Ready to Rush to Atlanta

Two days from now, a friend of mine, his brother, and I will head for Atlanta to see Rush. It'll be my first time to see them live since 1984. As I recall, 1984 was a pretty good year for concerts for me:

• KISS playing their first tour without makeup for Lick It Up (in retrospect, that title sounds like it could have been released by Spinal Tap as a follow up to Smell The Glove),
  
• the David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen supporting the appropriately named 1984, and
  
• Rush with Grace Under Pressure.
  

I saw all three of those shows at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium - that dump of a still-standing government public works facility terrible for show when it was built and remains so today. But it was all we had at the time.

I remember buying a souvenir "muscle shirt". The style was popular at the time. Yet with 25+ years of hindsight perspective, I really don't have a clue as to why I parted with perfectly good beer money for such a silly shirt.

• One, anyone who has seen me - then or now - knows I'm not exactly sporting the guns. No other muscle shirts have ever been in my closest or drawers - prior to this purchase or after it. I don't even have any ripped flannels like Larry the Cable Guy.
  
• Two, I think I bought this style because I didn't like the alternative - the concert jersey. Again, this was a popular option at concerts from that era. So rather than keep my money in my pocket, I impulsively but stupidly bought the muscle shirt and wore it probably a grand total of 3 times.
• Three, the shirt included a unique feature - glow-in-the-dark lettering for the GUP logo. In 1984, nothing said "helloooo laaaadies" quite like a short, young male with skinny arms rocking a glow-in-the-dark, geek-rock shirt.
  

This time I'll be seeing Geddy, Alex, and Neil at someplace awkwardly named Verizon Wireless Amphitheater at Encore Park. Look, Municipal Auditorium may have been a dump, but at least we could easily and affectionately shorten its name to "Municipal" or "Muni". How in the world 20 years from now am I going to shorten the name of the 2010 place? The cell phone joint?

More to follow...

TMC