{"id":47528,"date":"2008-05-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/rush-three-concerts-for-the-price-of-one\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:55:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:55:59","slug":"rush-three-concerts-for-the-price-of-one","status":"publish","type":"feature","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/features\/rush-three-concerts-for-the-price-of-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush — Three Concerts For The Price Of One"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I was walking out of the Rush concert in Moline<\/st1:city>, IL<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>, on Tuesday, May 20, 2008<\/st1:date>, I overheard a woman say, \u201cYeah, that was not the best Rush show I\u2019ve ever been to, but it was pretty good.\u201d Pretty good?? Rush provided around 6,000 fans with a grade-A, excellent rock concert. In addition to superb musicianship, a couple of loud explosions startled fans and an impressive laser light show supplemented the songs. There were also three huge screens that showed an assortment of images throughout the concert. The only way I can come close to understanding what this woman meant is to see her comment in the context of there actually being three Rush concerts contained within the one show we both saw. <\/o:p><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\"rush_300\" <\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

The first concert was Rush trying to catch up their longtime fans with their present material from their eighteenth studio album Snakes And Arrows<\/i>, released in 2007. By my count, they started their second set with five songs from this release, and judging by the way the crowd fell mostly silent during these songs, a lot of the people in the building had not heard their latest offering. One suggestion to the band would be to put the name of these new songs on their video screen along with the album name. Rush was teaching the crowd that \u201cthese are the future of the band, so you may as well get used to hearing them, because we dig these songs enough to play them tonight.\u201d For the most part, the material from Snakes And Arrows<\/i> sounds excellent. I can envision \u201cFar Cry\u201d and others being a given at a Rush concert from now until the band ceases to tour.<\/p>\n

The second part of the concert Tuesday night was Rush playing their classics. These songs rewarded Rush fans that have flocked to see the band for over 30 years, creating a love fest for rejoicing in each member\u2019s technical proficiency. Bassist\/vocalist Geddy Lee worked his fingers over his instrument during \u201cSubdivisions\u201d and Alex Lifeson\u2019s guitar solo in \u201cLimelight\u201d featured lights from the ceiling descending closer to the stage to spotlight his playing. Meanwhile, Neil Peart\u2019s driving percussion during \u201cFreewill\u201d powered the band through one of my favorite Rush songs. The band played all of the songs on \u201cMoving Pictures,\u201d their 1981 release (save for \u201cThe Camera Eye\u201d), and they tapped into their past with \u201cSubdivisions,\u201d \u201cThe Spirit of Radio,\u201d and \u201cNatural Science.\u201d The set-list also featured two tracks from 1991\u2019s Roll The Bones<\/i> (“Ghost of a Chance” and “Dreamline”) to reward the fans of that underrated release. <\/p>\n

Among and interwoven with the first and second concerts was concert three, a concert in which musicianship ruled dominantly without hesitation. It was evident in both the old and new material that drummer Neil Peart does not know how to smile. His playing is mechanical and focused, save for a few \u201cthrow a stick in the air and catch it\u201d moments. With each shift from time signature to time signature, Peart drove the band forward, nailing the snare fills in \u201cLimelight.\u201d Lee locked in tempo with Peart during several songs, most notably in \u201cRed Barchetta\u201d and \u201cOne Little Victory,\u201d both of which allowed Lifeson to ease and stretch out on his guitar.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

So while the woman I overheard is certainly entitled to her misinformed opinion, I enjoyed the Rush concert. Not only was the set list very generous (eleven songs in the first set, thirteen in the second set, and three encores), the atmosphere was as intimate as an arena can get. There were a lot of kids in the audience as well; I know of at least one second grader that was in the audience and I saw several other children with their parents that may have been even younger. I think Rush is the perfect first concert for a child; there was no swearing from Geddy Lee, no girls lifted their shirts, nor were there any inappropriate images on the video screens. The fact that parents felt compelled to take their child to see Rush indicates the baseline appeal of this band. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Overall, I can\u2019t complain about the songs Rush decided to play. I understand why they wanted to play the new material and I acknowledge that that material will be tomorrow\u2019s classic tracks. I was definitely very satisfied with my concert experience and would gladly pay to see them again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moline, IL ; May 20, 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":50791,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"tags":[],"feature_type":[11242],"class_list":["post-47528","feature","type-feature","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","feature_type-concert-review"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature\/47528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/feature"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature\/47528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47528"},{"taxonomy":"feature_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feature_type?post=47528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}