I don’t own a single album.

But I knew almost every song they played.

That’s the power of radio.  That’s the power of the filter.

Now was I sitting at home thinking I needed to go to the Rush show?  NO!  But when I heard Alex Lifeson wanted me to come, I was there.  You could call me a groupie, but I love the musicians, they’re so different from the business people, they focus on creativity, they’re not about flash or cash, they’re positively human, I interact at every opportunity, they’re soul mates.

And I was surprised at the assembled multitude backstage.  There’s a plethora of closet Rush fans.

Actually, they’re not so closeted.  That’s what I told Alex, in a hallway outside his dressing room.  He said he figured that Rush’s music wasn’t really my cup of tea.  And I told him I get more e-mail about Rush than any other band.  Wondering why they’re not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, telling me to watch the documentary, Rush fans are PASSIONATE!

And it struck me how normal Alex was.  He told me he married his high school sweetheart, they met when he was fifteen, they’re still together, his grandkids were there!  So different from the image.  Then again, he’s Canadian!

The opening number was "Spirit Of Radio".

You know how from the very first note you’re into it?  THIS WAS A ROCK SHOW!

Not for you, not for everybody, but for those who cared.

And a ton of people care for Rush.

I tweeted I was there, and mikesavage123 snarkily tweeted back: "My guess? 6000 40 year-old men, 21 women."

I immediately turned around and started scanning the venue.  There were a ton of men there.  Fewer women than you might see at an average show, and some were obviously dragged by their significant others, but the rest of them…were into it!

That was what was positively stunning.  You’d turn around and everybody knew the words.  They were playing air guitar.  My favorites were the father and son in the row behind me.  The dad was one of those barrel-chested fortysomething guys drinking beer…and playing every note on his imaginary axe.  But even better was his towheaded not even ten year old son. He was playing every lick too.  And like his dad, singing every word!

Fathers and sons.  Rush isn’t something evanescent, it’s something you get hooked by and stick with.  You go to show after show, you buy the merch.

The show had just begun but seemingly everybody was decked out in a shirt.  During intermission I went up to the stand to check out the offerings but I couldn’t even get close, they were packed five deep.

And although the music was the focus, there was tons of cool production.  The amps were dressed up to look like jukebox time machines.  There were lighting effects.  And a hi-def screen.

This screen was necessary, it was an integral part of the show.  Because you see the audience is made up of players!  They want to see how the band members do it!

The overhead shots of Neil Peart were worth the price of admission alone, sitting in his circular set, as big as I’d ever seen. Peart didn’t mug for the audience, he concentrated, the unwavering metronome who could not be distracted.

And Alex is sending out these blistering licks.  You can’t fathom the sound he’s making.

And Geddy’s dancing all over his bass.

How do three guys make such a big noise?

You could see it.  All the way back to the very beginning.  In high school.  Practicing and playing to the point where the music found an audience and grew and grew.  Rush has been around since the seventies.  And they don’t sound quite like anybody else.  But somehow they fit right in.

After the intermission, they played "Moving Pictures".  That was the hook.  And damned if it wasn’t familiar.  Even though I couldn’t have named a single track off the album before the show began.  This is the one with "Tom Sawyer" and "Red Barchetta" and "Limelight".

And they even played a few new numbers.  And not only did no one leave for the concession stand, there was thunderous applause.  Being a Rush fan is not something you do on a whim, it’s not casual but important business.  You’re interested in where these three are going, just as much as you care where they’ve been.

And the applause is deafening.  And they’ve got the charisma of rock stars, even though I know they’re just regular people. But as much as you think you might despise Rush, if you’d have been there, you’d have fallen in love.  Geddy in his jeans and sneakers, the only one who’s kept his long hair.  He’s not an object of scorn, you just want to hug him and love him, as he noodles on the keyboard and sings in that high-pitched voice.

And Alex and Neil have given up trying to look young.

But is that really important?  Isn’t it really just about the music!

It’s a well-oiled machine.  Ray Danniels does the business and the band plays.  Ray told me it’s all about scaling, that’s how you sell out the house, and making sure there are cheap enough seats that real fans can always go.  And forget discounting, special offers, every gig sells out and if you missed it that’ll teach you to buy tickets sooner next time!

And they’re doing north of $15 bucks a head in merch.

And it doesn’t matter that the mainstream press ignores them.  That people poke fun.  To those who go, it’s vitally important. Not a phase, something that hooks you and you grow out of.  No, if you’re a Rush fan, you’re a fan for life!

And the band knows this.

And does its best to satiate you.

No one left early Monday night, no one wanted his money back.

They just couldn’t wait until Alex, Neil and Geddy came through town again.

