Rush Show April 20th, 2010
Written 07/12/08
Speaking of their “Snakes and Arrows” Tour
I went and saw Rush in concert tonight. I hadn’t originally planned on going. I’d heard they were playing, but I’m lukewarm on their last two albums. Then a couple of weeks ago I mentioned the show to Terry and he was up for seeing it. I thought about it and it’s been 10 years since I’d seen them, plus who knows how much longer they’ll be around. We got Paul to come with us as well.
We had seats in the nosebleed section, but the Verizon Arena in Manchester is small enough so we had a good view of the stage. The acoustics were a little muddy, but not too bad. Rush themselves are showing their age, but the boys can still rock out. Geddy can’t scream as loud as he used to, but he still got some good high notes.
They played a few songs from “Snakes and Arrows.” There’s a couple I like, including “Far Cry” and then a couple more that I didn’t get into since I didn’t have a connection to the song. However, the rest of the songs were all vintage ones. It was great to hear them and fun to be able to recognize songs I hadn’t heard in so long as they started to play them. They played old favorites like “Tom Sawyer” of course, and “The Trees” but also lesser-heard songs like “Between the Wheels.” I was happy that they not only played the 2112 Overture and “Temples of Syrinx” but also “Natural Science” which is one of my favorites and a nice long one. They also had a nice long three-song encore, which is another nice thing I remember from earlier shows.
They put on a great light show as usual, with some occasional nice pyrotechnics as well. There were a couple of explosions that surprised me. Besides video segments, they also played close-ups of the band members on the large video screens behind the stage. I appreciated that, being able to see them perform better even up in the stands. They had a couple of goofy video skits introducing each set, which included Geddy and the other guys doing some silly acting. They also had Rush themed bits from the McKenzie Brothers and South Park. The other funny bit I enjoyed was a Ken type doll mocked up to look like Neal Peart, with his own miniature drum set, which sat next to Geddy’s keyboard and was shown on the screens a couple of times.
So it was a great show. It’s not the same as seeing them in the early 90s, and I would’ve loved to see some of the classic concerts, but they still rocked out and delivered a great time. It was a lot of fun to reconnect with the music from my youth again. I’m glad we decided to see them this time. I was worried I might be disappointed, but instead It added another nice memory of the band.