WOW, these old men can still bring down the house. I attended the Rush concert last night here in Dallas at the Smirnoff Music Center. No opening band, just Rush. Mind you, I was a huge Rush fan in the late 70's and all through the 80's. Funny thing, Geddy looks the same as he always did....thin, long hair (about shoulder length), with the little wire rimmed round specs. Lifeson has porked up a bit and has a huge bald spot on the top of his head, and Peart looked a bit wrinkled around the eyes, but he has not slowed down at all. They had three Maytag dryers set up to the right of Peart's drums, that remained on and spinning through the whole show. Not sure what that was about, but after the second set, they began removing the contents and threw several shirts out to the audience. The leftmost dryer had red shirts, middle had white, right had black. There was even a box of Bounce fabric softener on the top of the leftmost dryer. !?!?!?!??! They came on stage to their usual Three Stooges theme, and commenced to opening with Tom Sawyer, which got the crowd in a frenzy. I have never before seen so many overweight men with their shirts off, and so many MULLETS in one location at the same time in my life. EEEK!!! Anyway, they played two sets, roughly (estimation) 40 songs, and about 3 hours worth of music with only one short 10 min. break. It was truly a great show. They played several songs off their new album, which were all good in my opinion. It's kind of a back to basics album.....back to what works, pure rock and roll. They played several songs off the Roll the Bones album and Presto, which surprised me. But they also played many of the classics, such as (to name a few): Free Will Time Stand Still YYZ (amazing) Big Money Distant Early Warning Red Sector A La Villa Strangiato New World Man Force Ten Limelight The Spirit of Radio The Pass (ok, not a classic, but a good song from Presto) Working Man Tom Sawyer They also played an amazing acoustical song, one that I had never heard before. It was without Peart, as he had just done his drum solo, and likely needed to rest up. Peart went off on a 15-20 minute drum solo that was, for lack of a better word, spectacular. I walked away from there realizing that I saw the best drummer in the world play that night. He has faster hands than Roy Jones Jr. and simply jammed. Awe-inspiring. I cannot even begin to describe it without feeling as if my description would be horribly understated. His hands were everywhere, fast, precise, and the sticks were everywhere (in the air, spinning, smacking drums symbols, etc. in front of him, beside him, behind him). WHEW!!!! Great show.
