The nostalgia of 90s television sitcoms has become prevalent in podcast form. Stars from beloved programs are either rewatching or watching their show for the first time, sharing never-before-heard stories of their time on set and insight as to what went into its creation. Boy Meets World stars Will Friedle, Danielle Fishel and Rider Strong began Pod Meets World the summer of 2022 and have since expanded into live performances in theaters across the country. The Kids Wanna Jump Tour recently made a stop at the landmark Chicago Theatre to a crowd filled with television and podcast fans alike.

The Kids Wanna Jump - a reference to the 90s photography trend of snapping shots of teen actors in mid air - doesn’t dive into a specific episode of Boy Meets World or share the background of a specific cast or crew member as they do on a typical podcast episode. Instead, they acknowledge their fans on a more intimate level by interacting with them throughout the night.

The beginning of the show is much like the beginning of the podcast. The three engage in a seemingly off-topic conversation that brings back memories of where they were in their lives while they were filming the show. The Chicago audience got to hear how each of them had separate appearances on Live with Regis and Kathie Lee that left an impression: Friedle received a rather loud compliment about having a spark in his eyes, Fishel had an earpiece malfunction in the middle of a live segment and Strong was advised not to broach the subject of the newly announced cheating scandal that had affected one of the hosts. They joked that these instances were why no one requested interviews with them anymore. (For the record, we’d love to interview them!)

Audience participation was a crucial point of the show, from a Q&A session to a costume contest. They answered questions about the impact of the interracial relationship of Shawn and Angela, a narrative path they wish their character had gone on and the feeling of returning to these characters in the spin-off, Girl Meets World.

The Chicago crowd brought their creativity with their costumes. French Topanga from “The Grass is Always Greener”, 1950s Cory with chicken head mask from “I Was A Teenage Spy”, Mr. Feeny’s journal and wrist watch from “City Slackers”, Mr. Feeny and Morgan’s tea party from “It’s A Wonderful Night”, and the winner, a young boy dressed as Plays With Squirrels. The grand prize was a signed copy of the 1993 script, “The Father/Son Game”, and all other participants received signed enamel pins.

Several moments of the show are best left unsaid. No amount of description or discussion would do it justice, nor should it be spoiled for anyone who wants to experience the show on their own. Just know that Boy Meets World fans will laugh, cry and have solid evidence that Friedle truly does not get rid of anything.

The comedic timing of the trio, individually and together, is on a whole other level when witnessed in person. The inside jokes they’ve created through rewatching the show come to life on stage, calling out Shawn’s angst or Mr. Turner’s New York accent. Pod Meets World listeners get to hear this friendship twice a week in a one-sided format, but at a live show they get to express their appreciation both for the show and for the people who are allowing them to see a whole new side of it.

The audience received another special treat with special guest Anthony Tyler Quinn, who played teacher Jonathan Turner on seasons two through four and reappeared in episodes of Girl Meets World. The audience had a chance to interact with him during the Q&A, and it gave them the opportunity to again reciprocate that joy Mr. Turner gave them nearly 30 years ago.

Closing out the night is a special pre-recorded video from another beloved teacher: William Daniels, Mr. George Feeny.

“We love you all. Class dismissed.”

Upcoming The Kids Wanna Jump tour dates can be found here.

During the four days that FAN EXPO took over Chicago, a father and daughter made their way to the north end of the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center to find the person they were looking for: actor and writer Todd Stashwick.

The Chicago native has played a part in some of the biggest fandoms - Star Trek, Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Horror Story - but it is not his acting roles that the father and daughter were most curious about. They have sought out Stashwick to ask him about the perfect beginner’s guide to Dungeons and Dragons.

“I was 11 in ‘79,” Stashwick said. “I was that first wave of late 70s and early 80s kids that were playing D&D when it wasn’t cool. My nerd blood runs deep.”

When asked about where to start, Stashwick didn’t give advice right away. Instead, he got up from his table and took the father and daughter through the crowd to one of the booths nearby that was selling books. He showed them which ones he recommended and made sure they were well taken care of before making his way back to his table and greeting the next fan.

His first convention experience was a big one - San Diego Comic Con 2010. He was established as an actor at that point, but could not be found in the designated autograph area. Instead, convention goers found him in Artist Alley alongside Dennis Calero, a DC and Marvel artist who co-created the online web comic Devil Inside with Stashwick.

