A brief review....
I attended the RUSH concert at Nissan pavillion - west of Washington DC last evening. Man are those guys getting old - but they can still bust out some great tunes and not miss a beat. Forgive me - I can't remember the complete set list, but I'm going to blab with my friends to reconstruct the list from the bits and pieces I remember.

If you're looking for some older tunes, I think you'll be nicely surprised - if you are planning to see Rush soon and don't want to be surprised - then don't read this.

They came out right at 8 and started with Tom Sawyer, after the obligatory 3 stooges intro. I don't remember all the tracks from the 1st set - all Moving Pictures and newer. YYZ, Vital Signs, hmm lemme see, a couple tracks from the new one. All in all they played 4 tracks off the new album (including Ghost rider, and One Little Victory, which was awesome, more on that in a minute). 3 tracks off Roll the bones (Roll the bones, You bet your life, Dreamline), 4 tracks from Moving Pictures (YYZ, Tom Sawyer, Limelight, and Vital signs), they played Between the Sun and Moon off Counterparts, which they said they have never played before on other tours. It was nice to see that they were playing some other tracks you wouldn't expect.

The first set lasted just over an hour. You need to be in your seat for the beginning of the 2nd set, trust me. There was a large screen behind the band, and before and leading up to the beginning of the second set, there is a scene of some mountains and a lake - at first you see a silouhette of the landscape but then you'll see that the sun is slowly rising. Suddenly the thumping gets louder, and the view rotates around and these dragons come up from all around. One of the dragons ends up breathing fire right into the camera eye (sorry.. couldn't resist) and there are some nice pyrotechnics on the stage to sort of continue the effect of the dragon blowing flames - essentially onto the stage. I was about 3 rows in front of the soundboard, on the center line, and could feel the radiation. They played One LIttle Victory.

Lets see, they played a lot of awesome old stuff. The finished the 1st set with Natural Science, and about halfway through the 2nd set, the first notes of 2112 were played, and the Man-Pentagram logo slowly faded up onto the screen - the crowd went nuts. I think the crowd appreciated the older stuff. They didn't play the whole thing, just the Overture and the Temples of Syrinx. Other notable songs include Working Man, the beginning oc Cyrinx - book 1, The spirit of radio, La villa strangiato, the drum solo was absolutely mind blowing - for as old as Neil is, he did not miss one beat. Although I didn't recognize the medley - he incorporated several familiar themes from the known drum solos - as well as some new beats - well at least that I didn't recognize.

When they came out for the encore, they took the laundry out of the 3 laundry driers on the stage that had been running the whole show, and they throw the laundry out into the crowd. They played By-Tor and Cygnus.

There are a few other little surprises I'll omit for now. Alex and Geddy will play something acoustic after Neil's solo. I also noticed the number of instrumentals, neatly punctuating the set I guess to give Geddy a rest - YYZ first, the instrumental off of Counterparts (the name escapes me now), and La Villa.

The intermission was a punctual 20 minutes, and I believe the show was all wrapped up shortly after 11. They may be geting old, but they still rock out an awesome show. Just listening to people milling about after the show, people were pleased and surprised with some of the older and less heard of tracks I guess.

One notable omission was The Trees. With such an archive of music to select from, it must be difficult to select tracks to play. I would not mind hearing A Passage to Bankok or Witch Hunt, but thats me.

Oh, and about the 3rd song into the 1st set, there was a severe thunderstorm - and Nissan is an outdoor pavillion. Although the pavillion is covered, the wind was blowing the heavy rain sideways into the pavillion. Actually the rain was quite refreshing and cool - it had been hot and humid. It was cool watching the trails of water vapor streaming in... Well the rain did not bother the crowd and the Trio didn't skip a beat - and joked about the deluge between songs.


So now I am going to attempt to figure out how long it would take to listen to every album from first to last (Rush to Vapor Trails), Without simply adding up the track times... I'm going to Maine on a road trip in my Empeg equipped vehicle in a few weeks. It is a 12 hour drive. I am prepared.

Well sorry if this isn't terribly detailed - I'm at work now and dont' have a lot of time to bang out some nice long and descriptive review. I can post back tonight or tomorrow to describe the stage setup, etc etc.

It was awesome! I want to go again!!

I've been reading reviews from this tour all over the net, and they all seem to fall in line with yours. Everyone liked the show.

The set list seems to be pretty rigid at this point, with the occasional trade out of one of the new tunes. You got to hear "Ghost Rider", but some other people got to hear a different one of the new tunes at that spot in the set ("Ceiling Unlimited", I think). It's their rotation spot.

I'm not afraid to give spoilers: The all-acoustic number was "Resist". Many people are saying that was the highlight of the show, since no one has ever seen them "go unplugged" before. There's a really great picture of them performing it at the site www.2112.net/powerwindows if you want to check it out.

