Rush, live at Nissan Pavillion, 2007.06.23
So most of you have heard me blab about my favorite band, Marillion from the UK. I have another favorite band, however, who I've loved even longer: Canadian band Rush. Formed in 1974, the trio consists of Geddy Lee on the bass, keyboards and vocals, Alex Lifeson on guitars and Neil Peart on drums. The three are widely acknowledged to be among the very best musicians for their instruments in rock music, and age has not slowed them or rusted their talents. They released their 18th studio album, Snakes & Arrows, in May 2007 and recently embarked on a world tour. Saturday night I got the chance to see them perform at Nissan Pavillion outside Washington, D.C.
Set list
Set One
video introduction with Alex & Geddy in some kind of dream sequence
Limelight
Digital Man
Entre Nous
Mission
Freewill
The Main Monkey Business *
The Larger Bowl * (with intro from Bob & Doug MacKenzie of the Great White North)
Secret Touch
Circumstances
Between The Wheels
Dreamline
Set Two
another video introduction featuring the Snakes & Arrows boardgame. Alex portrays several different "windows" of the board game in hilarious fashion.
Far Cry *
Workin' Them Angels *
Armor And Sword *
Spindrift *
The Way The Wind Blows *
Subdivisions
Natural Science
Witch Hunt
Malignant Narcissism *
Drum Solo
Hope *
Summertime Blues
The Spirit of Radio
Tom Sawyer (with South Park/Geddy Lee-as-Cartman introduction)
Encore
One Little Victory
A Passage to Bangkok
YYZ
It was a terrific show! I couldn't believe how many new songs they played! Incidentally, that's what all the starred songs are up there - they played all three instrumentals plus six other new songs! It was awesome. The videos were hilarious - I thought the South Park video intro (which was amazingly funny) into "Tom Sawyer" was almost worth having to hear that song again. I'm a jaded fan. I've seen them on every tour since 1991 and that's a total of I think 10 shows now and there are always old favorites that they will always play. "Tom Sawyer" is one of them, and I'm so over it - it's the most well-known Rush song, and even though it's a great song, there are many that I love more. Fortunately they played some of those, songs like "Natural Science," "Freewill," "The Spirit of Radio".
The highlights for me were "Between the Wheels" which was awesome, and then "Natural Science" and "Dreamline." Of the new songs, I really enjoyed "Far Cry," "Workin' Them Angels," "The Way the Wind Blows," and "Armor and Sword." "Secret Touch" had the most gorgeous colored lights - it was entrancing, but all the lights were stellar, as per the usual.
Rush always puts on a great show, and they know how to bring all the elements together: excellent lighting design, funny, beautiful and fitting video screens, and as always, terrific musicianship. I'm never disappointed by those things. Saturday at Nissan Pavillion, I thought the sound was poor - very muddy to my ears, and even though it wasn't too loud, I needed to wear earplugs in order to hear more clearly the instruments (earplugs help to filter out crowd sounds and other ambient noise). There were some other little errors here and there with a few technical failures but nothing that really affected me, so overall I give the show high marks.
I was in such a good mood throughout, and I couldn't wipe the grin off my face and I bounced and danced my way through the entire performance. Yeah, I'm probably the only girl who will dance to "Natural Science," but what can I say? When I love a band and their music, I can't help but move to it, regardless of whether the music lends well to the movement. It doesn't matter: the music was fantastic and I had a great time.
There is a very good review of the 23 June show with photos here.
I can't wait to see them again in Saratoga, NY this coming Saturday!