Devil Inside tells the story of Jack Springheel, also known as The Devil, who escapes hell and has no intention of returning. He tries to stay one step ahead of those who intend to drag him back while journeying through who he is and who he wants to be.

They had launched the comic on Stashwick’s personal website the night before San Diego Comic Con, and showed up to the convention the next day with a box of postcards to help promote it.

“It was wild because people would walk by and be disconnected as to why I was sitting there, but it was a cool way to get people to stop and pay attention to your work,” he said. “It was a very genuinely comic con experience because I was selling a comic there.”

When asked about a memorable fan interaction, he immediately recalls a time where a fan asked to smell him. She was thrilled to hear him say yes and offer his shoulder to her. What did this fan get a whiff of? Penhaligon’s Juniper Sling. (“Let’s be honest, it covers the stink of bourbon,” Stashwick jokes.)

Imagine being the luckiest person in the world. Everyone can agree that all the twists, turns and unique moments are the reasons why everything fell into place for this person and made them lucky. They aren’t one in a million, they’re the only one. Doesn’t that same description apply to the unluckiest person in the world? That is what the latest single from Featurette dives into.

“Unluckiest” is about perspective. The same finite, rare piece of magic is what propels both sides to define luck.

“They are a unique entity unto themselves,” lead vocalist Lexie Jay said. “If you think about it, the odds of them experiencing that are the same. They’re looking at each other from the other side of the circle, completing the circle with each other, realizing that, ‘you’re the only one that can relate to my luck because you’re so unique, you’re so rare, you’re the only one’. We’ve all had our own unique lived experiences and there’s nobody that can actually relate to it in that same way. It’s impossible to determine who is the luckiest or unluckiest.”

Jay found herself stuck on the concept of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. Anything can happen in the blink of an eye, through no choice of one’s own, and it just comes down to how that one moment will define a person.

“It doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing, if it’s monumental or absolutely tiny,” she said. “It’s realizing that you’re here and it’s yours for the taking. That doesn’t need to be a fucking quest for glory. It can be the simplest, tiniest little thing.”

The message behind “Unluckiest” ended up encapsulating the band’s five-track EP with the same title. Jay describes it as coming together chaotically, as none of the five songs were meant to tell a solitary story. While they all share a similar electronic sound, it is this single that changed her own perspective.

“I’m on this quest, this pursuit, of trying to find out what is the crux of what we’re trying to get to here,” she said. “How do you say everything in a finite way? It’s so Everything, Everywhere, All At Once. That was a big inspiration for this… this movie was about how everything is magic and that you’re the magic. In this universe we’re just supposed to be rocks; it’s so easy to be at unease with what we have to do in life when you feel like you have a greater purpose, but really that’s what it’s about. The magic is in the spaces.”

The music video for “Unluckiest” was directed by Jay, who also designed the costumes with the help of Lindsey Blane and brought the choreography to life with the help of Hailey Gardiner. The most important aspect of the video was that it was filmed in one shot, because life cannot be edited.

“It needed to be as human as possible,” Jay said. “I could have said something really deep and impactful in the chorus but it wouldn’t be the same as just vibing with it. It needed to be danced yet it needed to be personal.”

Jay may not have learned these life lessons through moments of joy or peace, but she quite enjoys the tenseness and adrenaline that comes with her passion. She has no intention of relaxing, and that’s what makes her music her own.

“Everything you get in your life, we always want more and the goal post will always move,” she said. “I think that’s really true of musicians and it’s really true of us and our band. We’re grateful for what this is now and if we never get any bigger than this, there’s lots of people that never even got to go this far… Every step of it is the best time and that’s such a difficult thing because it’s relentlessly optimistic, but I think part of it is: to feel anything is more beautiful than to have never felt anything at all.”

Photo courtesy of Simone Niamani Thompson

Tucked away in the same Los Angeles neighborhood, Rock and Luca had no idea that someone with the same love for Western cinema and potent women was within walking distance. After a couple of chance meetings and some mutual friends, the duo became Trophy Wives.

“We started sharing different music ideas and a lot of our very strange, weird concepts were similar and aligned,” Luca said.

“That’s not something you really bond with people over, that kind of music,” Rock added. “Every time we hung out, every time we’d do anything, there would be music on and music playing. I think that we just bonded over the overall premise of enjoying the vibe music brings when we’re together.”

