Rush R40
 
 
saw them last night in Salt Lake City.
awesome.
one of Lifeson's best guitar tones live i've heard.
NO PRS playing!
LOL
mostly pauls, double neck, 355 and 335's
geddy struggled with some of the highest singing,
but man, to sing all night long for several months.... yikes.
i give him a pass.

this is a full concert from about a month ago, in Houston.
if you are not going to see them this time,
at least you can watch a somewhat decent youtube.
setlists are different most nights.
might be their last tour.
 
https://youtu.be/iLRdlVi-_H0

That pretty much describes them the last time I saw them in Dallas a couple of years ago. Very tight. Excellent Paul tone. Geddy struggled on a few of the high notes. 95% men in the crowd and they poked fun of that live onstage.

Thanks for the youtube link Rob...
 
Looks like we're still waiting for European dates. I'm hoping my missus will be well enough by the time they travel across the pond. We're both fans of Rush although we've not seen them as much as we could have done.

Saw them in Chicago on this tour. Absolutely amazing. It's interesting to compare the earlier stages of the tour with the latter stages. In Chicago, I thought Geddy's voice sounded better than I'd hear him in previous shows within the last decade. He was certainly better than when I heard him on the R30 tour. Neil's solos were some of the best he's done. He just nailed everything. Alex was incredible. His leads during the encore were staggering. If this is to be their last major tour, they're going out on their terms at the top of their game.
 
You're absolutely right about the toll a 3+ hour gig repeated every other night takes on people of a certain age. If I tried that, I believe my spine would crawl out of my mouth and beat me senseless. I'm not saying that would take long, but still, it could be a bit embarrassing. 

Thanks Bat.
Going to start my morning with that R40 video.......(well, with a cup of java of course).

they played a lot of 'deep cuts', they haven't played live before, or at least in a long time.
that was kinda cool.
 
 
gotta say, the light show was about the best i've ever seen.
 

Saw them in Buffalo NY and was disappointed with the sound system.  The songs were great and for a few songs it sounded great (otherwise bass tones over-powered everything).  Maybe if they were using some pro-channel eq and compression on the bass?

Haven't seen them since the Roll The Bones tour but I have a bunch of the later DVD's. Love 'em, they're like fine wine. Great sense of humour too, something other bands of their vintage lack. Watched a couple of vids yesterday of them doing 'Losing It' on this tour, what a great song that is.

I just checked (because I'm slow to think of such things) and Rush is selling R40 on 6 Blu-Ray discs or 11 DVDs. There are a few problems with this. First, it doesn't contain anything from the R40 tour (I know, it's kind of premature for that). Secondly, it includes concert footage that some of us already own (Rush in Rio, R30, Clockwork Angels, Snakes & Arrows, etc.). Thirdly, it costs $101.59. Fourthly, if you can believe some of the early reviews (and I think you can), some of the concerts are mixed rather poorly. (boomy bass, highly compressed, etc. particularly on Snakes & Arrows and Clockwork Angels).
 
Here's a link if you want to shell out some cash. http://www.amazon.com/R40-6-Blu-ray-Box-Set/dp/B00NJADEJM
 
I mean, it would be nice to watch some of the footage from the 70's (including the full live version of 2112), but I've already paid $100 to see the show. I can't justify spending another hundred that doesn't even include the most recent tour, especially when I already have some of the other discs. 
 
Rush, I'm waiting for the real R40 to come out on Blu-Ray or DVD. 

yea, i already have R30 (which is great) but my favorite is the rush in RIO vid...
that, is off the charts.
insane.
the extras alone, are worth the cost of the vid
 
 
if i need a 'rush' fix,
i just put on Hemispheres,
which is by far my favorite of their entire catalog.
 
which is probably also the album that people that hate Lee's voice in general, hates in specific!
LOL
 
 
from a recent rolling stone front page article:
It was Lee who pushed hardest for Rush's Eighties transformation, after hitting prog overload with 1978's Hemispheres. Among other problems, they wrote and recorded the backing music for the entire album without checking whether Lee could sing over it. "We wrote it in such a phucked-up key," he says, his frustration still fresh 37 years later. "It was just the worst two weeks of my life recording vocals."


 
another excerpt:
 
"This next song features Minnie Mouse," Geddy Lee informs an empty arena in Tulsa, Oklahoma, adopting a squeaky falsetto. It's a dress rehearsal a couple of weeks later, and Rush just finished the surging 1977 song suite "Xanadu," with both Lee and Lifeson wielding double-necks (Lifeson named one of his "Heavy" and the other one "Bastard"), and Lee attempting high notes that seemed both easy and in excellent taste when he was 23. "You have to get over yourself and just say, 'Well, OK, I'll just get into the period,' " Lee says offstage. "I didn't really know what I was doing back then. I was just kind of screaming. It took me, like, 10 years to learn that there are some keys that are better to sing in." 



entire RS article here:
http://www.rollingstone.c...e-cover-story-20150616