Last Friday Pollstar released their year-end top tour lists, and Rush's R40 Live tour came in at #26 on the Top 200 North American Tours list and at #42 on the Top 100 Worldwide Tours list with $37.8 million in gross sales. Back in October Billboard Boxscore reported the official sales and attendance figures for most of Rush's shows on the tour; all but Atlanta, Calgary and Vancouver had reported figures. 25 of the 32 shows reported were sellouts and the remaining seven close to it at around 95% capacity. About two-thirds of the shows grossed well over $1 million, with the June 29th show at Madison Square Garden bringing in a whopping $1,507,393. The May 30th show in Bristow was the most-attended by a wide margin with 16,579 fans in attendance. You can check out the sales and attendance figures for all of the shows on the R40 Live tour here. And speaking of the R40 Live tour, the Rush Backstage Club is running a big winter sale on much of their R40 Live tour merchandise.
Rush's year-long, vinyl re-issue campaign concludes today with the release of the last three albums to get the re-issue treatment; Hold Your Fire, Feedback and Snakes & Arrows. Rush has been releasing their entire back catalog on vinyl over the past year. All the titles are high-quality vinyl with a 320kbps MP4 Digital Audio download code, and you can order all the various Mercury-era and Atlantic-era reissues using the links below:
ALL TITLES NOW AVAILABLE
Fly By Night (01/27/15) - Vinyl | Blu-ray Audio
Caress of Steel (02/17/15) - Vinyl
2112: Hologram Edition (03/17/15) - Vinyl
All the World's a Stage (03/17/15) - Vinyl
A Farewell to Kings (04/21/15) - Vinyl | Blu-ray Audio
Hemispheres (05/19/15) - Vinyl
Permanent Waves (06/16/15) - Vinyl
Moving Pictures (07/24/15) - Vinyl | Vinyl + Large t-shirt | Vinyl + XL t-shirt
Signals (08/14/15) - Blu-ray Audio
Exit ... Stage Left (09/25/15) - Vinyl
Signals (10/09/15) - Vinyl
Presto (10/23/15) - Vinyl
Roll the Bones (10/23/15) - Vinyl
Counterparts (11/6/15) - Vinyl
Test for Echo (11/6/15) - Vinyl
A Show of Hands (12/11/15) - Vinyl
Grace Under Pressure (1/8/16) - Vinyl
Power Windows (1/8/16) - Vinyl
Hold Your Fire (1/15/16) - Vinyl
Feedback (1/15/16) - Vinyl
Snakes & Arrows (1/15/16) - Vinyl
This past weekend we learned that the 2016 NAMM Show in Anaheim next week will be featuring a series of concerts at the M3 Live Anaheim Event Center that they are calling Bashfest. The concert series will kick off on Thursday, January 21st with Hurry: A Celebration of Rush Music. Hurry consist of Sebastian Bach on vocals, James LoMenzo (Megadeth, Black Label Society) on bass, Brent Woods on guitar, Brian Tichy (Whitesnake, Foreigner) on drums, and Stephen Le Blanc on keyboards. There will also be a number of special guests including Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Ray Luzier (Korn), Dizzy Reed (Guns N' Roses), Jason Bittner (Shadows Fall, Flotsam and Jetsom), Michael Devin (Whitesnake), Rudy Sarzo and more! For more information and tickets go here. Earlier this month we learned that Hurry will also be performing at a a special Monsters of Rock Cruise pre-party on Sunday, February 26th.
Rush's record label Rounder Records has posted the results of their 10 Signs of a True Rush Fan Sweepstakes. You can check out the results here.
This year's RushCon Rush fan convention took place over the summer to coincide with the band's R40 Live tour. The main convention was in Los Angeles during the final show of the tour, and there was also a mini-con during the band's stint in Toronto. The folks at RushCon have posted recaps of both events including a bunch of great photos here.
British bassist Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo) recently sat down with Prog magazine to gave them his list of the 10 most influential bassists. Coming in at #3 on his list was Geddy Lee:
"Fronting up a band as a bass player and vocalist is a tough gig - one with which I've had some experience. Geddy shows how it should be done. In a power trio, every little helps and additional duties on bass pedals, double-neck guitar and synths made for a fulsome sound in his stadium filling band Rush."
Prog also recently revealed the top 20 in their list of the 100 greatest prog artists of all time and coming in at #5 was Rush:
WE SAY: The Canadians have embraced state of the art technology and a diverse variety of musical techniques and genres during their near 50 year career. Their line-up has remained unaltered since 1974, and since then the trio have stayed ahead of any trends by being artistically flexible and creatively inquisitive.
YOU SAY: "Their longevity speaks for itself. Simply put, not many artists have as many great albums, successful tours, as much band chemistry and as respectable and a large a fan base as Rush. With Dirk's ferocious bass lines, Lerxst's magnificent riffs and underrated leads, and Pratt's pulsating and always tasteful drumming, Rush have been such an influence on me as a musician and person." - Alec Lee
Poet and author Tod Marshall was recently named as the new Washington State Poet Laureate and was interviewed for The Stranger's Slog column. At one point he is asked about what he is going to do as a poet laureate that no other poet laureate has done before, and one of the things he says is, "... Listen to all of side one of Rush's 2112 while driving around the state. ...". I like this guy. :)
Former Rush producer Terry Brown was recently interviewed by FYI Music News to talks about his long career in the Canadian music industry as well as some of his current projects. In the 2nd part of the interview he talks a bit about his time working with Rush (thanks RushFanForever).
The news broke earlier this week that rock and roll legend David Bowie had passed away from cancer at the age of 69. Rush released this short statement regarding his passing via their Facebook page:
Woke up to the news of David Bowie leaving this world. Crushed is the right word. He was a monumental artist...immortal. We used to play Suffragette City in our bar days...RIP David Bowie
Here's David Bowie performing Suffragette City live at the Hammersmith Odeon in July of 1973. RIP.
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend everyone!
