UPDATE, 7/17@8:20PM: I added plenty of pictures to the post this morning (as you can see)... but had forgotten to mention it 'til now. I'm also finally feeling rested after a lazy afternoon at home with my 10-month-old.

I'm back from Rushcon and I'm tired ... so forgive me if I ramble or am slightly incoherent. I finished my last report just before we all headed off to the Orbit Room for a private party before the Tribute band show. We all gathered outside the hotel at 6:30 and they hauled us all down the street to Little Italy in an old yellow school bus - which caused me to have flashbacks to my school days. As we all got off the bus in front of the Orbit Room we received many confused looks from people dining on outside patios nearby. The Orbit Room, like Anthem Records, is hard to spot if you don't know what you're looking for. It's tucked in the heart of Toronto's Little Italy cleverly hidden above a dentist's office. There's a sign out front but it's easily missed. For the next 2 hours, everyone drank, ate and conversed - and wondered whether Lerxst would show up (he didn't). The club is quite small and has a tiny little stage where live bands play. There's also a nice patio out back where the smokers can congregate.

At 8:15 we all piled back on the bus and headed to the Marquee Events Theater where the tribute band would be playing. It's a good venue with a large open floor - there was plenty of room to accomodate all the RushCon attendees and a few other stragglers. Toronto Airport came on stage at a little after 10 and immediately pounded out the entire Moving Pictures album - in order ... which was really cool. I didn't keep track of the exact setlist, but they also played Spirit of Radio, Freewill and Natural Science off of Permanent Waves. Some other selections were Distant Early Warning, Circumstances, Xanadu, The Trees, Leave That Thing Alone!, Subdivisions, The Analog Kid and a medley toward the end of the night which I'm a little fuzzy on; I had racked up quite a collection of empty Moosehead bottles by then. But it started out with 2112: Overture and ended with 2112: Grand Finale; and there was a lot of older stuff thrown in the middle. Oh yeah... there was also a very kickass drum solo. All in all the band was very good. My only complaints were that they didn't do 2112 in its entirety and they didn't do Bastille Day (how could they not do Bastille Day on the day after Bastille Day?!?). But those are only minor complaints - everyone, especially the band, seemed to have a great time (I know I did).

I opted out of the Lakeside Park tour slated for today although I was tempted. I'm sure they all had a great time. I live close enough to St . Catherines that I can give myself a tour someday.

I have plenty of pictures too - but no time to post them today... must get sleep. Fortunately I took the day off tomorrow.

NOTE: Posts over 10 years old are partially archived. All comments, images and other embedded media have been removed.