Rush Live at the Spectrum Subdivisions 4-16-1986

0:06 SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. Inside the Philly Concert Experience. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to all the great performances and performers who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena. The Spectrum held numerous events and concerts over its 40 plus years of existence, earning the nickname America Show Place. The Spectrum was a special place for music fans and bands. And uh welcome back. Um I thought we would do a uh tribute to uh Rush real quick.

0:44 SPEAKER_00: Uh I had another show planned, uh actually part one and part two, which I'll get to a little bit later. Um but um I'd like to dedicate this show uh for Neil Pearl, who passed away on January 7th, 2020. Uh so this passed uh a couple weeks ago on the 7th was his five-year uh anniversary of uh when he passed at the age of 67, so big loss in the uh world of music. And uh it goes without saying that uh Neil was and always will be in the top I would say three uh for drummers, if not the top five. It's all subjective, especially if he has drummers.

1:30 SPEAKER_00: But um you know, it's always uh Neil Pearl, uh Bonham, uh you can throw Ginger Baker in there, uh Keith Moon, of course, and uh then you can round it out with maybe some uh jazz drummers for me. It was uh Joe Morello, um great jazz drummer. Um other people buddy rich. Uh but it was always it's always Bonham, Peart uh Moon, and uh maybe you can throw Charlie Watts in there, top ten. So it's all subjective, but I think my point is uh Neil Peart is always in the the top three because technically he was probably the uh the greatest uh uh technical drummer, rock drummer, and progressive drummer um in the history of music.

2:23 SPEAKER_00: Is uh if you ever saw him live, uh it it was pretty incredible. I mean, obviously Getty and Alex are uh great musicians. But uh Neil as a drummer, much like Ginger Baker, who was a hero of uh Neil's, uh, he brought the drums in the forefront, the drums as a lead instrument, uh, if you will. So uh again, we'll dedicate this show to uh Neil Pearl. Uh as far as the spectrum, uh I think Rush played the spectrum around 19 times, uh if we include multiple nights. They they did play two uh two nights, three nights.

3:06 SPEAKER_00: Um I think the first show was in 1979 with the Blondie opening. And before the Spectrum shows, uh Rush would play the Tower Theater. I think they played around 1977. The Tower Theatre is another legendary venue in the Philadelphia area. It's actually outside of Philadelphia. It's in uh Upper Derby, uh, which is near the uh city line. Um I saw many shows at at the uh Tower Theater. Um and I will talk about shows uh with the Tower Theater also uh on my show here, um live in the spectrum. Um so uh yeah again they um then they moved into uh larger arenas um and uh for me I saw I saw Rush twice.

3:58 SPEAKER_00: Uh 1982 on the Signals Tour and then I I saw this show that I've queued up uh just a song uh from their 1986 uh April 16th, 1986 show uh on the Power Windows tour. So I did see them twice, and uh yeah, they were great. I think the first show I saw in 1982 on the Signals tour, I was uh third row on the floor on Getty side at the spectrum, and it was just it was it was incredible. Um just just to watch that. Um I do I do have a funny story um about this show um in 1986. So they played two nights at the spectrum, they played April 14th, and then they played April 16th.

4:49 SPEAKER_00: So I went to the April 14th show with some friends and my brother-in-law at the time had uh ticks and brought my brother down to the show on the 16th. And it turns out when they got to their seats in the uh all the way in the in the upper level, people were already in their seats, and when the other officer checked um their tickets, they were dated for April 14th. So they went down the wrong night. And um that that that's typical, but it's funny how they got in. Uh you know, back then I guess uh you know, they tore the tickets.

5:28 SPEAKER_00: I I I I don't know what they I forget what they were looking at. They were just looking at the show. Somehow they got in uh on the wrong date. Um I think they found two empty seats up there in the nosebleeds. Kind of a funny story. I had a lot of that stuff happen back in the day when you went to concerts. I have a ton we all have a ton of stories, whether it was the spectrum or any kind of other venue on the tours that uh you attended, you know, like the Forum or Madison Square Garden or Kobo Hall, uh all the big arenas.

6:01 SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you have a lot of stories also. Um so uh let's get to it. This is uh a soundboard recording of one of my favorite shows and a real highlight from other sets, and it's called uh People Do Subdivisions, and it's uh it's from the April 16th, 1986 show. This is a soundboard recording, it's very good. It's uh it's a favorite for everybody, and um mainstay in the set list, and it's uh just absolutely a great, beautiful song. And they play it perfectly live. Um so here is uh let's listen to subdivisions live at the spectrum.

6:45 SPEAKER_01: This is Rush, April 16th, 1986, and I don't know.

12:25 SPEAKER_00: And there it is. Uh sounds great. So just brings back a lot of great memories of seeing Rush. And that was uh Subdivision Live of the Spectrum, uh, the April sixteenth, nineteen eighty-six uh show on the Power Windows tour. So hopefully uh you were able to see Rush back in the day. And um, you know, feel free to share your stories. Uh thank you for tuning in. I hope this brought back some uh great memories. If you never saw Rush, that kind of give you a great idea of what they sounded like live.

13:00 SPEAKER_00: Um and they were just in uh peak performance back then. Um so thank you again for tuning in and listening. Stay tuned for more shows. Thanks again.