P.S.  Jack Black was in my row, three seats away.  Taking pictures on his cell phone, grooving, drumming along on his belly. And when the lights came up for intermission…  He was seen, word spread, the vultures descended.  It was almost scary. You think you want to be that famous, but you don’t.  And Jack’s taking pictures with each and every one of them.  Backstage, in the inner sanctum, he was even accosted there.  He was telling this parent to shoot from above, for the proper effect.  I had to go up to him, had to ask…how do you do it?  Jack said: "I signed up for this.  I’m here for your entertainment."

P.P.S.  Ray said he won’t sell tickets behind the stage.  Sightlines are important at a Rush show, because a large percentage of the audience came specifically to see Neil Peart, arguably the greatest drummer alive, hell, that’s what the "Rolling Stone" readers said:

Rolling Stone Readers Pick Best Drummers of All Time

To get an idea, watch this clip from David Letterman’s Drum Solo Week:

Neil Peart – (Drum Solo) on Letterman 6-9-2011

Them – Mystic Eyes/Gloria (Music Hall de France, 1965

Speaking of riveting live performances…

While I’ve got your attention, watch this.

It ain’t slick, and that’s its charm.  Take a look at the audience.  Even the oldster is into it!

Despite being a TV mix, you can hear all the instruments.  The drumming is so simple, yet it pushes the performance forward like a caboose with an engine inside.  The sound of the guitar, played Townshend/windmill style, is unprocessed and real, its imperfection is riveting.  And then you’ve got the bass dancing under the whole thing, like a stoner in a trance possessed by the music.  The organ adds texture, but it’s Van Morrison’s harmonica that cuts to the bone.

And the way he’s oblivious to the audience, a slave to the music.

When done right, music is performed in one’s head, the audience is superfluous.

The sound is so infectious.  It’s akin to what Nirvana did almost three decades later.  Strip it down, expose the essence, make it about the emotion, and the sound.

And halfway through, when they switch to "Gloria"…

You actually get the feeling there’s a real "Gloria".  You can picture her, yup, about 5’4".  And her name is…G…L…0…R…I…A!

So simple, yet so right, this song is so infectious that it was a hit in America by a completely different group.

But this version is different.  Its got AUTHENTICITY!

You wonder why women are drawn to musicians.  Why they need to get close, why they’ll follow them to the ends of the earth.  WATCH THIS CLIP!

There’s something inside Van Morrison.

And you just want to get closer.  You NEED to get closer!

This may be forty five years old, but it’s more vital than anything on the hit parade.  Makes you want to pick up an instrument and play yourself.

As a matter of fact, that’s what we did!

(Thanks to Harold Bronson, the Rhino co-creator and sixties aficionado, for the heads-up.)

Best ever performance of Rosalita?
– Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band

Bruce Springsteen may have been on the covers of both "Time" and "Newsweek", but he was positively unknown.  This was half a decade before MTV, long before Reagan legitimized greed and money became more important than music.  The only way to hear the music was to buy it, or to wait for your favorite radio station to play it.  And the stations only played the hits, "Born To Run" was ubiquitous, but "Jungleland" was not.  That was for fans.  Who purchased the long player and went to the show.

And the show was a religious experience unknown to the mainstream.  It wasn’t like you flipped the channels and stumbled upon the E Street Band by mistake.  You had to go out of your way to buy a ticket.  And the show was not about visual pyrotechnics, nothing was on tape, hard drives were not even known yet.  No, all the fireworks emanated from the instruments, the performance itself.

Bruce had to prove it all night.  Every night.  Because that was how you made it.

In the wake of the untimely death of Clarence Clemons I’ve been inundated with links to articles and photographs and videos.  But this one stopped me in my tracks, this one was positively stunning.

Sure, the Big Man was featured.  He wailed.  But Bruce and the rest of the band!  Just watch this clip.  They’re so hot, you’ll be closed even if you never got the Boss previously.

That’s the power of live performance.

Never mind how well-oiled they are.  It’s the joy.  Like they’d rather be nowhere other than here, on stage.  That they want to earn the right to keep on doing this, forever and ever.

Despite the success of "Born To Run", this was three years later.  The band was almost starting all over again.  Momentum had been lost.  And "Darkness At The Edge Of Town" didn’t yield a hit single.

But you release an album and you go on the road, your hard core fans show up, they drag their friends and you fan the flames of the fire.

When Springsteen plays now, he’s carrying the weight of his career, of your expectations.  Despite making albums for most of the seventies, on some level Springsteen is still new here.  He’s still climbing the ladder.  He’s still got a way to go.

And he’s gonna earn it.

He’s gonna play all night and wear you out.  Showing that he’s more into it than you.

And you’re gonna walk out the door almost speechless.

But the next morning you’re gonna have a smile on your face, you’re gonna tell everybody you know, I WENT TO THE SHOW!

This whole damn gig is on YouTube.  It goes on for hours.

The songs are not old chestnuts, they’re still in their prime.

But my favorite is "Candy’s Room".

"Darkness" is my favorite album.  Well, tied with "The Wild, the Innocent", since that’s when I was converted, when I realized this was not some run of the mill act.

And I love "Racing In The Street".