They bonded over artists like Dolly Parton, Hank Williams and Tammy Wynette. They learned they both had family ties to the South, and that representation was few and far between for them.

“Something that’s interesting, just as two queer people, is that sometimes that doesn’t always feel like the South and Western culture country music,” Luca said. “It doesn’t always feel like it lends itself, like there’s an intersection with that, and so I think just venturing into that world and playing that from our perspective in a modern approach was really intriguing as well.”

Although Rock was originally writing music intended for a solo project, they were the one that asked Luca about making music together. It turned out that a lot of the pre-written material spoke to Luca as well, and any of their combined influences showed up organically as they delved into the process as a duo.

Understanding each other musically is how their friendship blossomed. It was how they decided to release “Cowboy Mama” as their debut single. The single is the right amount of calm before being introduced to their storm, and really touches on the variety of sounds that play into their genre-bending tone.

“I think ‘Cowboy Mama’ is a beautiful representation or first impression of where we pulled all of our influences from,” Luca said.

They hope that the takeaway from the song is both a sense of familiarity and originality. The song is meant to be a good time while also surprising the listener with a sound they might not have heard before.

They learned a lot about themselves as they wrote and recorded the song. For Rock, it was about having another collaborator to bounce ideas off of. For Luca, it was about trusting the creative process. This was a time for them to discover themselves as individuals and as musicians, and be in the moment as the song took shape.

They also learned a lot from collaborators Dan Reynolds and Wayne Sermon. With the success of their Grammy® Award-winning band, Imagine Dragons, they were able to share their own experiences.

“They’ve just been so incredibly generous to us,” Luca said. “They saw a talent in both of us that they wanted to develop, and Rock and I feel like we won the lottery. For whatever reason, this is the position we landed in. We both feel really grateful and super overwhelmed in the right ways, but it feels really special to be in close proximity to people that are just so good at what they do and care so much and are just so generous with their time and their skills.”

The dynamic duo of Trophy Wives has just begun. They want nothing more than for their audience to embrace their individuality and dance their asses off, and “Cowboy Mama” is the perfect song to get them started.

Photo courtesy of Liz Rosa Photography

There are few things scarier in life than a blank canvas. The little voice in my head has me frozen with fears of, “What do I do first?”, “What if I mess it up?”, or the worst one: “What if I do it, and it’s bad?”. You have to start in this exact vulnerable and humbling situation every time you create. However, it’s not often that you need to do it multiple times for a single project. Yet, that’s exactly what happened when we created “I’m Still Here”. This is the story of how the failure of Plan A led to an all-acapella track; an unlikely but happy accident.

I remember the day we wrote “I’m Still Here”. It was rainy and gloomy, very typical for Vancouver. We plunked out chords and scribbled down lyrics on a notepad in a tiny studio off Broadway till we felt like we had it right. We filled our blank canvas number one by carving out what the song might sound like. The original vision for this song was a huge, glorious instrumental, something to lift up the emotional and cathartic lyrics in the style of my favourite 90s power belters, and that’s what we went for.

After recording all the parts for it, Marcus (my co-writer and co-producer) texted me several weeks later to give me the news: Canvas One had to be thrown out due to issues with the recordings that weren't fixable.

So there I was, staring at an empty Logic Project, trying to figure out how to rescue a song I deeply cared about.

Blank canvas two. Do we change the idea altogether? Do we record again? These questions buzzed in my mind as the heavy cloak of anxiety blanketed me. The cost of more studio time would set us back, and we were too deep into our full-length album project, Full Bloom, to make song list changes. I knew exactly what I wanted this song to feel like - a wave, a breath surrounded by the intangible sound of being alone with your thoughts. Then I thought, “I could just create it all with vocals here in my bedroom, then just swap in instruments later!” and made my first splash onto Canvas Two with the track called the “ghost note” - an eerie and consistent high-pitched tone that spans the length of the track.

“Okay - doesn’t suck, let’s add something else!” Then came a trio of vocals that swelled in harmony; then came three more to add to that, and then three more. The base was slowly building.

17+ vocal tracks later, I added some reverb to make it pretty and sent it to Marcus. “Like this, but with instruments?” I asked. After talking it over, we both agreed to leave Canvas Two as is, and shape it to build the entire song. We felt like if we added anything new, it might ruin the balance. The choir girl in me was screaming with excitement.

