Tag: fifty something tour

Jealousy

I mentioned yesterday that I went to a wake for the parent of an old friend. The old friend is also a former band mate. Back in the 90’s I was the guitar player and sometimes the lead singer (yikes!) and she was the drummer.

That’s right. Our band had a woman playing drums more than 25 years before Rush had a woman playing drums. How cool were we?

Speaking of Rush (again), that’s what this post is going to be about. Rush. Again. The 50 Something Tour. The grand come back. The historically nerdiest band in the world assuming their rightful place as the coolest band to ever come back from retirement and the death of 33% of the lineup. The feel good story of 2026.

Back in the 90’s, the band we were in was made up of all Rush fans. There were three of us and we were all fanatics. We used to try to play The Spirit of Radio and I could almost sort of get there. Not really, but kind of. There was one, maybe two (memory fails me) occasions where the three of us went to see Rush together. Pretty sure we saw them together on the Test for Echo tour in… 1996? 1997? Probably ’97. I can’t recall. Was there another time too? 2002, maybe? I can’t recall.

Our Rush loving drummer had a sister who was a guitar player who was studying at Berkeley College of Music and was approximately 1369742987149176284691327469 times better than I was. I was always sort of expecting that I would get the axe and she would replace me. It’s kind of insane that they never did that. It would have made the band infinitely better.

The guitar playing sister moved to California at some point. She was at the wake last night. I hadn’t seen her since… I don’t even know when. At least 1999, probably earlier than that. The first thing she said to me last night was, “are you going to see Rush?” Did I mention she was a Rush fanatic too?

Side note: All of you people making jokes about how Rush is a boys only club can just fuck right the fuck off. I know more die hard Rush fans who are women than who are men. I married one. So there.

Back to the story, she asked me if I was going to see Rush and I said we got tickets to see them in New York. At this point I had completely forgotten that she lived in Southern California. If I hadn’t forgotten that I would have known what was coming. She said she saw them in Los Angeles. They played four shows… she saw two.

They have only played four shows on this tour so far and she saw two of them. I think I turned green with envy. I mean it. Literally. Green.

The tour reaches its second location tonight. They are playing the first of two shows in Mexico City. I have a valid passport. There’s no legal reason why I could not be there. I should be there. We all should be there.

I can’t wait.

A Couple of Musical Thoughts

After taking half a billion photos yesterday I quietly turn my creative thoughts to musical stuff.

I say quietly because I didn’t make any noise today even though I wanted to. I guess we’re starting with a failure but whatever.

The first musical thought… I am hoping to write and record demos for 10 songs this month. As of half an hour ago I am up to seven songs in progress. They are all just MIDI tracks right now. No lyrics or melodies or guitars or anything. I’m working on it though. A little progress on most days after failing to do anything for about the first week of June. 

The other musical thought tonight is a little more abstract. Generally speaking, the world is kinda shit right now. We have pro-nazi assholes and pedophile protecting pieces of shit everywhere we look. We as a society have just devolved into this awful clusterfuck of awful. Through it all there is one thing…

We have this one beacon of positivity. This single shining example of goodness and rightness standing up in the middle of the ocean of bullshit. Rush. They have only played four shows in one city and it has been absolutely magical and magnificent and perfect and wonderful and I never ever want it to end.

Our tickets are for a night that is just over a month away and it feels like we’re going to be waiting for an eternity to be able to join in the magic, but the day is coming and there will be other shows in the meantime in whose social media posted glory we may bask.

Rush. We don’t deserve them but we need them. We need them to help us claw our way out of the cesspool. I can’t freaking wait for Madison Square Garden in late July.