What am I not getting when it comes to Rush?

GonzoBass · June 04, 2011, 10:43:14 AM

Anyone else seen "Beyond the Lighted Stage" DVD?
Great insight into the band
and I loved the classic footage...

Highlander · June 04, 2011, 05:55:26 PM

Tempted to get that one - I just haven't got round to it yet...

FlatEric · June 05, 2011, 01:45:40 AM

I like Rush! There, it's out now!

I have been a fan since seeing Xanadu on The Old Grey Whistle Test,
which if you have seen that footage, explains why I have this.

http://flatericbassandguitar.blogspot.com/2010/09/reeve-twin-progtasic.html

If only I could play like him!!!!! I could then make loads of money and take all you guys
out for a beer!!!

I have to admit. . . . . I don't get all of it but I suppose out of all the material they
have, some tracks aren't going to light my fire.

Kenny - "Stray" link to Rush for those who haven't seen it before.
http://www.stray-the-band.co.uk/archive.htm

http://www.stray-the-band.co.uk/news.htm

Rehearsing today - last thrash before they take the knife to my mitten!! Ouch!

Cheers.

Highlander · June 05, 2011, 04:04:55 AM

Good luck Eric...

iirc that pic of Del with the PC Firebird Twin was taken at that show (at the Hammy O), either that or Kiss in '76

rahock · June 05, 2011, 05:21:28 AM

I thought I was the only one who was not a big Rush fan

. They are alright and Geddy Lee lights it up but they are just not my style.
Rick

SKATE RAT · June 05, 2011, 06:30:31 AM

i always found them boring. but then again i find most "prog" boring. a few years ago, a friend of mine moved cross country. he gave me a bunch of stuff including a crate of records. it had every Yes record. all gatefold covers etc. i took 'em to every used record store in NYC. no body wanted them,even for free. i just left them on the street.lol

uwe · June 05, 2011, 09:47:52 AM

Prog is commercially alive and well, let me tell you. I just saw the Roger Waters The Wall spectacle on in Mannheim on Friday for a hefty 350 bucks in row 12 or so. I"m neither a Pink Floyd, nor a Roger Waters nor a The Wall fan, my favorite Pink Floyd album is in fact Wish you were here for its tranquil ambience, The Wall sounded overarranged and -produced to me even back in the day and not like a Pink Floyd album at all, with syrupy backing vocals all over. But I went because Edith loves that album and it meant all the world to her. Great show, but the necessities of the spectacle stifle anything spontaneous in the music. It was note-perfect - yawn. And where solos were longer that was - according to Waters - only to give the technicians enough time to erect the wall a bit more for the next song. Somehow, for a rock concert that seems awfully wrong to me. But I guess you have to judge The Wall as the musical/event it is. The audience was awed and ceremonious.

Anyway, what was I saying? The 11.000 seater hall was full and even the cheapest tickets were close to a hundred bucks. And I still don't believe that a 12 CD box of The Clash or the Sex Pistols would even approach the sales of when Pink Floyd brings out ditties like that - priced "reassuringly" expensive for baby boomers. Given that prog dinosaur rock is supposed to have died a death in 1977 with the advent of punk, the ole reptile is still doing astonishingly well.

nofi · June 05, 2011, 10:05:08 AM

some might argue that pink floyd is the easy listening branch of prog. if any robert fripp project could sell 11,000 seats then i would be impressed.

gweimer · June 05, 2011, 11:10:55 AM

Quote from: nofi on June 05, 2011, 10:05:08 AM
some might argue that pink floyd is the easy listening branch of prog. if any robert fripp project could sell 11,000 seats then i would be impressed.

I took my then 15 yo daughter to see King Crimson just before The Power To Believe came out. She's been a fan ever since. She's probably one of the very few female KC fans in existence.

jumbodbassman · June 05, 2011, 05:08:40 PM

I keep trying but i can not get past the voice. Can't listen to more than one song and then i have to turn it off. Peart and Geddy can both play but that voice....

I can listen to the worst yes song 10 times in a row and still enojoy. Same for crimson

uwe · June 06, 2011, 05:13:30 AM

Quote from: nofi on June 05, 2011, 10:05:08 AM
some might argue that pink floyd is the easy listening branch of prog. if any robert fripp project could sell 11,000 seats then i would be impressed.

Well put and I'm not arguing! Floyd's music is relatively untechnical (they were never rhythmically complex in the way Jethro Tull, Yes, ELP, King Crimson and Gentle Giant were) and emotional for prog hence its appeal to women. But The Wall with its big Bob Ezrinesque arrangements (as opposed to the sparseness of say Wish You Were Here) is probably one of the proggier later works though its in effect a Roger Waters solo album.

If truth be told, I don't think King Crimson ever sold out an 11.000 seater at any time in their career in any place! But then that is not what Robert Fripp is about.

gweimer · June 06, 2011, 06:20:00 AM

King Crimson was probably at their peak about the time that Beat came out. I saw them on that tour at Poplar Creek, outside Chicago. It was an outdoor venue, and they had a pretty strong and full crowd.

nofi · June 06, 2011, 06:31:49 AM

you can probably divide king crimson as before and after discipline. i favor the before stuff. btw my younger son was in berlin when pink floyd played the wall at 'the wall' back in 1990. he said it was amazing, a word he does not often use. the fact that david hasselfoff was also there did not seem to dampen the affair.

uwe · June 06, 2011, 06:49:25 AM

Don't quote me, but I find one man's obsession with his dead father he never met, 1984/totalitarian threat ragtag paranoia, hippie peace movement sentiments, rock star/famous people self pity alienation and a couple of other influences all purloined from Townshend's Tommy (Tommy doesn't build a wall around him like Pink does, he just turns autistic and deaf, dumb and blind, that is the thickest wall in the world) labored, bloated, self-pompous and infinitely naive. There I said it. I find The Wall as a concept album hugely overrated and the music ... well, it's a Roger Waters album, nuff said, Paul McCartney he ain't nor Robert Zimmerman. If Edith reads this I'm dead.

I can understand Gilmour's and the other guys' sentiments after The Wall recording and tour exactly. They must have felt raped by one huge Roger Waters ego trip. Pink Floyd were always better in my book when they kept their mouths shut and got on with what they did best: creating instrumental aural landscapes, Tangerine Dream with a blues guitar so to say. The Wall is verbose (with very little fundamental message, you could sum up the plot in five sentences) in comparison.

Speaking of The Wall, ever wondered what Young Lust from The Wall would sound like with Glenn Hughes, Elliot Easton, Tony Franklin, Aynsley Dunbar, Bob Kulick & Billy Sherwood?

nofi · June 06, 2011, 07:15:38 AM

i like pink floyd up to a point. that does not include the wall. i have only heard a few radio tunes from it that were ok. comfortably numb? i think most of the 'prog' left after atom heart mother if you don't include film scores. maybe as far back as umma gumma. after that they became a very good band will very good songs, in the traditional sense. one of a few groups i can still listen to from the bloated 70's.