UPDATE - 6/6@9:39PM: The Indy show has been postponed to July 24th.

Mother Nature played the role of spoiler last night, causing the postponement of Rush's scheduled show at Red Rocks. We just learned earlier today that the show has been rescheduled for Wednesday, June 25th - not the 22nd as was previously rumored. The problem is that there's already a show scheduled on that date in Noblesville! Sheesh... what a mess. I'll try to sort this all out and get back to you. In the meantime I've updated the tour page and moved the Red Rocks show to that 25th date. So the tour now heads east for the remaining 22 dates, playing Kansas City this weekend and then Chicago and Detroit early next week.

Other than the Red Rocks cancellation it's been a relatively quiet week for Rush news; just a couple of charity-related items. First, the t-shirts that Rush are selling to help support the Canadian Museum for Human Rights are now available at the Rush Backstage Club. Rush recently donated $100,000 from their show in Winnipeg to the Museum. And yesterday we learned that Geddy Lee donated nearly 200 autographed baseballs from his collection to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City.

In my last poll I asked everyone what concerts (other than Rush) they plan on attending this summer. The clear winner (other than None of the above) was Yes with 13.6% of the vote. Coming in a close second was Iron Maiden with 10.3%. Unfortunately Yes just announced earlier this week that they would be canceling their summer tour due to singer Jon Anderson's ill health. For the complete results, go here. For this week's poll I thought I'd ask you how many times you've seen Rush live in your lifetime. So take the poll and let us know.

There have been some reports of people sitting on stage (not close to the stage, but actually on the stage) at several stops on the tour. Here's the explanation; apparently a few radio stations have been running promo contests to upgrade your seats to the stage. Both WLUP in Chicago and WRIF in Detroit are running such contests for the upcoming shows next week. Just a heads up for those of you going to those shows to look out for these contests.

There was a short article in Digital Arts magazine online Tuesday on the new intermission video that's been shown on the 2008 leg of the tour. You can check it out here.

There's a new video up at Rush.com in the Multimedia: Rush Video section. It's a short video and features a few fans being interviewed during intermission at the Oklahoma City show.

There's a new movie coming out next year sometime titled I Love You Man which will star Paul Rudd, Jason Segel, Jaime Pressly and Rashida Jones. The movie is about a newly engaged guy who sets out to find the perfect Best Man for his wedding. Apparently Paul Rudd's character is a Rush fan who plays bass, and plays some Rush in the movie. There's also a scene shot on location at a Rush show. Rudd got to meet the guys and interview them too. He was recently interviewed by IESB.net and had a few things to say about Rush:

IESB: It looks like you can really play the bass guitar.

Paul Rudd: I can’t, I can play a couple of those songs though, I tried to learn “Limelight” on bass and “Tom Sawyer”, and I figured out the very basic ... I tried to get that “Limelight”, it’s not a really kind of generic way of playing, I could do enough to get the calluses going anyway.

IESB: Are you a fan of “Rush”?

Rudd: I do like “Rush”, yeah, when I was a kid they scared me a little bit because I saw the video of “Tom Sawyer” and Geddy Lee just had his hair hanging down, there were certain guys like Rick Nielson of “Cheap Trick” also that I was just kind of freaked out by them. ... Yeah, there were those musicians that really rattled me, and then “Tom Sawyer”, I was like “Why is it called “Tom Sawyer, it just sounds so dark and evil,” and then I got a little older and then I kind of went through this phase where I bought “Moving Pictures”, that record, and then I was like “Red Barchetta”, that’s where it’s at, and I went through a little “Rush” phase and then I got totally of course kind of into them years ago, and kind of like “The Spirit of the Radio” I would play it in my car really loud, so I was really nervous to meet them anyway.

IESB: Did you have scenes against them, or are they just playing on stage?

Rudd: No, they’re in the movie and we didn’t have any scenes where I engaged with them, I was just a fan dancing in the show, but I got to meet them, and Jason and I actually interviewed them and I was nervous and like, “How do you interview “Rush”?” They seem also to be really a band that has shied away, they’ve really lived the words of “Limelight”, living in the limelight, it’s surreal and they can’t pretend that a stranger is a long waited friend, I just kept thinking that when I was trying to buddy up to them, but they were very funny and very friendly, and big fans of “Team America”.

IESB: I was going to say, did you see their “Trailer Park Boys” episode where they kidnapped them?

Rudd: No.

IESB: It’s a Canadian show.

Rudd: Yeah, I know that show.

IESB: They kidnap one of the guitar players, it’s pretty funny, I just watched it the other day.

Rudd: They’re really funny guys like they were very nice and yeah, they were really cool, and I don’t know how the topic of “South Park” and “Team America” came up, “Team America” and they all went crazy and started talking, and quoting it, and it was just really weird to be exchanging “Team America” quotes with Neil Peart.

Cool. Thanks to The Trinity over at Counterparts for the heads up.

You may be aware that at one time the Rush Backstage Club was selling a 2GB Rush flash drive (USB stick). They've been out of stock for a while but are now selling them at shows on the tour. However, reader rushisgreat let me know that the ones they are selling at shows are not the same as the old sticks. These new ones are 4GB instead of 2GB and are preloaded with the R30 version of Red Sector A (which was not included on the R30 DVD) in multistream Quicktime format. The stick cost $40 CDN. Cool. Hopefully they'll be selling these at the Rush Backstage Club soon too.

Here's an interesting little article from the Seattle Weekly's Nicolae White titled Black Rushin' which chronicles the experiences of a being the member of an ethnic minority and also a Rush fan. Thanks to germanwill for the link.

Neil Peart won the Legends of Classic Rock Top 40 Greatest Classic Rock Drummers of All Time competition that I'd mentioned a few weeks back. You can check out the full results at this link. Thanks to george for the heads up.

The latest issue of our favorite music magazine Rolling Stone includes a feature on the The 100 Greatest Guitar Songs Of All Time. Guess What!? Rush isn't on the list. This glaring error was called out in a recent article on this list at Idolator.com. They state, Please get over your tiresome institutional bias and pay the noted Canadian progressive rock/objectivist power trio the respect it is due in future iterations of your dreadfully dull rockist lists. Well said.

Apparently Rush served as an inspiration to drummer Eric Kretz of the newly-reunited Stone Temple Pilots. He was recently interviewed by phillyBurbs.com and when asked about getting back behind the kit, Kretz replies:

... playing has helped me get back into shape. I’ve gone back to what I used to do in high school. I really got back into Rush and King Crimson and Yes – all the prog stuff to get the brain fired up again. I did that for about a month and then we jumped into rehearsals.

The band is touring this summer.

And finally in Presidential election news, presumptive Democratic nominee for President Barack Obama passed a very important threshold in the delegate count Tuesday night as exhibited by this photo. Thanks to Drew over at Counterparts for the image. :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

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