“I’m Still Here” was released built entirely by the voice, and even though it was a sharp turn in direction, it felt like it was what was supposed to happen. A very happy accident - despite everything falling through on us, through resilience to persevere, we are still here.

For those that have never had the luxury of being in the same room as Henry Winkler, his memoir, Being Henry: The Fonz… And Beyond, is the equivalent of gathering around his dining table and hearing his best stories firsthand.

In just under 250 pages, Winkler gives readers an intimate look into his life and career. He said he can’t remember not feeling an intense need to perform. What he never felt, however, was support. He shares anecdotes from his childhood, where unfortunately his parents did not understand or seem to care that their son had a learning challenge.

Winkler has been candid about his struggles with dyslexia, going so far as to create a children’s book series called Hank Zipzer. Along with writer Lin Oliver, the title character is a child that shares Winkler’s struggles and the powerful message of overcoming.

“I couldn’t read and everybody said that I was lazy, I was not living up to my potential,” he said during his book tour stop in Naperville, Ill. “I was told I would never achieve, I would never amount to much, and in my mind I was thinking, ‘How is that possible?’ But if all of these adults are saying the same thing then it must be true.”

“I think a heard child is a powerful child,” he continued. “It is so important to listen. I think that the ear is the center of the universe.”

It took a life of success and failure to fully comprehend who he was, and he makes sure the messages of the book are fully understood to his audience each night on his book tour.

“When I looked at the whole book, I finally realized it literally was the journey from where I started being who I thought I should be to becoming a more authentic me to being who I am,” he said.

During his conversation with Barry co-star D’Arcy Carden for the Chicago Humanities Festival, he acknowledged that while his reputation of being one of the nicest people in Hollywood still seems foreign to him, it took him years and the help of a therapist to accept love. Carden shared many instances where Winkler has been a wonderful friend: weekly phone calls, pep talks, congratulations gifts, just because flowers, a place to stay… She agrees that nice is not a strong enough word to describe him.

“He’s so much more than that,” she said. “Nice is pretty easy, actually.”

Most importantly, his memoir shows that he’s human. A surprising point of view in the book is of his wife, Stacey. She shares her honesty, much like Winkler does in the rest of the book, but her passages speak of topics that range from his immaturity to his anxieties. It’s refreshing to read her thoughts and understand a side of him that hasn’t been publicly expressed before.

Henry Winkler may not personally invite every reader to his dining room table this Thanksgiving, but Being Henry: The Fonz… And Beyond shares the same warm, personal touch. Yes, it is about the specific stories that have shaped his life. It is also about how anyone’s journey can be similar if they trust the process, and trust and believe in themselves.

“I am going to be presumptuous enough to tell you this,” he said each night. “Every single one of you is powerful. Every single one of you. Some have tasted your power, some of you are afraid of your power, some of you don’t know you have it yet. But I’m here to tell you that your head only knows some things. Your instinct knows everything… Your instinct is your guide to living and I am telling you that you don’t know what you can accomplish until you just listen to your instinct.”

I remember crossing the railroad tracks driving across town early in the morning to take violin lessons before preschool started. I think the lesson was at 6 a.m. or something. My mom would take me in her little black Honda hatchback and we would wait on a little bench in this sort of atrium between the front door and the studio, and I remember the way the light came through the windows first thing in the morning, shining on the houseplants. Then my teacher, Jeannie, would open the door and I would go into this room that was sort of dark and wooden and there were violins everywhere hanging from strings going across the walls. We would have our lesson, just playing together and learning new songs. I still love the way the violin smells when you first open the case, even though I can’t play violin at all anymore!

Throughout my childhood I was part of “the fiddling friends”, consisting of basically anyone in my teacher’s studio, and we would do regular recitals and gigs and play together as a pack of violin children, suzuki style. We would play at various festivals and events, as an opening act for my teacher and her husband who played lots of Zydeco music together. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time. Then one day in kindergarten I brought my violin to school for some reason and played for the rest of the students on the playground. I remember this odd feeling where I realized their perception of me changed because I knew how to play an instrument and they were acting like it was a big deal. I guess I had assumed it was something that everyone did up until that point. I remember feeling good about it all of a sudden and thinking, “oh this is cool, I should probably keep this up then.”