And when Bruce exclaims in "Streets Of Fire", you feel his pain.

And the closer, the title track, is positively spooky, you want to spin the album again just to prevent being creeped out.

And that’s when you hear the raucous "Badlands".

But "Adam Raised A Cain" and "Something In The Night" don’t prepare you for what comes next.

The agitation of Max’s sticks lead to an intimate scene, a boy confessing in his bedroom, within a halo of pixie dust.

Then you’re off on an unexpected roller coaster.  You get all the confidence of a boy turning into a man.  One who believes in himself, one who can get what he wants, what he deserves.

That first kiss puts you on the tilt-a-whirl.  You want more but it seems almost unrealistic.

All the excitement of love, the hope that it’ll continue, the concept of finding someone on your level or above, who you’re gonna win, is in this song.

And I’ve never found a live take with both the intimacy and the excitement of the studio version until now.

Once upon a time there was no greater profession than rock star.  Someone who wrote his own rules and played by them. Someone whose only goal was to reach deep inside himself in the hope that you’d connect.  The money came last.  You threw cash at him or her like you place bills in the collection plate, it was a religious experience, you wanted to be saved.

Clarence Clemons may be gone, but if you watch these videos, you’ll be saved.  I promise.

"Candy’s Room"

Bruce Springsteen – Capitol Theatre Passaic NJ 1978

Turntable.fm

This is the hottest thing going.

Right now.

Most Websites are a fad.  Will Turntable.fm be such?

We’ll find out!

But Turntable.fm has got one thing that Pandora does not.  Sociability.  You’re not listening alone, you’re listening with your buds.

And please watch this video to the point where you learn how to earn points and win new avatars.  THIS is what the mainstream music business does not understand.  Music is a club.  And Lyor and Irving and Doug and so many just aren’t a member of it.  They still believe it’s about being above and talking down.  But we’ve had a revolution, and now we’re all in it together.  Which is why premium packages and so many of the music industry shenanigans stink.  They’re contrary to the ethos of today.

But despite the deafening word of mouth on Turntable.fm, most people have no idea how it truly works.  (And they’re doing it so right making it invitation only at first…how come the mainstream music business can’t figure this out either?)  But Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research unearthed the following YouTube clip which explains it from soup to nuts.

Stop what you’re doing right now and watch this:

How to Use Turntable.fm – Overview

___________________________________________

"Shaky future for festivals as fans shun blasts from the past" – The Independent

Read this article.  From "The Independent".  Linked to by "Record Of The Day".

They’re a couple of years and a couple of changes ahead of us in the U.K. when it comes to festivals.  Coachella and Bonnaroo can thrive, like Glastonbury.  Lollapalooza too, if for no reason other than its location.  And hell, I’ll throw in Austin City Limits.

But if you think you can book a bunch of bands and get tens of thousands of people to come, you’re dreaming.

Glastonbury is bigger than the acts that take the stage.  Most festivals are not.  And even successful festivals are rarely a joy to attend, but a rite of passage.

The live business is in trouble.  We’re just not building enough new acts that people want to see.

People do want to see that which is brand new and fresh.

But they’re more interested in seeing someone who’s been around for a while, who has a body of work, who has a career.

___________________________________________

Shania Twain In Vegas

A stiff.  She’s the LeBron James of music.  People hate her.

And without her ex-husband Mutt Lange, the best music producer in the world, she’s positively third rate.

She was beautiful, she had catchy music, then she broadened her image, played to the mainstream as opposed to the country core…remember the multiple iterations of her last album?  The pop version, the international version…

She’s been away for too long.

She’s seen as a self-centered narcissist.

I’ve got no inside knowledge, but this won’t be a winner.  Can’t be.  Not at these prices.  Not for long.

___________________________________________

"Bargains on Flash Sale Sites Serve a Long-Range View"

Live Nation shouldn’t have tied up with Groupon, they should have built a flash site, and kept all the money.

But the executives are too busy counting their stock options to put their ears to the ground and see what’s really happening.

People are addicted to flash sites.  They check them each and every day.  They want the e-mail, they want the discount.

In other words, instead of trying to sell unwanted inventory to "stars" playing buildings too large, promoters should be utilizing flash sites to introduce audiences to new and upcoming acts!

Read this article.  The discount doesn’t cheapen the merchandise, it builds the brands!

So if only Live Nation curated its offers.  That’s why these sites work, the offers are good.  And you went every day trying to score cheap tickets to great new acts…  Hell, this is how you find out about new acts, this is how you break them, this is how you get name recognition!

Let’s see, I wrote about flash sites in October of 2009: Flash Sales

This story is hiding in plain sight.

You don’t go with the flash in the pan, you don’t go with the now denigrated Groupon, you go with the proven winner.  Flash sites.

Meanwhile, offer GOOD seats at a discount to the stars who don’t sell out, that’s how you create word of mouth around the show.  I’m going, ARE YOU?