Back From The Rush Concert (music as anti-aging time warp)

Hi, Sweet Baby,

I am back from the Rush concert. I know you are asleep but I wanted to check in anyway, since I've been gone all day long. I wanna get situated here, because I literally just walked in the door, so I just wanna have a little something to eat real quick and then I will write more, in about 10 or 15 minutes. The concert was incredible, but I am reasonably sure I will never go down to Irvine again for a show. Grimsley and I left at 3:30 sharp. And do you know what time we got parked in the Irvine Meadows parking lot? 7:10pm.

Yep. That's 3 hours and 40 minutes for a 65 mile trip. Not sure of the exact math, but I think you are looking at an average speed of 17mph. The traffic was horrendous on the 405 freeway, pretty much bumper-to-bumper the whole way there, with a few short breaks.

So, fantastic show/no more trips to Irvine. Back in a few minutes with more. Hope you had a great day!

I Love You!  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)

1:45am : I am back. Anyway, the concert itself was incredible. The show was exactly 3 hours long, with a 15 minute intermission, so 2:45 of straight music, and it was pretty mindboggling to see three guys in their 60s pull off something of this magnitude. Rush has been doing 3 hour shows (with no opening act) for a while now, the last 10 or 15 years, but this time - perhaps because is it said to be their last major tour - they pulled out a lot of the early adventurous stuff that they hadn't played in years.

Just one great song after another. I was remarking to Grimsley on the drive home that we are witnessing some of our favorite bands near the Finish LIne. With Rush, it's such a mindblower, because in my case, they've been not just part of my life, but a major part (because music is so important to me) since 1976. That is the year I found out about Rush, two years after their first album came out. I first saw them live in 1978, as I said yesterday. So it's a trip to see them, almost two generations later, and they are still putting on a concert at a mind-boggling level, with all that music and all those songs.

It's also a trip to watch a band, over a great many years, and to listen to them on record and to see them live over that time period, and to notice the difference.

Rush on record has gone through some stylistic changes, but live, they have always been a hard, hard rock band. It's like they are in their own world up there on stage, for all these years. No matter how many years go by, or how the world changes (or doesn't), a band like Rush has just stayed in their world, touring and making records for 41 years, but onstage they might as well be in their 20s, such is their energy and attitude.

It's like time stops, in a way, for bands that continued to record and tour for all these years.

They are the same 21 year olds, on the inside, who formed the band in the first place, and you can see it now, as they near the finish line in their 60s.

It's really weird, and neat!, for the fans, because it's like when you are at a Rush concert, it is it's own world. And you the fan become part of that world, and so time stops for you, too.

The whole rock and roll thing is weird, because it was built by youth, with a focus on youth, and yet some of it's most famous practitioners are in their 60s and 70s. These bands, like Rush, say they won't be doing it much longer.

But that's something none of us fans have ever considered before, or have even had to consider.

Won't be doing it anymore? Won't be touring? What about making records?

None of it makes any sense.

Because it's like a new frontier has been crossed. When you see a show like we saw tonight, 2 hours and 45 minutes of music it would be hard pressed of anybody to pull off, let alone a group of 62 year olds, you've gotta wonder what the potential is, for human beings in the future, for things like longevity, creativity, and just the aging process in general.

Now, the guys in Rush look their age. The force of gravity is hard to defeat.

But in every other way it's like being in a Time Warp, and as we have seen, time is a very strange thing.

Well, Sweet Baby, that's all I know for tonight. I have two more sleep-ins coming, so I will use one of them tomorrow morn, and will see you about 10:30am, or so.

You are already long asleep, and so I send you Sweet Dreams in progress......  :)

I Love You.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)