I guess I should expound upon yesterday's entry, now that I am only ignoring two major responsibilities and not three to do so.

The Rush concert was everything I had hoped for, and then some. It got off to a rocky start when, at the entrance to the Fort Pitt tunnel, I realized I had left the tickets on my dresser.

Crap.

This left poor Dave waiting for an hour in front of the Giant Eagle, but, as we expected from Dave, he was still waiting when he got there. Good ol' Dave.

This also meant that despite my best efforts to get to the concert early, because every other concert I've been to there started early, and there was no opening band, they had already started when we got there.

But they were playing "Tom Sawyer", so no big deal.

"No big deal?" you say. "How can you say that?" Well, gentle reader, "Tom Sawyer," being Rush's most popular song, is the one song that a true Rush fan is not allowed to like.

The set list was next to perfect, despite a few major omissions ("Freewill" and, to Ben's dismay, "Closer to the Heart" - his dollar store lighter remained unused). They only played four songs from the new album. They played "YYZ", and "2112", and other songs with actual words in the titles. They surprised me with "Vital Signs". They played a seriously old-school encore, with "By-Tor and the Snow Dog", "Cygnus X-1", and "Working Man".

And they played "La Villa Strangiato".

As you could well have guessed, had you witnessed the seizure I had when I recognized the opening arpeggio, this is my favorite Rush song. Possibly even my favorite song period. I never thought I'd get to see "La Villa" live. That was the thought that depressed me five years ago when they said they weren't touring anymore. And now I've seen it, and it was INCREDIBLE. Alex Lifeson went friggin' wild on the solo. Hell yeah.

All five of my guests enjoyed themselves, including the fiancee, which makes me extra glad that she is the fiancee. But, as Josh pointed out, it was more fun for them to watch the crowd than the band.

This is because most Rush fans, like me, are big geeky dorks. Many of them even more so than me.

Like the guy in front of us with the buck teeth and the mullet, dancing along to the music with great fervor and not-so-great rhythm.

"Jenn," I asked at one point, probably during "The Pass", "is that guy more dorky than me?"

She said nothing, but simply craned her neck to look at my hairline in the back, then nodded sagely.