Rush, Dte Energy Music Theatre, 8/28/2007

[freydis]

An evening with Rush, the ticket said.

And quite an evening it was.

The pavillion and lawn were jam packed, everywhere you looked, it was a virtual sea of heads. And as ever, Geddy, Alex and Neil kept the crowd excited. Along with the majority of their new album, Snakes and Arrows, they brought out a wide selection of classics as well as lesser played gems, such as (to my surprise) Natural Science.

They had a very smoothly put together video show behind and between most songs, and even a few custom clips such as a

(The MacKenzie Brothers), and a South Park Rush clip. The light setup was also rather impressive, with large banks of spotlights and area lights that moved (the entire section of lights raised, lowered, pivoted, etc) and an extensive laser light setup as well. The addition of pyrotechnics was an unexpected treat.

As always, there was a quirky gimmick in the show, but this one was a little harder to get. Past shenanigans have been things like Neil being acompanied to the drum kit by a blow up doll, or the stagehands playing shadow puppets with plastic dinosaurs against the backdrop. This time, there were 3 large chicken roasters onstage. (I think they may have been rigged fronts to more equipment, but I'm not really sure). At least once that I recall, a person in a chef's outfit came out, opened the glass doors, checked the 'chicken', and left. I'm sure it was a pretty funny inside joke.

The big wow of the night, was of course, the drum solo. Neil had a massive kit with a wide range of drums in the front, and a lot of electronic gear in the back (some electronic drums and noisemakers, an electronic xylophone looking effect pad), which rotated halfway through the solo. Simply an amazing solo. Threw in a bit of jazz clips and jazz drumming at the end, too. Absolutely awsome.

The only let down of the night was DTE's complete lack of traffic control after the show. It took us a little over an hour to get to the car and get out to I-75.

[Scary Guy]

Oh fuck I wanted to go to that.

Steely Dan in September though, I'm looking forward to that too. Read about both in the paper months ago.

[Wooleybooley]

Was a great show, to say the least!

... yeah, the hour-long wait in the parking lot after the show did kinda suck.

[Homicidalheathen]

Wow havn't seen them since the 70's or 80's