A friend of mine who is a big Rush fan, invited my wife and I to Phoenix for their concert the other night. They played a bunch of stuff off their new Snakes & Arrows album, but also threw in longtime standards like Freewill and Tom Sawyer.
I think Rush does it better than most 30 year old bands, but then they were always more known for their tight technical playing, than for any acrobatics on stage. In fact, Neil Peart shows virtually no emotion while playing, but that's just a slight dig on one of the best drummers of all time. And maybe he has every right to be staid, after losing his wife and daughter in under a year from a car accident and cancer back in 1997.
Unfortunately the concert was marred by the death of a police officer who was shot and killed by some idiot trying to pass a forged check at a nearby check cashing business. For us it was a mere inconvenience since they had nearby streets closed limiting exit from the concert to just one gate, and we didn't get home until almost 3 am. I read in the Phoenix paper the next day how and where the officer died, and my heart goes out to his family. They've already made some arrests, so hopefully the killer(s) get what's coming to them.
