I’ll spoiler tag anything that one might not want to know ahead of time in case they’re going to see the show. The US portion of the tour is almost over, but there are a few shows left.
First of all, this show was far beyond what I was expecting. I really haven’t listened to any of their newer stuff, or given a chance I guess, so I was prepared to skip the show. I new they would have a handful of their older songs in there, but I wasn’t going to pay for a ticket on the chance that it would be really heavy on the new stuff. My brother (arguably the biggest Rush fan there is, story to follow later in the thread) scored free tickets from a local radio station, and offered me one. I would have been a fool to decline, so I didn’t.
I was listening to the radio on the way over, and heard some details about the show which proved to be pretty accurate. Show starts around 7:45, one hour set, half hour break, one and a half hour set. Apparently that was routine for the tour.
The light show/pyrotechnics/high def video combination was very impressive. I haven’t seen a show that could compare since I last saw Pink Floyd. There were a few brief segments on the screens in between songs that were quite funny. The setlist was also pretty tasteful for both a new and old Rush fan.
Setlist according to some random web person, the only difference that I noticed was that they played Hold Your Fire tonight. There may be another revelation that I have later, we’ll see.
- Limelight
- Digital Man
- Entre Nous
- Mission
- Freewill
- The Main Monkey Business
- The Larger Bowl
- Secret Touch
- Circumstances
- Between The Wheels
- Dreamline
Intermission
Set 2:
Video Intro
- Far Cry
- Workin’ Them Angels
- Armor And Sword
- Spindrift
- The Way The Wind Blows
- Subdivisions
- Natural Science
- Witch Hunt
- MalNar
- Drum Solo
- Hope
- Summertime Blues
- The Spirit Of Radio
- Tom Sawyer
Encore:
- One Little Victory
- A Passage to Bangkok
- YYZ
Circumstances, Natural Science, Witch Hunt, and Passage To Bangkok were great treats. I heard that they had a song on this tour that was never before played on tour. I’m guessing either Witch Hunt or Circumstances, I’ve seen them do Natural Science before, and possibly APTB.[/spoiler]
The video segments were vivid and humorous, some were even a little moving.
[spoiler]The video interludes were well put together, there was a skit by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (of The Great White North fame… think Strange Brew guys) and a short South Park skit that had people laughing really hard.
The South Park short had the kids pretending to be Rush and playing Tom Sawyer. Cartman plays Geddy Lee, counts it off, and they start playing. He sings something similar to “A modern-day warrior Mean mean stride, he floated down a river with a black guy” Kyle asks him what the hell he’s talking about, and Cartman says that he read the book, and that’s what happened. Kyle tells him that he’s thinking of Huckleberry Finn, and calls him some sort of name. Cartman says “Fine”, and counts it off again, Rush starts playing, and the lights come up.