Rush 30th Anniversary UK Tour
(Part of the Rush Collector Resources)
© Dave Weller, 2004 - last updated 6th November
Outside Wembley Arena on Wednesday 8th September the anticipation was palpable. For the first time in twelve years Rush would be playing a mammoth three and a half hour show in front of a sold out crowd to celebrate their 30th anniversary. Most of the audience looked they had celebrated their own individual 30th anniversaries, quite a few years ago, and the unofficial ‘wear the oldest Rush tour t-shirt’ competition was being hotly contested. I didn’t see any from the first UK tour, back in 1977, but subsequent tours were all well represented. An interesting twist on the competition was participation by proxy – in other words, take your children along and get them to wear your original, and well-worn, ‘Permanenet Waves World Tour’ shirt. If you weren’t a fan back in the 70s and 80s the alternative was to show your allegiance by proudly wearing a shirt from the recent ‘Vapor Trails’ tour, or any other tour that never made it to Europe. Rush fans are clearly big on merchandise as the queue to the stand outside Wembley nearly snaked around the venue and the scrum inside at all the shows I went to was unrelenting. Apparently a new sales record sales was set at the Birmingham show a few days later. About the only item not being snapped up was the Rush tour thong, even though the percentage a women at the shows was reasonably healthy.
Rush first played a concert in the UK at the City Hall in Sheffield on June 1st 1977. This was one of 8 dates of a European leg (6 in England, 1 in Scotland and 1 in Sweden) at the end of their “All The World’s A Stage” tour, before they retreated to Rockfield Studios in Wales to record “A Farewell To Kings”. The last time they played a concert in the UK was at the Wembley Arena in London on April 18th 1992, on the European leg of the “Roll The Bones” tour. Between these two dates they returned to perform almost 80 shows including a memorable set of 5 consecutive sold out nights at the Hammersmith Odeon between June 4th and June 8th 1980 on the “Permanent Waves” tour and 3 nights at the Wembley Arena on November 4th, 5th, and 6th 1981 on the “Exit… Stage Left” tour.
Tickets for the R30 UK tour went on public sale on Friday 27th February, with advertisements in national and regional newspapers, including The Sun, The Sunday Times, the Sunday Mirror, the Mail on Sunday, the Daily Record, the Manchester Evening News and the Evening Standard. Adverts also appeared in the music press including Kerrang!, Metal Hammer, Mojo and Classic Rock. The first night at Wembley (11,500 seats, 8th September) and the show at Birmingham (12,300 seats, 11th September) sold out after a week. Another UK date, at Wembley (9th September), was announced on March 5th, another Birmingham date (15th September) was announced on March 15th, and the Manchester show was extended to use the full 18,000 seat capacity of the venue – also a sell out, this was the biggest single audience Rush had ever performed to in the UK. The sixth show was at the Glasgow SECC (14th September).
On the 17th March the final set of European dates were announced. After the UK leg of the tour Rush played a further eight shows in mainland Europe; four in Germany, one in Italy, Czech Republic, and Sweden with the final show at the Ahoy Stadium in Rotterdam, Holland, on 1st October. A fifth show had been planned in Germany but was cancelled when it became clear that it would not be possible to get to the venue in time after the previous show. The R30 tour kicked off in the North America at the AMSouth Amphitheater, Nashville, Tennessee on 26th May. Rush will then play 39 shows in the US and two shows in Canada before heading to the UK.
Back to Wembley, as the audience started to take their seats, the final preparations were made on stage. Six spotlight operators scrambled up wire ladders to take their positions in the lighting gantry suspended above the bands’ equipment. Guitarist, Alex Lifeson, opted for the standard black wall of amplifiers and speakers. Drummer, Neil Peart, had a staggering assortment of percussion to hit, bang and basically beat the hell out of, all on a riser that rotated at various points during the show to present one of two different kits. Bass player and vocalist, Geddy Lee, went for an ironic backdrop of tumble dryers and a vending machine; the former stuffed with tie-dyed t-shirts that were dispensed to lucky fans at the end of the show. Some of these have since been sold for over £400 on Ebay – clearly to someone keen to participate in a future tour t-shirt competition.
