The Rush Time Machine caravan thundered into the Midwest this past week hitting Milwaukee Summerfest on Saturday and Chicago on Monday. It then ran into some real thunder trouble for the second Chicago show on Wednesday when heavy rains caused some equipment to short out and forced the band to cancel the show. All indications are that the show will be rescheduled sometime in early September. While all this was happening our South American Rush fan friends received some welcome news when Rush.com finally confirmed a couple of South American dates in Brazil. The band will hit Sao Paulo on October 8th at Morumbi Stadium and Rio de Janeiro on October 10th at Praca da Apoteose. It's expected that official confirmation of at least a couple more South American dates including Santiago, Chile on October 17th will be announced in the near future. Rush takes the Time Machine Tour back to their native land this week hitting Sarnia Bayfest today, the Ottawa Bluesfest on Sunday then 2 shows in Toronto later in the week.

The Hughes & Kettner YouTube channel posted a new interview with Alex Lifeson on Monday where Lerxst talks about his new Hughes & Kettner Time Machine Tour amplifiers. You can watch the video at (*SPOILERS*) this link. There's also this interview with Alex's guitar tech Scott Appleton discussing the new amps.

Tandem Digital is the company that produces many of the custom concert videos that are seen playing in the background at Rush concerts. Last week they posted (*SPOILERS*) a couple of the videos from the Time Machine Tour to their YouTube Channel. Greg from Tandem Digital just let me know that HD versions have now been posted on their website here and here.

Reader RushFanForever let me know that Toronto's Q107 is running a Rush trivia contest where you could win tickets to see Rush on Saturday, July 17th at The Air Canada Centre from The Q107 Private Suite. You can check out all the details at this link.

The CD version of the Caravan/BU2B single was released at the end of last month and can be purchased via the Rush Backstage Club for $4.99. Fans who have already received their copies have noticed that although the track listing lists Caravan as appearing first on the CD, in actuality BU2B appears first. It's not clear whether this is the case with all copies of the CD or whether this was a mistake or intentional. The Caravan single has been getting decent airplay on rock radio stations and has broken into the top 10 on the Mediabase Rock Chart. At the time of this posting it's #10.

The Rush documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage was recently released to DVD/Blu-ray complete with over an hour of bonus materials. Reader Greg E located this review of the film at The Huffington Post. Then there's this one from Las Vegas Weekly (thanks daviecop), this one from the Yahoo! Music Blog (thanks Sean), this review from Tuscon Weekly, this 4 and a half star review from Film Threat, and the Reno News & Review includes the film in its list of the top films of 2010 so far. Here are the most recent US box office figures for the theatrical release of the film (thanks Sean). The movie is now available for purchase in Australia and if you order it through JB Hi-Fi you'll be entered into a contest to win a limited edition custom Epiphone Guitar (thanks mattybro). Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins was prominently featured in the Rush documentary and in a recent interview with Cleveland Scene magazine (thanks RushFanForever) Corgan said the following regarding the experience:

They’re one of my favorite bands growing up. I still love them. I’m proud of them as a band for continuing to push forward. I thought they were the most amazing thing I ever heard. They were one of the first bands that spoke to me. They were the first band that I thought was from my generation, even though they were obviously older. I particularly liked the lyrics and that influenced how I look at lyric writing. If you look at my lyrics, there’s a lot of [Rush drummer] Neil Peart in there. When we first started the Pumpkins and Jimmy Chamberlin joined and I realized he knew every Rush fill, I was like, “OK. This is great.” The prog element of the band is something that not everyone has understood, but Jimmy and I were both really into it.

The 10th annual RushCon Rush fan convention will take place next weekend from July 16-18th in Toronto, ON along with a one-day mini-con to occur on August 14th in Las Vegas. Registration is still open and the complete schedule is available at this link. The Vegas convention is really starting to shape up into a very cool event too. The venue for the convention will be the Courtyard Marriott Toronto Downtown. On Friday night there will be a harbor boat cruise with guest speaker Jack Secret and a special performance by Jacob Moon. On Saturday Donna Halper will be the guest speaker, Neil Peart's Chromey drum kit will be on display and Rush will perform live at the Air Canada Center. On Sunday will be the RushCon charity auction, a tour of Anthem and a special screening of Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage. There will also be plenty of games and prizes throughout the convention. For all the details check out the RushCon website and go to this link to view registration options. You can follow RushCon on both Twitter and Facebook.

Reader snowdog987 let me know that Rush made Entertainment Weekly's Hit List last week at #8 with this clever little blurb:

8. Fresh off their new documentary, Rush get star on Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Canadian power trio were originally supposed to get one on 4/4, but then it switched to 5/4 and all the way to 11/8 before winding up on 6/8.

In last week's updates I let you know that GamerLimit.com had reported a rumor that Rush's 2112 - the entire song - will be featured on the upcoming Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. According to a recent report at RockBandAide.com it looks like the next Rock Band will also be featuring some more Rush:

RockBand.com forum poster and apparent Rush junkie “Alvarado6411″ went to see Rush get their star on the Walk of Fame today. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were cool enough to walk around and sign things, Alvarado6411 was able to ask Geddy if we are “getting any more Rush songs in Rock Band?” Geddy was cool enough to respond with:

"Yea, GH: Warriors of Rock is getting a whole “2112″ level. Oh wait, you meant Rock Band, right? Yeah, the one with the keyboards; that one is getting one as well."

We should probably keep this as a rumor for now, but I have a sneaking suspicion (and a credible source) that this is true.

Thanks to Falcon for the heads up.

Reader Eric B discovered a recording from avant-garde composer John Cage at Ubu.com titled A Dip in the Lake. In the first movement of the song - Ten Quicksteps - Rush's Working Man is sampled. You can check out the recording at this link.

Here's one from the archives. Reader RushFanForever located an old article/interview with Rush from the January 23, 1978 edition of MacLean's magazine by Roy MacGregor titled To hell with Bob Dylan, Meet Rush. You can check out a scan of the article by clicking on the thumbnails.

Rifftrax.com is a website produced by the stars of Mystery Science Theater 3000 which creates downloadable audio commentaries to play over movies. During the Rifftrax for 2008 film The Happening there's a part when some trees start releasing a deadly toxin and Mike Nelson remarks Wouldn't this be a good time to start singing Rush's The Trees? He then proceeds to sing the first few lines in a mock Geddy Lee voice while Kevin and Bill beg him to stop. Thanks to Kerwin T for the heads up. Rush references are a regular occurrence with Rifftrax as they were with Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Nettie let me know that there are now coffee mugs for sale at the official Bubba's Bar -n- Grill store at NeilPeart.net. You can check them out and purchase one for yourself at this link.

Reader Distant Echoes (formerly jediyyz) and 2 of his kids (also RIAB readers: Mermaid of the Lunar Sea and VitalSignsx1) are in a Rush-inspired band called Anthym and wanted me to let you know that they have released their first CD which you can check out at Amazon and iTunes.

Here's a nice little Rush trivia quiz from the Chicago Tribune that reader double-agent located.

Here's a short Artisan News Service video interview (thanks RushFanForever) with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson where they make some interesting remarks regarding Rush's snubbing by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

That's it for this week. Have a great weekend!

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