Friday morning while nursing the baby, I turned on the DVR to watch a recording of an earlier night's Stephen Colbert and found that he had the members of RUSH on his program - for the first time on American television in over thirty years. First - let me explain that RUSH is one of my favorite bands ever. RUSH had already been around for awhile when I was just getting old enough to pay attention to popular music.

I remember them being quite the controversy because of that rumor going around that RUSH stood for "ruin under Satan's hand." Which, as we all know, is total crap. It was "right under Satan's hand." (When the Deseret News debunks a juicy rumor like this, you know it was baseless.)

I really got into RUSH when I was in college. I was playing in a steel drum band and dating a percussionist who introduced me to the amazing talent that is Neil Peart. I can remember driving around with my friends in college, air drumming all the fills to the entire soundtrack of Moving Pictures. So they have a place in the history of my life, so to speak.

I am so out of the loop that I did not know they had a new album out, much less were touring. That's what happens to you when you have kids. No matter how young and hip you think you still can be, you would rather go to bed at 7:00 pm because by some Harmonic Convergence Of The Stars And All That Is Good And Holy In The World you got both kids to sleep and now's your time to catch up. There's not a lot of time left in between those rare occurrences to keep up to date on things like forty year old bands and what they're doing these days unless you find it on Behind the Music at 2:00 in the morning.

Just after Stephen Colbert opened by asking the band members, Do you ever get tired of being so awesome and kicking so much ass?, I was showing the KingofHearts the part where they show a shot of Peart's ridiculously giant drum kit so big it had it's own weather system and Stephen asks him, Do you think you might have a drum dependency? I remarked to KoH, "You know, I always wanted to see them and never got a chance. I didn't even know they were touring again." Then I went into the kitchen to make some breakfast.

A few minutes later, I turned around to find him on the computer looking up their tour and the cost of tickets. The website said they were in town tomorrow (tomorrow!), but that everything was sold out except for the North Carolina show. I facetiously suggested driving down to Charlotte for the concert - it wasn't that far after all. Then a minute later, I don't know how, he'd not only found available tickets to the D.C. show but was purchasing them at a completely unreasonable price. I was so stunned - I don't know if it was more the fact that they were available or that he paid a king's ransom for them - that I didn't have time to second think it. So last night, we went to see RUSH at the Nissan Pavilion.

It was amazing, and I screamed myself hoarse... something I have never before done in my life. This morning, the only way I can communicate is blogging so here's my review of the concert that I no doubt would share with my friends, if I had friends, and if the friends I had cared about rock bands anymore and if I were a teenager getting up the morning after a teenage rite of passage such as a RUSH concert. These are some of the comments you could have heard if you had been around us last night:
  • KoH: "What time does the concert start?" Me: "I've heard they always start late because they don't have an opening band." KoH: "Well, they've been touring for over thirty years.. They should be able to start on time by now." Me: "I'm pretty sure if you go to a rock concert and complain about it not starting on time, you're too old to attend."
  • "Hey, we should do stuff like this more often. This is like the first time we've had a date in like... a year or more." "Our lives make me sad."
  • Twelve year old Waitress seating people at the table next to us at the restaurant before the show: "Oh, it's crowded in here because there's some kind of old peoples' concert.... Rush or something like that?"
  • Eleven year old waitress at Cold Stone Creamery referring to another eleven year old employee - "Oh he's just down there talking jibberish." KoH: "Well, he's an adolescent... They do that." Waitress: "Oh no he's not an adolescent. He's like eighteen!" Eye rolls from us.
  • "Seriously? People are going to stand up for three hours? We paid a lot for these seats. I want to use them."
  • "Damn.. Why did we forget to bring earplugs?"
  • "I think someone let his kid do their videos on his iMac with his new iVideo software. Seriously, these are perplexing."
  • "I wonder who designs the lighting for a show like this.. How many figures do you suppose that guy brings down per year?"
  • "Hey it's midnight... I can't remember the last time I was out of the house at midnight.... Ummm my life makes me sad."

Theme of the evening: We're Old.