RUSH!!!! (and McLean Mesonet Smacked By Tornado)

Wow...wow....wow. My all time favorite band Rush is about to release their new album "Snakes & Arrows" on May 1 followed up with a tour. It's hard to believe, but I have never seen them live in concert. Similar to the North Texas Curse (which was in full form today, btw), something has always come up in the past preventing me from going. They don't tour a whole lot to begin with which makes it even harder to get to see them. btw... what a cool little flash intro on their site, eh? I swear that they are closet weather weenies. Just read their lyrics to "Jacob's Ladder". :-)

So, I grabbed a couple of tickets today for their concert near Denver at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, CO. What a stunning and spectacular place to watch a live performance! That alone is worth the trip. :-) It is Wednesday, August 8th, so it will be a mini-vacation for me. I gotta find a partner in crime to go with me now. I'll probably make the 7 hour drive up there and make a long weekend and do some other stuff up there. Dunno yet. I'm just excited to have gottten in on the special pre-sale. I'll be sitting about a fourth of the way back from the stage, so I've got some pretty good seats considering I was late getting online for the pre-sale. And they aren't behind the sound booth either :-) Oh, and here is a GREAT picture of them performing at Red Rocks btw....from the cover of one of Neil's latest books (note his motorcycle perched atop the left rock...digitally altered of course)

Anyway, I've been a fan ever since I first heard their masterpiece album "2112" (their fourth album btw) back in the late 1970s. It is what inspired me to pick up a pair of drumsticks and ever since to this very day study every nuance, lick, groove, beat, rhythm, syncopation, roll, time signatures, and cymbal crash of Neil Peart's drumming style and talent. I would spend hours playing along with headphones until the blisters on my hands would burst. And even then, a good bandage job would allow me to keep playing if I could. :-) The only other drummer that inspired me that much early in life was John Bonham of Led Zeppelin.

But the incredible drumming was only part of the reason I became such a huge fan. Lyrical content, masterful musicianship, creativity, intricate and complex time signatures, recording engineering, live concerts, always pushing the envelope, and importantly always honest with their fans and listeners. Isn't it amazing that they have been together since the early 70's? Name any band that has been together that long and still have a fan base. That's incredible in itself. Okay okay...King's X too :-)

Anyway, it's totally unrelated to the weather, but I'm pretty excited about it. :-)

So, to keep on track, the mesonet site at McLean, TX got smacked by one of Wednesday's tornadoes....or at least a glancing blow (pun intended). It survived and recorded a wind gust to 127 mph and a barometric drop of 9mb (0.27 inches mercury). It shows up pretty clearly in the meteogram here:

http://www.mesonet.ttu.edu/temp/McLean_tornado_28March2007/mclean_summary.html

Pretty cool, eh?