Rush - Snakes & Arrows - Atlanta, GA - June 13, 2006

[PeterG]

Wow... that'll be great!

[gr8sho92]

Originally Posted by OverHillandDale

1) Limelight - a good opener.
2) Digital Man - video screens are showing video cameras on musicians.
3) Entre Nous - personal greeting to audience followed the song
4) Mission - a video played in the background for this.
5) Freewill - great bass and guitar dual in this song.
6) The Main Monkey Business - 1st S&A song, instrumental, funny video
7) The Larger Bowl - introduced by our great white north friends
8) Secret Touch
9) Circumstances - show was lagging a little here. Audience not real familiar with the new stuff and this song low on energy.
10) Between The Wheels - picked the up a little but energy still seemed low.
11) Dreamline - Okay, break out the lasers - good up end to the first act.

INTERMISSION - 25 minutes

1) Far Cry - Video intro with background music before this song.
2) Workin Them Angels - good video in background.
3) Armor and Sword - lots of flashing lights, but excellent stage coloring too.
4) Spindrift - lasers made a repeat appearance.
5) The Way The Wind Blows (from S&A) cool tune, good background
6) Subdivisions
7) Natural Science
8) Witch Hunt
9) Malicious Narcissism - best instrumental of the night - good guitar/bass interplay and that is followed by a 20 minutes drum solo - including the drum stage pivoting to show the synth pad set up. It even includes a swing jazz section that really does swing. Neal is the man!
10) Hope (S&A) - a guitar instrumental solo. Very nice calmer after the solo.
11) Summertime Blues -
12) The Spirit of Radio - great rendition. Crowd really into this one.
13) Tom Sawyer - It's sing along time.

ENCORE

1) One Little Victory - Didn't recognize this song. Seemed a strange encore to me, but others were singing along.
2) A Passage to Bangkok - another one I didn't recognize, but some were singing with this one. Felt a little low.
3) YYZ - Now we're talking. This is the high energy encore stuff I was looking for. Good show closer.

Here are my random musings on the show.

I highlighted my favorites from the West Palm show using OHD's provided playlist. The live performances of the new songs were all well done and in most cases seemed better than the studio versions. I absolutely agree that Malignant Narcissism was for me the highlight of the show and was just outstanding. I also really enjoyed the Eric Clapton tribute on The Way the Wind Blows. Dreamline (I loved Roll the Bones when it was released) was quite well done. The drum solo is a hallmark of Rush shows and everything written above is dead on. When the drumset spins around and he starts playing these other percussion instruments, there is an overhead shot of a simple looking keyboard he plays with his drumstick. Very slick and I do understand why Mr. Peart gets the acclaim he gets. It is well deserved. In fact, he is so good at what he does that he appears to be a machine. Perfect right down to the snarl/frown he wears for pretty much the whole show.

About Summertime Blues. I'm okay with this being in the concert. The song is short and is wrapped by some excellent riffs on both ends. But OHD is correct that this could have been omitted without concern.

We take some things for granted at times when it comes to ease of certain things. I met someone who flew down from Memphis and there were several that flew in from South America to see this show. I would say the show was very close to being sold out based on how little grass remained in the lawn section.

Wasn't really bothered much by any of the effects. It must have been damn hot on the stage because the ambient temp must have been mid 80s with high humidity. Alex was clearly sweating up a storm.

Geddy did very well IMO considering the burden he carries having to worry about his bass and the keyboards. He did manage to wander the stage a few times and almost mastered the Chuck Berry duck-walk.

If you're sitting on either wing, you won't get a lot of real close views of the players. I was sitting literally 6 rows from the stage, but off to the side. When Alex came over he was real close, but the stage is very wide in an amphitheater and there are only 3 guys to take up all that real-estate. I would say what we got was fair.

My buddy (a real Rush-head) said he believes S&A really makes this tour work in the sense that the new album is Moving Pictures caliber, and that says a lot.

I know AM is prog, and Rush is accepted as prog, but the concert itself to me was straight-up in your face hard rock. Nonetheless, it was vintage Rush (sans 2112) and the show is highly recommended.

Originally Posted by PeterG

Wow... that'll be great!

Yes it was!