whottt
04-24-2008, 02:57 AM
I worked this concert tonight and they kicked ass.
Let me clarify a couple of points real quick...
1. I've only seen Rush one other time, in 1981 on the Permanent Waves tour. That was right before, or right when, they had begun turning from a hard rock band into some kind of progressive synth band or whatever the hell they were for most of the 80's.
2. I haven't bought or liked a new Rush Album since about 1983. It wasn't so much that I thought they sucked, I just didn't like when they started building their songs around synthesizers.
All that said...
These guys were when I first saw them, and remain to this day, the most talented pure musicians, instrumentally, to ever comprise a rock band. They put out a hell of a lot of sound for 3 men, and they are all excellent on their instrugments. Regardless of whether or not you like the direction they go in, these guys can all play...and even more amazingly their concert sound is exactly like their album sound, and they have no back up musicians. Now that's one thing when you are seeing them in 1981 and basically their songs are guitar, bass, drums...it's entirely another seeing them 2008 in their mid 50's playing a lot of their heavily produced synth stuff....and they have no backing musicians...it's all them. Geddy Lee should get some kind of award for playing bass, synthesizer, singing, and working the pedals, all at the same time...I don't see how he does it. And he's still a kickass bass player.
These guys are like the Tim Duncan of Rock Bands...seriously.
It's amazing enough for a band to recreate their studio sound live...but for a 3 man band to do it, especially with the sound Rush puts out, some of their songs being extremely electronic and musically complex with no backing musicians...these guys are amazing.
If anything...they're better musicians now than they were the first time I saw them which was probably at the peak of their popularity. Geddy Lee is actually a better singer now than he used to be...much better.
I think the only one that's declined a little is Neal Peart. He's not as fast on drums as he used to be, which, since he is the fastest drummer in history by like factor of 30, means he is still probably faster than anyone else, but he actually reminds me a lot more of someone like John Bonham now than Neal Peart....it's more about power than speed now.
They played quite a few songs I liked(although not a single one from the album my email adress comes from), and they played a bunch of new ones I had never heard before.
At some point they must have gone back to their hard rock sound because they played a ton of songs I had never heard before and these songs just about blasted me out of the arena, and these songs were built around Lifeson, which is something they had already begun to stop doing way back when I saw them in the 80's. Quite a few of these hard rocking songs came off their new album, and these were pretty much awesome. Best stuff I have heard from them in this style of music in forever. I'm definitely going to go buy their new album.
All in all...this is a fantastic show, and it's not an oldies tour or retirement tour as these things usually are. They play a lot of their old songs of course(and thank god), but these guys are a viable living breathing creating musical entity and they are all first rate musicians, better now than they were 20 years ago. If anything they seem more viable now creatively than they did for most of the 80s....better musically...and now that they have gotten over the mystifyingly stupid decision to make Alex Lifeson almost non-existent in their songs, they definitely fall back in the domain of being a hard rock band, which is what they do best.
I give them :tu :tu :tu :tu out of :tu :tu :tu :tu
That's not because I liked every song they played...it's that they played them all so well, even the ones I didn't like, all by themselves.
You want to go see a real band? Go check these guys out.
Let me clarify a couple of points real quick...
1. I've only seen Rush one other time, in 1981 on the Permanent Waves tour. That was right before, or right when, they had begun turning from a hard rock band into some kind of progressive synth band or whatever the hell they were for most of the 80's.
2. I haven't bought or liked a new Rush Album since about 1983. It wasn't so much that I thought they sucked, I just didn't like when they started building their songs around synthesizers.
All that said...
These guys were when I first saw them, and remain to this day, the most talented pure musicians, instrumentally, to ever comprise a rock band. They put out a hell of a lot of sound for 3 men, and they are all excellent on their instrugments. Regardless of whether or not you like the direction they go in, these guys can all play...and even more amazingly their concert sound is exactly like their album sound, and they have no back up musicians. Now that's one thing when you are seeing them in 1981 and basically their songs are guitar, bass, drums...it's entirely another seeing them 2008 in their mid 50's playing a lot of their heavily produced synth stuff....and they have no backing musicians...it's all them. Geddy Lee should get some kind of award for playing bass, synthesizer, singing, and working the pedals, all at the same time...I don't see how he does it. And he's still a kickass bass player.
These guys are like the Tim Duncan of Rock Bands...seriously.
It's amazing enough for a band to recreate their studio sound live...but for a 3 man band to do it, especially with the sound Rush puts out, some of their songs being extremely electronic and musically complex with no backing musicians...these guys are amazing.
If anything...they're better musicians now than they were the first time I saw them which was probably at the peak of their popularity. Geddy Lee is actually a better singer now than he used to be...much better.
I think the only one that's declined a little is Neal Peart. He's not as fast on drums as he used to be, which, since he is the fastest drummer in history by like factor of 30, means he is still probably faster than anyone else, but he actually reminds me a lot more of someone like John Bonham now than Neal Peart....it's more about power than speed now.
They played quite a few songs I liked(although not a single one from the album my email adress comes from), and they played a bunch of new ones I had never heard before.
At some point they must have gone back to their hard rock sound because they played a ton of songs I had never heard before and these songs just about blasted me out of the arena, and these songs were built around Lifeson, which is something they had already begun to stop doing way back when I saw them in the 80's. Quite a few of these hard rocking songs came off their new album, and these were pretty much awesome. Best stuff I have heard from them in this style of music in forever. I'm definitely going to go buy their new album.
All in all...this is a fantastic show, and it's not an oldies tour or retirement tour as these things usually are. They play a lot of their old songs of course(and thank god), but these guys are a viable living breathing creating musical entity and they are all first rate musicians, better now than they were 20 years ago. If anything they seem more viable now creatively than they did for most of the 80s....better musically...and now that they have gotten over the mystifyingly stupid decision to make Alex Lifeson almost non-existent in their songs, they definitely fall back in the domain of being a hard rock band, which is what they do best.
I give them :tu :tu :tu :tu out of :tu :tu :tu :tu
That's not because I liked every song they played...it's that they played them all so well, even the ones I didn't like, all by themselves.
You want to go see a real band? Go check these guys out.