I’m in Minnesota visiting family and then performing a wedding for two of my parishioners who hail from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Today was our planned excursion to the Minnesota State Fair. I’d been lamenting my inability to attend the Rush concert in Maryland in September. What are the odds that they would be playing the MN State Fair the day I attend?

I bought the only thing left – obstructed view – but I could see almost the entire stage. I’d seen Rush twice before, but despite their age—Geddy can’t hit the high notes as easily as before—they are better than ever. My past impression of their concerts was technical perfection but an almost mechanical approach to their complex music. This show outshone my past experiences in every way. The trio has aged well, not only honing their craft but playing more loosely, almost with abandon – yet losing none of their precision.

The band opened their second set by playing the entire Moving Pictures album, and it was incredible.

It is hard for me to see how Rush is not one of the best two bands of the modern era (the other being Yes). They transcend their genre – Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neal Peart are world-class musicians who have an uncanny musical symmetry. The show’s encore finished with an entirely reworked “Working Man,” which was pure joy to listen to. If you can see them on this tour, do it – it could be your last chance.

I didn’t keep track of the songs in the first set, so that is from memory:

Rush Time Machine tour

Spirit of Radio

Faithless
BU2B
Freewill

Subdivisions

(Amazing instrumental that I was not familiar with – the woman next to me said it was from Counterpoint)
Stick It Out

Set 2
Moving Pictures in its entirety
Caravan
Peart Drum solo
Lifeson guitar solo
Closer to the Heart
Temples of Syrinx (2112)
Far Cry

Encore: La Villa Strangiato
Working Man

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On Chastity

August 27, 2010

in Quotations,Theology

God wills that the light of chastity shine in our entire body and all of our members.

-Martin Chemnitz, Loci Theologici, Sixth Commandment

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Theology quiz

August 26, 2010

What do you think about the following statement? True or false? Those things which have been commanded [by God] are necessary as the fruits of righteousness, even if they are not necessary for righteousness itself which comes alone from faith. For it is not the freedom of the Gospel to be able to omit the [...]

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Statement of Lutheran CORE on Women’s Ordination

August 25, 2010

I found this quite interesting, especially the appeal to tradition with respect to homosexuality (but not, obviously, with respect to ordination of women). Is it true that ordaining people who are in same-sex sexual relationships is the same as the ordination of women or as changes in church teaching regarding slavery? No. There is significant [...]

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The fragmentation of American Lutheranism

August 25, 2010

I expected to see many from the ELCA come flocking to Missouri after the ELCA’s church-wide assembly repudiated the Biblical view of human sexuality last summer. Perhaps not congregations, but people. For a time we had a steady stream of ELCA visitors at Immanuel, but that has stopped. Now it appears there will be yet another [...]

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Funerals are for the dead

August 24, 2010

I disagree with the common saying, “Funerals are not for the dead, but for the living.” An important function of a funeral – a Christian one, at least – is the reverent disposition of the body. I think everyone deserves a funeral. God cares about the body, and we should too.

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Do you want a technician or a physician?

August 23, 2010

The practice of medicine has changed enormously because of technology. In his book Medicine and the Reign of Technology, Stanley Joel Reiser observes, So without realizing what has happened, the physician in the last two centuries has gradually relinquished his unsatisfactory attachment to subjective evidence—what the patient says—only to substitute at devotion to technological evidence—what [...]

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Why is “Praise and Worship” music so uninteresting? Because it HAS to be.

August 21, 2010

If “Praise and Worship” music was even mildly interesting musically or lyrically, would I have a different attitude about non-liturgical worship? I doubt it; but it would make it harder, I suppose. Here’s a great bit from a certain John Jeremiah Sullivan (source unknown; I found it here), writing about a “Christian music festival,” on [...]

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The Architect of the Body

August 21, 2010

Ephraim Syrus on tomorrow’s Gospel, Mk. 7.31-37: That Power Which may not be handled came down and clothed itself in members that may be touched; that the needy may draw near to Him, that in touching His manhood they may discern His Godhead. For that dumb man [whom the Lord healed] with the fingers of [...]

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BU2B

August 20, 2010

Posted for “pseudepigrapha,” who cannot place Rush in his top-ten list of Rock bands. Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? I can’t agree with the lyrics of this song at all, but it’s a great conversation starter. Here’s Rush, returning to their hard-rock roots. I was brought up to believe The universe has a plan We are only human [...]

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