC. At the MEN Arena we were kinda too close to see that, although it meant we could see the band up close more easily. To be honest, it was just fundamentally fantastic seeing them twice.
Rush don't play with a support band anymore, so when it says 19:30 on the ticket they really mean it. The lights dim at 19:35, and the show starts with a cartoon showcasing elements from the covers of all their albums. Then this old guy I don't recognise appears on the screen. He wakes up and wonders where the band are (they're coming onstage), then *BANG* the show starts! Follow spots pick them out and it's Alex! and Geddy! and Neil! live on stage and it's really happening! I'm there with a grin a mile wide 'cos they're live and playing their instruments and it's really Rush onstage! Old bloke appears on the screen some more, making \m/ signs and playing air guitar and looking as pleased as the rest of us. They start by playing snippets of all the great songs they're not going to play tonight (which takes a good ten minutes). Then they finally play a recognisable song: aaaarrgggh, it's The Spirit of Radio. Everyone there looks very, very happy. Loads of great songs follow. They played one of my favourites of all time (Subvisions) with a lovely trippy film on the screens, merging the housing subdivisions of North America with a fractal effect.
A modern Rush gig features an interval, where they go off stage for 20 minutes ("because we're old", admits Geddy). The second half starts with a cartoon sequence called "That Darn Dragon" featuring utterly crap puppets of the Rush members, fighting a hopeless plastic Dragon in their spaceship Cygnus X-2. Very bizarre, but beautifully funny. In the second half we also get a cut down version of 2112, but I *finally* get to see a legendary Rush moment I've never seen live - the last few seconds of the finale: "Attention all planets of the solar federation. Attention all planets of the solar federation. Attention all planets of the solar federation. We have assumed control. We have assumed control. We have assumed control." Fantastic! I can die happy now. Rush take the piss out of themselves somewhat at this point, by giving "Temples of Syrinx" a pirate flavour: "We are the Pirates of the Temples of Syrinx" sings Geddy, with a parrot perched on his shoulder and a skull and crossbones flag flying over the mixing desk.
Other daft comedy effects include having two clothes driers onstage for no readily apparent reason, which a roadie loads clothes into, and regularly checks over the course of the show. At the end, they seem to have dried out, and the band throw them out to the audience. I think Rush have been accused of being too serious, and are just going slightly demented in their old age and doing slightly bizarre things.
I'm also very conscious of close-ups of Alex's hands being shown on the big screens, and all the guitar players in the audience watching them intensely :-)
We also get some cover versions of old songs: The Seeker by The Who, Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran (!) and Crossroads by, well,
resyk and I couldn't really agree on exactly which version they were covering. I think it's a originally a Robert Johnson song, although I think Rush are covering the Cream(?) 'instance' of it.This finish with Limelight and it's all over. Utterly amazing. That could well be the last time Rush ever play in Europe. I'm pretty much resigned to never seeing them again, which made these nights even more special.
The audience is interesting. This band has sold out Wembley Arena, the NEC and the MEN Arena so they clearly have plenty of fans still out there, but they're clearly *cough* of more mature years. There's not a lot of long hair around anymore, and many people like myself sporting very short hair cuts (or no hair at all). I certainly didn't feel anything like the oldest person there! It was also interesting that having made no effort to dress up at all (black jeans, black boots, black t-shirt, BLJ) I still looked more Heavy Metal than the vast majority of people there. It's also not the kind of rock gig at all where you're going to get sexy rock chix.
I went twice, with
resyk, to the NEC (Saturday night) and MEN Arena (Sunday). The latter was definitely the better gig. We were nearer the front (12 rows back) and at ground zero for the stage right speaker system. My ears are still ringing today. I really haven't been to a gig so loud and so clear in ages. Although the two shows made a nice comparison, as the overall stage and lighting looked better from the back of the NEC. At the MEN Arena we were kinda too close to see that, although it meant we could see the band up close more easily. To be honest, it was just fundamentally fantastic seeing them twice.![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Crossroads
Re: Crossroads
Re: Crossroads
Re: Crossroads
Personally, I've enjoyed almost everything Clapton did up to the mid 70s - Yardbirds, Mayall, Cream, Blind Faith, Derek & the Dominos - then the scag addiction got a bit much and he started turning in dull LA Rehab albums. He's got his groove back now, but it took him a f**k of a long time.
The Clapton of the mid 70s to early 90s was pretty diabolical - everything was interchangeable - and he's still capable of being "too smooth". But he can, and often does, rock.
Re: Crossroads
oh god what a horrifying thought! I hope there'll be an off-switch - I can't think of a few minds whose contents I'd really rather not know ;-)
Re: Crossroads
Oh, I'm sure there will be. It's just that sometimes you can have a thought or experience, and you have to convert it to natural language to express it to another human. Life will be so much easier when we can do thought transference, and the necessary neural structure to express this experience can be just transmitted from one brain to another - with permission, of course :-)
Re: Crossroads
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A bunch of dodgy aged Canadian prog-rockers. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_%28band%29
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Those were the days concept albums which lasted weeks.
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You nutter.
:-)
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I'll admit I turned into something of a hopeless fanboy at the weekend, but I'm harmless.
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I prefer the word "enthusiastic" :-)
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No double chin though...
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I know! For special occasions only :-)
If you've not seen it, it's from a fantastic picture here: http://photos.nosignal.org/photo/9816.html
No double chin though...
I know :-)
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