In fourth grade, I found my dad’s old bass wedged between a shelf and a concrete wall in our laundry room. It was caked in dust and beaten to hell. I didn’t know what a bass was, or that my dad ever played it. But I did know that I wanted to play that thing - whatever it was.

There was something about playing along with a pile of burned punk rock CDs from my older cousin that made complete sense to me. I never questioned it. Playing music was the most obvious thing for me to do, and so I kept doing it.

I never had one of those “Aha!” moments, or profound and convenient “l didn’t choose music, music chose me” stories. Music just became my way of relating to the world - a tool, a lens.


In third grade, we were given the option to play flutophone, which is basically a recorder. It was my first time playing an instrument in an ensemble-type setting and I really enjoyed it. There was just something really exciting about me and a bunch of my friends tootin’ out Hot Crossed Buns as loud as we could together. Fourth grade was when we could pick a real instrument and I chose the saxophone. I think the influence of my decision mostly came from the cartoon show Arthur and my appreciation for the Muppet character, Zoot. When my saxophone arrived in the mail I remember thinking, “this is the big time.” I loved music and I loved my sax but it wasn’t until I started playing guitar that I knew I wanted to be a musician.

At the tail end of eighth grade, just a few months before we graduated and got ready for high school, our general music class teacher told us we were going to finish out the school-year with the guitar. Two of my close friends in the class already had some guitar experience and started to teach me some Nirvana and Black Sabbath. I immediately took off with it and my music teacher said, “you’re really good at this, you should keep going after you graduate.” A friend’s older sister leant me her guitar and I was completely hooked. All I wanted to do was learn and write guitar riffs. Brian May’s guitar solo on “Killer Queen” made me want to get an electric guitar. Once that was acquired, I started a band with some close friends.

Photo courtesy of John Harold Perez

Growing up, I was a shy kid. Not just a little shy, I was painfully shy. If I was out in public with my family and a friendly child my age dared to say hello to me, I would ignore them and turn my head until they went away. (Much to my parent’s horror!) This was a stark contrast to my older sister, who was naturally extroverted and would go on to become a competitive dancer and Prom Queen.

Along with my shyness came a big imagination, introspectiveness and a touch of melancholy. (Or as I like to call it, The Holy Trinity for Introverts.) I would eventually grow out of my shyness, but that wouldn’t start until I discovered music. Enter Silverchair. Thanks to my sister and her friends, I had access to what the older kids were listening to in school. One day, I grabbed one of her burnt CDs and popped it into my Walkman. As soon as I heard Daniel Johns’ longing voice backed by electric guitar, I was hooked. The emotion, the grit, the attitude, the controversial lyrics… For a shy, rule-abiding book nerd, this lit me up more than Nancy Drew ever could.

After Silverchair came Rooney, The Strokes, My Chemical Romance, The Distillers and Marilyn Manson. Music transported me into a world where I had an outlet to say and feel the things I didn’t yet have words for. While my friends lusted after rockstars and daydreamed about being with them, I dreamed about being them. As I got older, the more shocking and heavier the sound, the better. I knew I had unlocked a passion that would never go away, and that passion was singing.

But there was a problem. I was still way too shy.

During the week, I had exactly one hour from the time I came home from school to the time my dad came home from work. This meant I could sing along with an album for about 40 minutes and still have time for a snack. (Pop Tarts were a fav!) If I sang any longer, I risked someone hearing me, and if that happened, I felt like I would shrivel up and die. Despite this fear, I talked about my rockstar dreams constantly. My mum would ask if I wanted to sign up for singing lessons, but that was always met by a hard “no” from me. They told me I needed to do some kind of extracurricular activity, and since it was clear I wasn’t going to follow in my sister’s dancing footsteps, my parents asked me what I wanted to do. “You have to pick something!” They would threaten. I knew I wanted to sing, but I wasn’t ready to “perform” so I tried soccer, figure skating, Girl Guides, etc. When everything I signed up for inevitably became a chore, my fed-up mother begged me to pick something I actually liked.

“How about singing?” I looked up and my eyes grew wide. My mother had pulled the car into the Connor’s Music parking lot, the music store in town.

