#65 Sit Front Row at a Concert - Rush "Time Machine" Tour @MSG

        I have never seen so many middle aged, chubby, balding men doing air guitar in my life. Over 10,000 of them to be exact.  I was extremely fortunate enough to be invited to a Rush concert by my friend Hannah. Her aunt and uncle follow the band around on many of their tour dates and always sit front row. Although the tickets they got us were not front row, they were the third row with no second row in front of us. So it was like sitting second row which is like sitting front row. And it was awesome. Especially being at Madison Square Garden at such a large venue. (notice the lack of space between us and the front row rail. Yeah it counts)

          This concert made me never want to sit in a bad seat for the rest of my life. I might spoil myself from this day forward. It's something about being that close and everything is just so much more epic. I could see Geddy Lee smiling and shaking his goofy hair and it's little things like that that you might miss sitting further. Even just looking around the stadium a couple times, you can just see that the energy of the crowd got progressively higher the closer to stage you looked. So therefore being this close meant we were around a lot of exciting and entertaining people. We had the 40+ year old couple next to us who looked like they were stuck in the early 80s. We also had the drunk guys to our left. White collar looking guys, but the one with the parted hair (yes... parted) could have been Lee himself his "Slapping of the baaassss" was so realistic. There was one guy in front of us who was particularly our favorite. He knew every word and acted like he was dancing in his room by himself with his hairbrush as a microphone. He got so into it and since where we were sitting allowed him a lot of room he made sure to jump around and be super active. Check out him going nuts below.

 

Another sweet detail from the concert was the lighting set up. I have never seen anything like it. Not only did they have lights all round the stage, and from the ceiling, but also this amazing tarantula looking contraption above the stage. It had 7 arms covered in lights and each arm would lift and rotate and go every which way. It was amazing it watch all by itself.

 

Besides lighting the stage was also brought to life by fireworks, large cloud of vapor shot into the air, and the heavy use of props on stage. The vapor clouds actually came out of the tops of these themed props. The props all featured a steampunk design with many decorative gears and brass/copper features.

 (pictures courtesy of creativeloafing.com) 

Rush Time Machine Tour set list:

SET 1
THE SPIRIT OF RADIO
TIME STAND STILL
PRESTO
STICK IT OUT
WORKIN' THEM ANGELS
LEAVE THAT THING ALONE
FAITHLESS
BU2B
FREE WILL
MARATHON
SUBDIVISIONS

SET 2
TOM SAWYER
RED BARCHETTA
YYZ
LIMELIGHT
CAMERA EYE
WITCH HUNT
VITAL SIGNS
CARAVAN
LOVE 4 SALE
CLOSER TO THE HEART
2112 OVERTURE / TEMPLES
FAR CRY

ENCORE
LA VILLA STRANGIATO
WORKING MAN

In the second set drummer Neil Peart did an awesome drum solo. Unreal to be more specific. My dad argues that he is the greatest living drummer in the world. Here's a bit of it that I recorded. A full one can be found on YouTube HERE.

  

At the end of the concert there was even a short movie featuring the movie "I Love You Man" which references the band throughout. I quickly caught on to how much the band loves poking fun at themselves. It was a great way to end the concert, and the short little movie itself was hilarious. Almost like a deleted scene from the movie.

To conclude, I have a much greater respect for Rush than I already had. Because like I stated in my previous blog post about Bombay Bicycle Club, you can tell a lot about a band by the way they perform live. I, along with the thousands of 40 year old men at MSG air guitared, jumped around, and sang along to Rush for 3 hours of awesome music. Lesson Learned: There are tons of old guys out there that can definitely rock way harder than I can. WAY HARDER

Rock on older dudes....Rock on

April 15/11 Cleveland, OH Quickens Loans Arena
April 17/11 Detroit, MI Palace of Auburn Hills
April 19/11 Hamilton, ON Copps Coliseum
April 20/11 Montreal, PQ Bell Centre
April 22/11 Baltimore, MD 1st Mariner Arena
May 4/11 Helsinki, Finland Hartwall Arena
May 6/11 Stockholm, Sweden Globe
May 8/11 Malmo, Sweden Malmo Arena
May 12/11 Dublin, Ireland O2
May 14/11 Glasgow, Scotland SECC
May 16/11 Sheffield, UK Motorpoint Arena
May 19/11 Manchester, UK MEN Arena
May 21/11 Newcastle, UK Metro Radio Arena
May 22/11 Birmingham, UK LG Arena
May 25/11 London, UK O2
May 27/11 Rotterdam, Holland Ahoy Arena
May 29/11 Frankfurt, Germany Festhalle

TICKETS HERE

Bombay Bicycle Club - concert

This is a post long overdue, but since it was an awesome time I think it is worth writing about. After spring break Lizzie and I went to the cheapest concert I have ever been to ($23 I think). It was Bombay Bicycle Club a group from England and they were playing at the Mercury Lounge. It was also the smallest venue I have been to. A sign said there was only a capacity of like 275 people. Lizzie and I quickly positioned ourselves right in front to the left side of the stage.

The opening band was good as well and their singer was this very quaint chubby guy who could really hit some notes. Their name I can not remember, but you can refer to Lizzie's blog "Music Gigs and Festivals" for more the more detailed information that I can not give. The crowd was mixed and kinda old! Few guys in suits that looked like they came after work, couples, even tweens who were being chaperoned by mommy or daddy! Regardless of age, everyone there was quite enthusiastic when the feature band took the stage.

Bombay was a group that I was not familiar with until Lizzie had already bought the tickets and told me I was going with her. It was only then that I started you tubing their songs and getting into them. Think of it like research before a test (haha). Either way I always look forward to hearing bands live because i love to see how good they really are. I think concerts are the true test of credibility for a band. You find out if they live up to their own sound, and can inject an audience with energy. The concert was awesome. Not one of the most exciting ones I have been to but very fun and I felt the band delivered well to the audience. Afterward lizzie even got to meet the drummer and bassist.

 

Below are some of my favorite songs by them. Enjoy and remember to check out Lizzie's blog for another review.