An Old Friend

In case it wasn't clear by my two week, fan boy, on-air crush, I'm a huge fan of Rush, the Canadian prog rock trio (not the other one).  They were just in town for their 40th Anniversary Tour, but in a bit of an odd twist, not the 40th anniversary of the band itself.  The 40th they're celebrating was the 40 years of the current line up, with Neil Peart, the second drummer of the band.  The original drummer left after Rush's first album and Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson luckily happened to stumble upon a guy who would become one of the top three rock drummers of all time.  Add to that Geddy making a solid argument for greatest rock bass guitarist of all time, and Alex as top 20 rock guitarist of all time, and you begin to understand why the fans love of this band.

My first time being aware Rush existed was back in Rhode Island.  Jamie Radamcher was a kid ahead of his time.  In 1980, this kid was the first of my friends to get into the Lego building sets, making them according to instructions and then never playing with them, just staring at them.  He'd get so angry if we touched them.  He also was the first kid I knew who was into Dungeons and Dragons.  In the summer of 80, I was over at his house, not playing with the Legos, when the local rock radio station played Spirit of Radio.  Jamie went nuts.  He said, "it's so cool Rush is getting played on air."  I had no idea why this was cool.  I remember Spirit of Radio getting played, and when Tom Sawyer came out the next year, it was everywhere.  I then moved to Georgia for two years and heard nothing.

I had moved back to Minneapolis in 1983, and two of Rush's videos were in heavy rotation in the early days of MTV; Subdivisions (this band was WAY ahead of everyone else on their criticism of suburban culture, something apparent every time I drive past a strip mall full of chain restaurants and chain stores) and Distant Early Warning (one of the first songs to make fun of the constant 'be afraid of nukes' mantra which fueled Reagan era policies).

Steve Clay, a good friend of mine in high school and a HUGE Rush fan (he was at the concert on Tuesday too), convinced me to go to see the Power Windows Tour in March of 1986 at the old Civic Center.  I was sold as soon as the Three Stooges theme played.  Back then, Rush was big enough to have a good set of hits, which they played most of (except for Fly By Night), and they could still revisit favorites without feeling like they left anything out.  Last Tuesday, they skipped over five albums completely and still played for near 3 hours, omitting at least 10 of their most popular songs.  I'm not complaining, the R40 tour was amazing.

Tuesday was my 10th Rush concert.  I pray they keep playing together for as long as they can.  Every time I listen to an album or see them live, it's revisiting an old friend.  I have other artists I love, and I've been to fantastic non-Rush concerts, but Rush will always be my favorite.