RUSH!

Yesterday, my brother and I made the journey to Syracuse, New York to see the legendary progressive rock band Rush at the New York State Fair. Rush is my brother's favorite band and they are my favorite band that still tours, so when they announced their 2010 Time Machine tour, buying tickets was a no-brainer. Usually, Rush comes to Buffalo whenever they tour, but this year they opted for Syracuse instead and we had to make the two hour drive; it was totally worth it.

This is the third time we have seen Rush and they have put on a fantastic show every time. There are certain songs that you are guaranteed to hear at every show, but Rush always mixes up their shows to some degree. This year, they played the entire Moving Pictures alum straight through. That was really cool. They also played the two singles that they have already released from their forthcoming album, Caravan and BU2B.

Part of me wants to say that this was the best Rush concert that I've seen, but it's really hard to say. These guys are excellent musicians and they are really consistent from year to year. I can say that it was definitely the loudest show. 24 hours after the show ended, I'm still hearing a high pitched noise in my left ear.

As usual, Rush really did a great job with everything, but I think I enjoyed Freewill, YYZ, and La Villa the best. Those are just some great songs and they really rocked them out. It was the first time I had seen them perform Freewill as well and that was really cool.

Another thing that was surprisingly enjoyable was the little intro video that they played before the band came out. The tour had kind of a steampunk theme going on and they played this video that showed Rush in a alternate universe as a three piece polka band playing in a deli. One of the characters in the deli was the inventor of a device that could convert music into other styles, which meant that we got to hear disco and county versions of The Spirit of Radio before Rush finally took the stage and rocked it out.

Overall, Thursday was a great day. My brother and I took the day off, hit up Dinosaur BBQ for an early dinner, and enjoyed a fantastic rock concert. I can't ask for much better than that.