Yesterday, as I’ve been mentioning for a while now was the day that Rush played the New York State Fair as part of their Time Machine tour. This was my first time seeing Rush (my previous first time was thwarted by my sister scheduling her wedding for the same day as the concert and refusing to move it) so I was pretty excited.

I had originally planned on going alone to the fair and the show but I ended up asking my Mom if she wanted to go with me during the day to the Fair and then we’d part ways when it was time for me to head to the grandstand, so that’s what we did. Despite the extremely hot weather, I had a good time wandering around the fairgrounds doing various fair type activities. Checking out the butter and sand sculptures, eating various foodstuffs, checking out some animals. Eventually the time came and I wandered over to the grandstand to find my seat and wait for the show.

Thus comes my one and only complaint about the show, and that’s the moron who sets up the track seating at the state fair. There’s about 2 inches of leg room per row which can be reduced to 0 inches if the person in front of you has pushed their chairs back. Thankfully the sitting didn’t last long as we ended up standing and folding the chairs up so we could have more room. I chatted a bit with the people next to me while we were waiting and eventually the lights went off and the opening video began.

I was sitting about 13 rows back, dead center (a lot closer than the picture above makes it out to look. The opening video was awesome, involving a music producer with a contraption designed to make a band called “Rash” sound good. The guys in Rush played various roles in these hilarious video bits. As the producer fiddled with the machine turning The Spirit of Radio into various versions from a disco song to polka, he eventually hit a big red button labeled “Time Machine” and the real rush stepped onto the stage and started playing the real The Spirit of Radio.

About this time I’m pretty sure I got a gigantic grin on my face. The stage show was awesome, the band was energetic and the playing was spot on. I am sad to admit that my Rush album collection isn’t complete, so the first set contained some songs I wasn’t too familiar with. I’m setting out to correct this oversight now though.

My real highlight of the show was the playing of the classic album Moving Pictures front to back. Tom Sawyer was awesome, with a video of the band as chimps playing along with the song as the real band was playing on stage. The other highlights included YYZ, seeing all of the solos being performed right in front of me. The big one though was hearing The Camera Eye. It’s one of my favorite Rush songs and I’m glad I caught this show to hear them play it. Witch Hunt and Vital Signs aren’t my favorite Rush songs ever, but I like them well enough and they capped the album off nicely.

The two new songs they played (Caravan and BU2B) worked out really well live (and were accompanied by a lot of special steampunk-y effects which was really cool). I also like to mention Neal Peart’s drum solo. I’m not a fan of drum solos generally but this one was REALLY cool. Lots of tricky drum bits but very well structured not to be complicated just to be complicated. And the animations in the background during the third section were amazing.

I was also a fan of the section of 2112 that they played. I hope someday they play the entire song again, but the first bit is good enough for me.

After the show was over I stumbled out to a parking lot (after realizing that it was the WRONG parking lot and I had to stumble back through the crowd and out the correct gate to find my car). And it took a while to get out and back on the road, but I ended up getting home just after 1am, eating the McDonalds I picked up on my way (I was hungry!) and then falling straight to sleep.

Very glad I decided to go see this show. It’s been a year of really good concert experiences. Transatlantic, Dream Theater, and Rush, plus TSO and 3. And I still have Roger Waters to see!

Related posts:

  1. Beethoven’s Last Night – Live
  2. Busy Weekend Recap
  3. Music QotD: First Concert
  4. Goodbye Rush!
  5. Progressive Nation 2009