Rush is a Band

A blog devoted to RUSH:
Neil Peart, Geddy Lee & Alex Lifeson

Thu, Mar 28, 2024

Updates and other random Rush stuff

Fri, May 16, 2008@4:04PM | comments removed/disabled

Rush played their last show on the tour before a nine-day hiatus last
Sunday in Irvine. They'll pick it up again this coming Tuesday at the iWireless Center in Moline, IL. On the same day of that last show in Irvine Rush's original drummer and founding member John Rutsey died at the age of 55 from a heart attack brought on by complications from diabetes. You can read the obituary here. Donations may be made in John's memory to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He played an integral role in establishing Rush back in the early days and will be sorely missed. Thanks for the music and rest in peace John.

The news of John Rutsey's death overshadowed any other news last week so I'll take a moment and touch on some other items of interest you may have missed. Neil Peart just updated the News portion of his website last night. If you haven't read it yet you can check it out here. Neil chronicles his motorcycle travels on the tour thus far. Neil was also spotted at Freddie Gruber's 81st birthday party earlier this week. There's a short video on YouTube showing Neil sitting next to Freddie which you can check out here. [VIDEO WAS REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE]

Earlier this week I informed you of an effort that is underway to get Rush a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The effort is being led by Donna Halper, Keith Purdy and Kevin Purdy. For details and information on how you can help out see this post.

On Wednesday Rush.com revealed the secret behind Geddy's bass sound via a video they posted in their Multimedia: Rush Video section. The video features Geddy Lee backstage in the tuning room before the Austin show tuning his bass and talking about the tour and how much fun the band and crew are having.

In celebration of its first anniversary I asked you what your favorite song off of Snakes & Arrows was in my last poll. I was curious as to how the results would compare to the first time I asked this question back when the album came out. It turns out not much has changed. Once again taking the top spot was The Main Monkey Business. And the next 3 spots remained unchanged as well except that The Way The Wind Blows and Armor and Sword swapped the 2nd and 3rd spots; and Workin' Them Angels remained at number 4. The results were a bit tighter this time around though, and the bottom 9 spots mixed it up a bit. You can check out last year's full results here and compare them to the results this time around.

In honor of John Rutsey, I thought that for this week's poll I'd ask everyone what their favorite song off of Rush's debut album was. I think a lot of us revisited this album in the last week since hearing of John Rutsey's death - I know I've probably listened to it a dozen times myself since Monday. So take the poll and let us know.

Snakes & Arrows Live has finally dropped off the Billboard charts in its 4th week of release. John over at Cygnus-X1.net has transcribed and scanned the Snakes & Arrows Live tourbook. It's essentially the same as the Snakes & Arrows tourbook with several additional pages of images from the European leg of the tour taken by Ross Halfin. You can check out the transcription here and the images at this link (WARNING: huge load time for this page - it contains several large images).

Last month I let you know that Geddy Lee would be making a guest appearance on a new children's album from fellow Canadian rockers the Barenaked Ladies called Snacktime. The album was released earlier this month and it turns out that Geddy's sole contribution is a short spoken message at the end of the title track where he says Hi! I'm Geddy. I love barbequed potato chips. :) Thanks to RestlessOldRomantic for the report.

The first East Coast Rush Tabcon in 4 years will take place the weekend of May 30th to June 1st at Pope John Paul II Elementary School in West Brandywine, PA near Philadelphia. Many players and tabbers from the Rush Tablature Project will be in attendance including players from Rush tribute band Momos Dance Party. It should be a great event and a good time open to anyone who wants to check it out. If you don't know what a TabCon is check out the website to learn all about them.

Reader PhillyMike let me know that 93.3 WMMR in Philadelphia recently celebrated its 40th Anniversary and their anniversay logo features Rush along with several other prominent rock artists. The station also recently ranked the 933 top rock songs and Rush has a bunch of songs included on the list - the highest being Tom Sawyer at #57.

In my last update I let you know about a Rush concert dream package put together by Rock 100.7 DJ Jeff Burrows (formerly of The Tea Party and The Big Dirty Band) that was auctioned off on eBay last week to raise money for Transition to Betterness. The package included two first class return Via One Rail tickets to Montreal from Windsor, London, or Toronto; a two-night hotel stay at The Chateau Champlain Hotel in Montreal; premium seating at the concert; and 2 meet-and-greet passes. It ended up going for $3000. If you missed out on the bidding, not to fear; there's another auction going on. It runs through Monday and you can place your bid here. Thanks to primemover_3 for the heads up.

No doubt due to help from RushIsABand readers (I urged folks to vote in my last update), the Greatest of All Time Blog has determined that Rush's 2112 is the Greatest Album of All Time! Hell ... I already knew that, but it's nice to be reassured. :)

Sean alerted me to this post from a couple months ago at MTV's Headbanger's Blog which asks the question Who Rocks Harder?: Rush or Dream Theater?.

Reader The Mighty Dudad pointed me to this satirical piece in the Phoenix New Times music section titled Clinton vs. Obama: Is Neil Peart the best drummer in the world?. For once I actually agree with Hillary Clinton. :)

And if you're looking to build a fallout shelter, check out this site; it features a really cool midi version of Manhatten Project as background music. Thanks to starman.2112 for the link.

And I'll end with this very impressive video from reader Corey N. He taught his 4-year-old son Kolby to play the intro to Far Cry on the drums. You can check out the video at this link. Watch out Neil Peart! :)

Have a great weekend everybody!

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