Richard Starkey could beat Neil Peart in a drum-off. Don't believe me? Well fuck you!

What better way to start off a blog about taxidermy and local music than by reviewing the Rush show (Xcel Energy Center, Thursday May 22)? No better way, to answer my own question. No one in the entire world is aware of the existence of this blog about taxidermy and local music, and so there is ample opportunity for me to answer my own questions, though one-by-one, reader-by-reader, that is to, in short order, change, and you, one of the very first readers, may find yourself posing alternative better ways to start off a blog about taxidermy and local music. For example, perhaps one better way would have been to write about local music and not a science-fiction/fantasy prog-rock band from Toronto. Perhaps another would have been to edit the run-on sentence above. However, you, reader, were not present for the inception of this blog about taxidermy and local music and, as such, you do not have a say. Sorry Charlie. Hm.

Anyway.

I won four free tickets to see Rush on the St. Paul stop of their Snakes & Arrows World Tour. Four! Free! Fun! Fantastic! Thesaurus consultation could have made that passage much more festive - wait! I did not win them. They were given to me. Well-timed radio station dialing was not involved. They just kinda ended up in my lap. But it felt like I had won some sort of Fun Fantastic Lottery. The only thing better than free Rush is free Bon Jovi. Just kidding. I'll disclaim that in my mind the two are not even comparable. Nope. And that I don't truly believe Ringo Starr could beat Neil Peart in a drum-off. He was not even the best drummer in the Beatles, or so the story goes.

Free Rush tickets are a hot item, and diplomat that I am, I abode by a (more-or-less) first-come, first-served policy of ticket sharing with friends. After one friend backed out because she was puking (perhaps after joking that she hoped Geddy Lee would fuck me with his nose she actually visualized this image and it caused her to vomit?), I ended up taking three friends - a bass player, a drummer, and a bass player/drummer. Hey look! Now this is legitimately a blog about local music! Eat it.

Because my friends were on time (one), fashionably late (two), and late (three), I had just enough time to down three whiskeys prior to the show. Upon arrival, I drank a beer. Friend three bought me another beer. Friends one and two a whiskey coke each. I am a math whiz and that means I had twelve drinks. No, but I'm that awesome. I ate some peanuts, too.

In any case, I spilled a lot of beer, whiskey and peanuts on my lap and that means I was drunk on a lot of peanuts, and so I cannot provide you with any sort of proper show review except to say that Neil Peart had a rotating drum riser, Geddy Lee's hair was fantastic, and I didn't hear Alex Lifeson screw up even once. I couldn't even begin to tell you if the online petition for Rush to play one song from every album (hasn't been done since the Permanent Waves tour!) was successful as I was too drunk to pay attention to set lists, my 30 seconds of research did not produce a set list, and who cares about set lists? I am tired of inserting hyperlinks, and so if you are curious about this online petition, you're just going to have to look it up. I will tell you that Limelight is not in the top three songs for Moving Pictures and that is some bullshit.

Missed last night's show and feeling bad about it? That would make you a thirty-five year old man. At least, according to the thirty-five year old man sitting behind us, apologizing for his drunk thirty-five year old friend, and saying that I was much too young to be at a Rush concert. Oh yeah? Well I'm drunk. As I was saying, missed last night's show and feeling bad about it? Look up "Backstage Secrets," a HGTV five-part documentary series that goes on the road with Rush. Each installment of the five-hour documentary follows a different member of the Rush crew through a typical day on the road during this tour. The show airs Thursday nights and is a must-see for fans. How convenient, since only thirty-five year old men subscribe to HGTV. Wait, did I call that HGTV? Why yes I did. That would be HD. HG is for women, whipped men, and the gayzzzzzz. HDTV and Rush are for MEN!

OH! And I'll bet it was at the end of this song that Peart's riser started rotating. I'll just bet.

Look for Rush to tour again. And again. And again and again and again for the rest of eternity.