You said that it was unusual for them to not play "The Trees". Actually, I don't find that unusual at all. That one has only been on a few of their tours. And they played it on the Test For Echo tour, so no reason to bring it out again for this one. No, no, the REAL surprise is the complete lack of Closer to the Heart. That one has been played on every single tour since the original version came out on the Farewell to Kings album. Now gone. Wow.

And the laundry they took out of the dryers and threw into the audience were T-shirts that said "This T-shirt came from dryer number 1 of the Vapor Trails tour" or something like that. I think they were even dated. Great gag. I don't think I'm going to be sitting quite close enough to get one, but I can hope.

And it's correct that the song "Between Sun And Moon" has never been played live before. It's in their set list as a tribute to the late John Entwhistle. See, that song has a sort of a tribute-to-The-Who in its instrumental middle bridge. I remember when I first heard that song on the CD, how I laughed out loud at the obvious Who reference there.

The instrumental off of Counterparts that you couldn't remember the name of was "Leave That Thing Alone". The prior album's instrumental was called "Where's My Thing". My Rush-fan friends and I were surprised when the instrumental on the next album was not titled, "Put That Thing Down" or "Don't Touch That Thing, You Don't Know Where It's Been".

I have one question for you about the show: How was the volume?

Recent tours have seen their sound system getting louder and louder each tour, and hence being more and more muddy. What was your impression of the overall sound?

Back in the 70's and early 80's, they were known for having fantastic, perfectly mixed sound in their concerts, sounding like you were at home with your stereo cranked up loud. But late 80's and 90's concerts, I have not enjoyed the sound or the mix at all. Far too loud, as if they were trying to overpower the arena. The Test For Echo tour was right on the edge of being too loud, but it was nowhere near as good as the Yes or Peter Gabriel shows I saw during that same era.

Tony,

I would have also like to have heard Fly By Night. Like you pointed out, I suspect that they rotate in and out a few songs each tour - like you mentioned with The Trees being played. Our local radio station (98 ROCK) gives a lot of support to Rush, airtime, ticket giveaways, concert updates, etc - and besides playing Tom Sawyer, they play The Trees, Closer to the Heart, etc often.

Thats cool about the laundry - I would be ashamed if I found any of those items on Ebay. The driers kept hitting their time limits and occasionally they would stop spinning and someone would restart it. Oh, and you would have to be within the first 5 or 10 rows to have a chance at the laundry. Maybe if the shirt cought the correct breeze...

I'm glad you asked about the acoustics/volume. Nissan Pavillion is newer, and inside it is quite tall and volumous (is that a word?). In general, the sound is very good, much better than our other outdoor arena. With that said, it seemed to me like it got louder as the evening progressed - and at a certain point the volume seemed to interfere with the music. Particularly on One LIttle Victory - Geddy's vocals were drowned out by his bass. I don't think that the volume was as bad as a show I saw indoors on the Test for Echo tour - but that might have been a factor of both volume and poor acoustics - and seating. At that particular show, they had a bank of surround speakers, and they were situated sort of on the "corners" of the oval of the arena. I was near one of these, and they were way too loud.

So, yes, at a few points especially during the 2nd set, there were points where things were a little loud and "muddy", but the volume did not really detract from the overall performance - it only caught my attention a few times. I thought Alex's guitar sounded awesome, and there were points where it was very distinct, in a good way. I for one don't like the mix of One Little Victory on the CD for the same problem at the show - the vocals at many points become lost in the mix.

I wish I was old enough, and lucky enough to have attended - oh say - the Hemispheres tour, but some of my coworkers have attended several Rush shows, back in the day. Unfortunately, without having attended a recent show, they have no way to compare what the volume was like back then, but I tend to agree with what you said. I'll ask one of my coworkers (if he remembers) what the sound, and the mix was like.

Resist was awesome. End of story. The song worked extremely well as an acoustic presentation, and crowd response was very, very positive.

Thats what I thought the name of the instrumental on Counterparts was - I was too lazy to look at my CD to verify, though. Now that you mention, the way things seem to go in neat little trios - that they didnt name the instrumental on Echo what you suggested. Hahah.

Our radio station, when talking about the show, mentioned that they will be around again soon. I hope the rumor stays true, and there will be a 2nd leg. It would make sense, they came by twice for Echo. I have not done any investigation into this on the Internet yet, so I can't really speak to that end.

Hope you, and anyone else with tickets enjoy the show.

volumous (is that a word?)

Voluminous

You asked.

but that might have been a factor of both volume and poor acoustics - and seating.

I've been to enough concerts (both by Rush and by other artists) in enough different venues and in enough different seating locations to learn that it's not the "house" or the "seats". It's the amplification equipment combined with the guys at the mixing board operating the equipment. I think Rush needs to quit hiring sound companies with deaf employees.

I thought Alex's guitar sounded awesome, and there were points where it was very distinct, in a good way.

Now THIS makes me feel better. One of my complaints of past tours is that Al's sound was just basically a wall of faint background noise, you couldn't hear any individual notes, just a dull roar.