The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.rush.com

Normally I'm not into these big arena rock and roll things. It's sort of antithetical to my I can't like a band if more than ten people have heard of them mantra, which by the way is slightly overblown. Plus, these shows are generally overpriced. Rush, while a pricey ticket, is nowhere near as expensive as say the Rolling Stones or U2.

I haven't seen a show at Riverport/UMB/Verizon since, well, I think the last time Rush was through here. That last show was very good, but seeing as how I'm not one of those Rush cult members, I had no real plans of going to see them again. However, my college roommate and longtime friend Jay, his brother Greg, and their friend Paul are rabid cult members. So, just like last time, they told me they were buying me a ticket and I was going.

You'd think I'd have seen more shows at the amphitheater since I work right across the street from it. I could walk over there at lunch and buy tickets straight from the box office and not have to deal with ticket brokers at all. I have done that for other people but I've never done it for myself. Anyway, I digress. One nice thing about working across the street from there is that I can park in our lot. We took full advantage of it.
Jay's brother Greg and his wife Jenny got a hotel room at the Residence Inn down the street so the plan was to drink some brews before the show. It worked perfectly except that instead of the 5 or 6 people they expected, fifteen people showed up. One of them even showed up with 12 year old Macallan, which is apparently the single malt Scotch of choice for one Neil Peart. That would be a very important detail with this crowd. At 7:00 we headed to Riverport. I kept trying to tell them that we'd make it in plenty of time, which we did. It pays to know someone who works at Magellan.

It also pays to know someone who has been to a Rush show before. Most of this crowd had seen them in Kansas City the night before, which is also a Verizon venue. That would also be an important detail. The cult members knew that we could jump the line if anyone in our group had a Verizon phone. Tim, the infamous Papa Rush as he is known, got us in the gate. As soon as we were in we saw Mike Lucido. He and Brian had been waiting in the long line for over an hour. After a little catching up on old times, we grabbed some beers and headed for our seats; row AA, center, about 20 feet behind the mixing board, which was just about perfect for the sound. It pays to travel with cult members.

The cult members let us in on the set list, which I declined to look at, but they let us in on something far more important. We were told that Dreamline would be the last song before the intermission. When it started we were on our way to pee and grab more beers ahead of the crowd. Very nice. An hour before the pee break, Rush opened the show with Limelight, one of my favorites. In between was a smattering of old and new, plus the parts that cost you the extra $30 of ticket stuff, the multimedia extravaganza. Some of it was cool, some of it was just weird. One part even had the South Park kids trying to cover Rush. During Neil Peart's obligatory solo he flashed what I believed to be Philly Joe Jones and Max Roach, which I thought was kind of coincidental since Roach died earlier last week.

The second half contained more of the same stuff, old songs, new songs, and the multimedia extravaganza. The sound was perfect as far as I was concerned. Plenty loud. At 11:22 they finished with YYZ. Figuring that the intermission was about 30 minutes and the break between the second set and the encore was negligible, the band played for about 2 1/2 hours plus.

And now to the critique ...

Listen, I should face the fact that I like Rush and just let people make fun of me. For some reason I can't seem to do that. I think it's because there's a couple of things about Rush that really drive me nuts. One is their fan base. The second is that all three of these guys are fantastic musicians, even if Alex Lifeson seems like the weak link. They are all very technically adept players and I'm sure they are all devotees of jazz. I know Neil Peart is. But for some reason when you see Rush play live, their music sounds just like the radio. I'd like to see them move away from the technical edge and try to get more free form. They're just too predictable. I'm sure their cult members would just cringe if it happened. I'm glad they are predictable so I can beat the crowd to the bathroom, but stretch it out a bit guys. If not in the confines of Rush, play out in other groups and expand. You've been playing the same thing for 35 years. Mix it up a little.

Last time Geddy played a Rickenbacker almost exclusively, Alex played Paul Reed Smith guitars, and the band washed their clothes on stage during the show. A roadie came out and moved them from the washer to the dryer.
This time Geddy played Fender basses except for the encore, which he played a Rickenbacker. Alex played Gibson Les Paul's of various colors (black, tobacco, sunburst), through Hughes and Kettner amps. He did break out the Gibson ES-355 for the encore. The band had three commercial Henhouse rotisserie chicken machines cooking chicken during the show. A roadie basted during the first set.

Best t-shirt of the night: Fat Kids Are Harder To Kidnap