No. 647 – Manhattan Project

Performer: Rush

Songwriters: Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Neil Peart

Original Release: Power Windows

Year: 1985

Definitive Version: Presto Tour, 1990

After I rediscovered Rush in 1989, seeing them for the first time in 1990 forever cemented my love.

Early in the year, it was announced that Rush would play in Columbus for, if not the first time, the first time in a long time. As I’ve mentioned, Columbus during my prime concert-going years didn’t have a venue that was suitable for a big group.

Rush wasn’t big enough to try and pull off Ohio Stadium, like Pink Floyd did in 1988, but how about Cooper Stadium? I don’t recall many—if any—bands playing at the Clippers’ ballpark. It was a great idea. The park seated about 15,000 for baseball. That’s right in the, ahem, ballpark of your basic arena.

Scott got the tickets—I seem to recall that he might have done the overnight on the sidewalk again this time—and it turned into a family affair. In addition to me coming in from Flint, Jin was going to drive in from Chicago, and even Dad and Laura were going. Jin was beside herself: Can you imagine Dad at a Rush concert? Hey, why not?

By the time of the show in June, I was ready. I had bought Presto, the album Rush was touring to support, and was starting to get into it. I also was playing A Show of Hands quite a bit, too, so I was prepared for them playing lots of newer material and little of the older songs I loved from their previous two live albums. After all, the only “old” songs on Show of Hands were Witch Hunt and Closer to the Heart. I assumed that that was representative of where they were these days. Didn’t matter; I still was looking forward to it.

And Scott came through with excellent tickets: 10th row on the ground, maybe 50 feet from Alex. He got two groups, because he could get only four at a time. The second batch—in about the 20th row—were for Dad and Laura. Jin, Scott, a friend of Scott’s and I got the 10th-row seats.

We all assembled at Dad’s house before the show and headed on down, making sure to take the Nothing Stretch, like Scott and I used to for Clippers games years before. (We didn’t go 100 mph this time, however.)

It felt cool to walk down the aisle and out the gate onto the field. It was the first time I ever had been on a pro ballfield, although you only recognized it as such when you turned to look at the stands. Cooper Stadium at that time had artificial turf, and a gigantic tarp covered the field to prevent the drunks from spilling any of the contents of their beers—pre- or post-consumption.

The warmup act was Mr. Big, and I remember only that they sucked. Even a year before Kurt Cobain killed all the bands off with a single song, I had long tired of preening, spandex-laced hair metal. Mr. Big’s set thankfully was short, and then it was time to get Rush on stage.

I’ll never forget that the start of the show seemed haphazard. It was as if the opening choral synth of Force Ten started before the band and in particular Alex even was ready to go on stage. That probably had more to do with the fact that because the show was in June, it still was light out when Rush hit the stage.

It was so light, in fact, that the videos on the screens on either side of the stage couldn’t be seen. You could barely distinguish different lights on stage. Unlike most shows where they announce the band’s arrival by turning off all the lights, you couldn’t tell the difference here. But Rush was rocking; who needed a light show?

I warned Jin ahead of time of the likelihood that they would stick exclusively to newer material, so, of course, the second song out was Free Will. WOOOOOO!! They also did Red Barchetta early; I wasn’t expecting that at all.

By about the fifth song, it was finally dark enough that you could start to make out the videos, and when the band launched into Xanadu, which followed this song, and unleashed the lasers for the first time, you could definitely see them.

The show was one of the best I had seen up to that time, and when they finished their encore with a medley of 2112, La Villa Strangiato and In the Mood (um, yeah, you know that part about how they don’t play older songs any more? Yeah, Ignore that.), I turned and saw Dad and Laura had moved up about eight rows and Dad was applauding wildly. It turned out he loved the show as much as we did, which made Jin even more apoplectic.

In another month, I’ll be seeing them on their Clockwork Angels tour, and I’m looking as much forward to it as I was the first one. It’ll be the lucky 13th time I’ve seen them—I haven’t missed a tour in 22 years—which is more than twice as many times as I’ve seen anyone else (Pearl Jam, five times). And it all began with a single show in my hometown in 1990.