When the house lights dimmed a rear projector screen burst into life to show an animated video montage featuring characters, scenes and images from the covers of each Rush album. At the end of the video American comedian Jerry Stiller appeared on the screen to ‘encourage’ the band onto the stage, and then the show began for real as the crowd let out a huge roar to welcome the band back to the UK again. The opening number was the “R30 Overture”, a medley of riffs from one song off each of the first six albums (“Finding My Way”, “Anthem”, “Bastille Day”, “A Passage To Bangkok”, “Cygnus X-1”, and “Hemispheres”), then they kicked into “The Spirit Of Radio”, followed by “Force Ten” and “Animate”. At this point Geddy said a few words of thanks to the crowd, promised to play “way too much music” and then returned to what he and his colleagues do best, playing numbers that covered the whole range of their career; “Subdivisions”, “Earthshine”, “Red Barchetta”, “Roll The Bones”, “Bravado”, “YYZ”, and “The Trees”. Then Geddy introduced “The Seeker”, a cover version of the song by The Who before moving into “One Little Victory” complete with video backdrop of fire breathing dragon and a pyrotechnic backdrop of huge flames across the stage. As the flames died down the band left the stage for a short intermission.
The second set began with another video, called, “That Darn Dragon”. In Gerry Anderson style the band appeared as bobble-head puppets, dressed in their finest 70s stage gear, to battle with another malevolent dragon intent on destroying a Rush merchandise stand. And then it was back to the music with “Tom Sawyer”, “Dreamline”, “Secret Touch”, “Between The Wheels” performed for the first time since 1984, “Mystic Rhythms” and “Red sector A”. Neil Peart’s drum solo was followed by an acoustic rendition of “Resist” and another cover, “Heart Full of Soul”, also acoustic, but with Neil back to provide accompaniment. Clearly the band were enjoying themselves and the whole performance was extremely relaxed. The on stage antics and interplay between Alex and Geddy even caused the stern faced and emotionless Neil to crack a few wry smiles. The long hair, kimonos and silk of the 70s (as recalled in the intro video) may have been replaced with a no-nonsense jeans, t-shirt and trainers approach to playing but the music of the 70s lives on, and the next 40 minutes were pure indulgence. First came “2112”, though not in it’s 20 plus minute entirety, followed by “La Villa Strangiato” complete with an improvised rant from Alex, then “By-Tor And The Snow Dog” segued into “Xanadu”, complete with double necked guitars – just as they did on the first UK tour. Finally, it was “Working Man” which still sounded as energised today as when it was played in Canadian bars over 30 years ago. The encore featured two more covers, “Summertime Blues” and “Crossroads”, before the show came to a close with “Limelight”.
In a little over three hours Rush had performed songs from every one of their 18 studio albums (with the exception of Presto); all the way from their eponymous debut album released in 1974 to “Vapor Trails” from 2002, and “Feedback”, an EP of cover songs released this year to celebrate their 30th anniversary. Never fashionable, particularly in the UK, even the most begrudging of reviewers had to recognise that it was quite a show. A few days later the music critic of The Guardian, Alex Petridis, wrote “It is so unrepentantly ridiculous, so determinedly overblown, that you couldn’t help enjoying yourself”. And that is exactly what 11,500 fans at Wembley did.
Links and Further Information:
The latest official news is available at Rush.com
Press
Release for the UK tour from Noble PR (who also managed the publicity for
the “Rush In Rio” DVD).
2nd Press
Release from Noble PR for the extra Wembley show
Feature
in Manchester Online, which is similar to a version that appeared in the
print edition of the Manchester Evening News on Friday 27th
February.
3rd Press
Release from Noble PR for the extra Birmingham show
Trial
Will Just Have To Wait, interview with Alex, that appeared in the
Birmingham Evening Mail on 9th August
Rock
Of Ages As Rush Return, interview with Alex Lifeson at Manchester Online,
which is similar to a version that appeared in the print edition of the
Manchester Evening News on Thursday 2nd September
Rush
Keep On Rocking, interview with Alex Lifeson at Liverpool Online, which is
similar to a version that appeared in the print edition of the Liverpool Echo
on Friday 3rd September
Rockers Return Is
Sellout, preview of SECC show in the Glasgow Evening Times online edition
from Thursday 9th
Adrenaline
Rush, interview with Alex Lifeson at ic Birmingham. This also appeared in a
feature in the ‘What’s On’ magazine published with the Birmingham Evening Mail
Review
of Wembley, 8th September, in The Guardian Unlimited. The same
article also appeared in the print edition on 10th September. There
were also reviews of this show in the Evening Standard on 9th
September, The Times on 10th September, Kerrang! on 25th September,
the December 2004 edition of Record Collector, and the December 2004 edition of
Classic Rock.
Stylish
Return For Rocker Trio, review of NEC show at ic Birmingham. A similar
version appeared on the Birmingham Evening Mail on 13th September
Rush
@ Manchester, review of MEN show at Manchester Online. A similar version
appeared in the Manchester Evening News on 13th September
Rush, review of
SECC show at Scotsman.com. This also appeared in the print edition on 15th
September
Rush
SECC, Glasgow, review at Sunday Mail online. This also appeared in the
print edition on 19th September
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