I am with you, I hope Presto (truly one of their best and most unique albums) and Bones are not overlooked! The ginormous animatronic rabbits in a hat they used during the tour still stand out as some of the coolest stage props I've ever seen; hopefully some version makes it into the game, it would look great and provide a little flavor of the band's sense of humor (which I certainly hope comes through in the finished product).

Hoser!

You probably stepped in it with the "best ever" claim, LOL. No one on this thread should disagree with you, but I can already hear the "What about ELP?!" folks now!

So, before any of you progheads chime in to derail the thread and dispute this with ELP as your pick, please recall that Rush never released anything as nakedly pretentious as "Works", nor did they ever release any unmitigated schlock with matching embarrassing album cover along the lines of "Love Beach"!

Larry, you're a bastard!!

OK, time to get the thread refocused on Rush (via a Primus performance ):

I know, BUT nothing has been revealed quite yet and the endless speculation and "wish lists" are getting a little boring and played-out at this point, so there's really nothing left at this moment to discuss in terms of the pinball machine itself, and it's only natural that the idle time will be filled with stuff that's only tangentially related to the topic at hand.

What I am saying is that this entire thread is a "huge waste of time" until we know something definitive, but there's no harm in casually "shooting the s**t" as a sort of placeholder until we DO have something concrete to latch onto!

I have seen both live several times. Both are a force to be reckoned with and are at the pinnacle of achievement on their instrument (at least in Rock circles - the Fusion guys like Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, Marcus Miller, etc. are the real MFs of the electric bass).

However, compare the Primus YYZ video I posted above with any random Rush performance of the tune and it’s obvious Rush is a bit of a step up in overall musical ability (especially when you bring Neal and Alex into the equation - the band synergy is unmatched, IMO).

Those Death guys are playing lead like Geezer/Lemmy/The Ox, only 4x faster. It’s hard to believe they can do it without studio tricks, then you see them live and wonder if they sold their souls at the “Crossroads”. They are the equivalent of those 6 year-old prodigies that can play Liszt or do Calculus - possibly not quite human, lol.

I've seen Rush more than any other band, and that tour was one of the best.

We had very close seats and had a lot of fun heckling Paul Gilbert (stuff like screaming "Racer X! Racer X!" and "Play Y.R.O!", and just generally being obnoxious), and he responded with a grin and threw a huge handful of picks at us - probably the best Rock and Roll thing that ever happened to me (other than the surreal moment when I stepped up to a urinal at a NY Rangers game and realized I was standing next to Lou Reed, but that's a story for another thread).

I keep hearing "Subdivisions" in my head, but "The Trees" certainly works too!

Damn right Mr. Big was a great band!

Sorry if I gave the impression of throwing shade; we only heckled Paul during the ballad stuff, and he definitely took it in the good-natured way we intended. I am certain he could see from our reactions to other stuff he played that we were major fans of his, and when they got to the part where he was getting ready to cut loose with that drill/guitar pick contraption, he faced us, made eye contact and grimaced into the most ridiculously exaggerated "guitar face" I think I've ever seen, then proceeded to blow the roof off the arena - so f'in cool!

Billy was great as well. I loved the bands he was involved in, and of course had the Talas album, but his amazing talent didn't fully "click" with me until I later discovered Naicin, a Fusion outfit consisting of Sheehan, Dennis Chambers (d), and John Novello (B-3). If you are a fan of 70s Prog and/or Fusion and haven't heard the band, you really owe it to yourself as it's some of the most sophisticated music I've ever heard out of a trio, with some drumming and Hammond work that would give Billy Cobham and Keith Emerson a run for their money! (Start with "Organik" or "Live! Blood, Sweat, and Beers", and prepare to sit slack-jawed.)

The two-album run was way too short, as was the "Eat Em' and Smile" album length (barely 30min if I remember correctly, but at least there's no "filler" tracks)!

Oh well, I guess quality>quantity.

Not crazy by any stretch!

Vai could mop the floor with EVH (sorry it’s true - I’ve seen both several times, no comparison), and Alex and Michael play like amateurs compared with Bissonette and Sheehan. VH did have some sweet vocal harmonizing the DLR band couldn’t match though.

I challenge you to cite anything by VH that features musicianship at the level of “Elephant Gun”, “Shyboy”, or “Damn Good”!

“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Keep in mind that regardless of the ridiculousness over the past couple of years, the long-term trend is steadily decreasing violent crime rates since the 80s in most areas of the country (peak homicide rate/100k pop. was in 1980).

Add to that the fact that we have great tech that didn’t exist when we were kids. Everyone carries a phone, and GPS tracking is easier than ever for both both people (make sure your kids’ phones are connected to your account and use the “Find My Phone” feature if you get anxious) and vehicles (numerous ways to easily keep tabs on their whereabouts).

Bottom line, the ease with which we can surveil our kids (poor things will NEVER know the freedom we did ) plus the crime stats suggests that it’s objectively SAFER now!

I also don’t believe people are any “worse” now than in the past (the fallacy of looking at the past through rose-colored glasses is universal). The long arc of history shows that on balance, humans have ALWAYS been mostly shit, and going back at least as far as Socrates, older generations have always been pessimistic about younger generations.

The data simply doesn’t support the popular “sky is falling” narrative that seems to have so much of the population in such a stranglehold of anxiety; we are still a long way from the 1991 peak, when I was 17 and on the loose with no pager, no cell, and a nonfunctional odo in my car:
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YYZ is a must; hit the lit targets, which constantly change in sync with the tempo of the song, for super jackpots.

Camera Eye could be the basis of an interesting mode using a webcam (if this game is going to feature one) and the new online upgrades to the system.

My wife has thrown it back at me, too, lol.

Then again, she has a point; there’s definitely no escaping the fact that Rush concerts were by far the most lopsided sausagefests of any band I ever saw!

I mean, it is sort of like being a fan of D’nD or anime - probably not the sort of stuff that’s likely to set her alight with passion, especially early in the relationship when the “chemistry” is still in the process of building. (If you do get lucky enough to find that one person in a billion who gets revved-up and naughty at the thought of “Syrinx” serving as your “safe word”, then I’d say she’s a definite keeper, lol!)

I’m staying aboard the Express until Kathmandu; being perfumed by the Nepal night in the shadow of the Himalayas sounds perfect to me.