My mother-in-law bought me the 2-DVD Rush concert set “R30: Rush 30th Anniversary Tour” for Father’s Day. (No, I don’t think she knows about my prog rock obsession, she’s just good at selecting from my Amazon.com wish list.)

Anyway, I was watching some of it today, and it was nice to see how the boys have loosened up with humor in their concerts. (OK, the humor’s always been there; it’s just more blatant now.)

In particular, I was stunned to see what was on the stage behind Geddy. No, it wasn’t a pair of Marshall half-stacks. It was a pair of Maytag half-stacks. Yes, he had two Maytag clothes dryers behind him on stage, spinning nonstop throughout the show. And next to them, one of those rotating sandwich vending machines from a cafeteria. (Well, I didn’t get the best look at it… that’s what it seemed to be, although it might have been a pie display case like those often seen at lowbrow coffee shops.)

Clearly this made quite an impression on me. It wasn’t enough to tell a pair of coworkers plus SLP, as well as emailing two old high school friends who were also Rush fans back in the day. (And when is anyone more of a Rush fan than in high school?) I had to take it a step further and share it with the two and a half people who actually read my blather.