Update on 4/24: There’s a review posted online, pretty good review. 

Tonight is the RUSH Concert here in Austin!

I blogged before about one of my all-time favorite artists coming to town and the awesome tickets he got for us (don’t forget, I’m Uber Awesome, in front of the “Nearly Cool” section, and envied by the “Sucks to be me” sections), but I have some more news.

First, that same friend happened to see Alex Lifeson playing pool last night down at the Four Seasons, where visiting acts usually stay when in Austin.  I haven’t heard word from him yet this morning, so I can only assume he approached Alex, said he admired his work, asked not to be pushed down the stairs and Alex laughed so hard they immediately hit it off and have stayed up all night jamming and showing him the “tricks” of playing awesomelike.  As far as I know, they jetted to Mexico and are on their way back.

Secondly, while I haven’t heard from my friend yet, Geddy and Neil did contact me early this morning about my recent progress in the Guitar Hero III game.  Evidently they are HUGE fans of the game, but can’t quite get all the notes all the time.  They saw my online ranking going up and up and figured they’d ask me for some tips.  I can’t say as I blame them, because look - I’ve doubled my ranking in a week or so, and I still have dozens of songs to play and submit online.

Geddy was all, “I really respect your diligence and effort towards perfection, eh.  I also see that you’ve only logged half of the game so far and have many songs still yet to register on the site, so we’re ignoring your 14,489th place, eh, knowing that you will achieve in the top 100 once all the scores are registered.  I like playing Bass, of course, so will you Co-op with me, eh?“  I mumbled something about needing to sleep or something, so he quickly added “Wayne, eh, I have Neil with me and we can play Rock Band together, eh?“ 

Then there was a pause and Neil came on.  He started on with “Hello, Wayne, eh.  You know how Rock Band is 4 members? Well, Rush, as you know, eh, is only 3 members, so we need someone to fill in with vocals and guitar/bass, whichever you’d prefer to do, eh.“  I still hemmed and hawed a bit so they offered me a signed copy of the Rush comic book.  I said I already had one.  Then they offered up seats in the first five or six rows, and I said I already had 3rd row.  Then they said they’d put on the next album “brought to you by the letter Wayne” and they actually got my attention.

Seeing as how they were asking so nicely, I couldn’t turn them down.   We ended up jamming in their hotel suite, and once their agent woke up from his stupor and shook the scantily clad women off of him and saw what we were doing, he decided to create this new LOLhero tour, with me and Rush headlining.  We came up with the name WHRUSH, The Great American LOLhero

If this is what happens the day OF a concert, I can’t wait for what could happen the NIGHT OF!

First, don’t forget to go leave a comment on Wednesday’s post Guess the Movie and Pay It Forward to win a book!  You don’t have to guess the movies - any comment will be eligible.  You need to post by tonight (Friday, Feb 8th) midnight central.

Now, for today’s post.  RUSH

Recently, I got some great news — Rush, one of my all-time favorite bands, extended their Snakes and Arrows tour!  This is awesome, because I missed them the first time around.

Then, I got even better news!  Rush is actually coming to Austin!  Although the Metro Austin Area is not too small population-wise (over a million), we hardly ever get my favorite acts.  They usually hit Dallas, Houston or San Antonio because those cities are so much bigger and I guess the bands figure Austinites can carpool over or ride their bike or hitchhike.  I’m also sure venue size has something to do with it - we don’t really have places like Reliant Stadium or Verizon Wireless Stadium to host huge acts.

You’d think I’d be a pretty happy camper.  I was.  I was indeed.  That is, I was until a good friend of mine said “oh and by the way, I got us tickets during the presale.”

Señior, you had me at el “oh”.

So how happy do you think I was when he said he scored Row 3 in section 1?  We both were like “oh, so does Frank Erwin center have those demon AA rows or “1A” section where you THINK you’re sitting in a great place but they end up catering to someone else in an even “better” section than 1?” and “pinch me so I know it’s real” and “dude, stop pinching me, I’m not that good of a friend”

Take a look at the arena (updated to correct seating chart - thanx Dave for finding):

Here’s what I’m thinking.  I’m thinking this person and I… we’re pretty good friends, known each other a long time, godfathers of each others kids, etc.   I’d probably not only help him move if he needed me, but I’d probably help him move a body.  I always thought we were pretty close.

But after I saw that he got these for face value and they’re selling like crazy, now I know we’re close.   How close?  Just look how close:

The guy could make a clean $400 per ticket if he wanted to.  (Now that I think about it, maybe he doesn’t know… hmm, probably safer if I don’t tell him until AFTER the tickets come in.) 

If anyone tells me again that the economy is bad, I’m gonna shove this JPEG right up their nose.  There are PLENTY of jobs and money to go around if the market can bear this kind of cash for Rush.  Some of the tickets are $1000!  We’re not talking Hanna Montana, Nickelback, Metallica or a band who has uber multigenerational draw - we’re talking about Rush.    Rush draws geeks, nerds, engineers, and musicians.  Rush has smart people listen to them.  Smart people don’t overpay for tickets.

There are many reasons I strive to be like this guy and I show everyone this video.

1. Someone knows how to do useful, cool video effects.  Every guitar hero video should be this cool - it shows the portion of the screen you need to see, AND you get to see the fingers, strumming and mechanics.
2. He’s really really good at the best song on Guitar Hero II (YYZ by Rush)
3. There’s not an extreme lack of humor. 
4. This reminds me of how I would introduce myself to The Internets if I was that good on the game.
5. The ending is something you HAVE to stick around to watch.
6. I needed a good excuse to try out my new video plugin on WordPress.

(more…)

Fresh off of rush.com

It’s entitled “Snakes & Arrows” and you can go to the website to hear a taste of the new single “Far Cry”.

I need me some more Rush, so I’m glad they’re willing to feed me.  I got on a Rush kick recently and have just been playing nothing but Rush - all albums - all songs - on random.  Maybe I cosmically sensed something was coming, because the new album was news to me until this morning.