After a few more encouraging (and threatening) words from my mother, I finally went in and signed up. This. Changed. Everything. I slowly became more confident and better with singing. I went from a shaky-legged kid to a full on ham. I did musical theatre, I sang in voice competitions, I even got into Humber College’s Theatre Performance Program where I would study with opera legend Fides Krucker. I performed Shakespeare, I did improv and I joined a band. While working on my technique, I also had the chance to see my heroes in action. I saw My Chemical Romance, Coheed and Cambria, Marilyn Manson, Deftones, The Distillers, Silversun Pickups, Mother Mother, the list goes on!

By this point, I knew music would always be essential to my happiness. I still tried other jobs: flight attendant, video editor, server. But much like the doomed extracurricular activities before them, they fell by the wayside. Now I am focusing solely on music. I spend my time writing, performing and releasing my own music as well as coaching other vocalists! Voice lessons were a huge part of why I became an artist, so I like to share my knowledge with other singers whenever I can. (Especially those shy, introverted, rule- abiding ones!)

Photo courtesy of Dana Gorab

Alright. You got me. I suffered the slings and arrows of the haters for most of my childhood, so nothing anyone can say now is gonna make even a scintilla of a difference.

Siri told me today that 2.2 billion, give or take a few hundred million, go to a Christian church on Sunday. Just as many head to mosques, temples or out into nature to find that ultimate source. For me, since about 1986 and until their final tour in 2015, that place of worship was a Rush concert.

It's not hyperbole. Along with my kids, both ex-wives, brother, best friend (Mr. Shannon M. Brady of Little King II and III bass playing fame), and legions of other nerdy, middle-aged white dudes… we had our own Holy Trinity sessions. I saw them in Seattle on May 21, 1986 on the Power Windows tour with my buddy Tyler. My old man dropped us off as kids, and then he picked us up out front as men! Okay, THAT'S Hyperbole. But having already been a big fan for at least three years and having missed the Grace Under Pressure tour that hit Tacoma (near my hometown of Mercer Island, WA) that also had fallen on my 14th birthday, seeing Rush SOMEDAY SOON had become an obsession. When that date was announced at the Seattle Center Coliseum, Ty and I pounced.

Fast forward to May 8, 2015, in Tulsa, OK. The aforementioned Shannon and I made plans to see Rush on what would prove to be the first show of their final tour. We Rush Nerds had an inkling - too much smoke for there not to be fire as far as this tour being the grand finale. They spoke of maybe a two-week residency type engagement down the road, but Neil Peart was clearly done touring.

I probably saw Rush 30 times in those 30 years. Shannon and I saw half of that number together. He's like me; knows every note, every word, every nuance of every song and every member. Details. Nerd. We even trekked to the SARS festival in 2003 to see Rush at Downsview Park opening for the Rolling Stones. 35-minute blistering set, and Shannon actually was pissed on. Twice. We also met Rush's producer, the estimable Terry Brown (aka "Broon" to the Nerds). This started a relationship that culminated in Terry mixing Little King's Virus Divine album with me in Toronto in 2003.

Because we had to meet up in Tulsa, arrangements had to be made ahead of time. Shannon was flying in from a sound gig in his hometown of Vegas while I had to make my way from Delaware, via Philadelphia, PA. I made it right on schedule, but Shannon… well, check this shit out:

He was grounded in Dallas due to weather. So he rented a car at DFW and set out to drive the one million hours from Dallas to Tulsa. Problem is, that weather was REAL. As he crossed into OK from TX, some Highway Patrolman pulled him and all of the other traffic over and directed them into a small town. From there, they exited their vehicles and shuffled down into a dark tornado shelter. Then… BOOM.

45 minutes go by, and Shannon et al are finally safe. As they released back into the upper world, Shannon noticed that his rental car now had another car attached to its hood… like, ON TOP of Shannon's car. Needless to say, it wasn't drivable. By the grace of God and good corporate management, Alamo Rent a Car came and got Shannon, drove him to Tulsa, dropped him off at the hotel (where I had a case of some cold ass piss beer ready for him), and wished him well. Alamo even checked up on him in a couple days.

Wasn't easy, but damn if we didn't make it for the opening notes of "Clockwork Angels". Rush's opening night! They were on fire, and not perfect, which is awesome as a Rush fan, because it's so rare. Geddy even said they were about to play "Jacob's Ladder" for the first time ever as it actually appeared on Exit...Stage Left live from 1981!

I know...the TEARS. I got you.

The set of the R40 Tour was a backwards tour of their catalog, starting with Clockwork Angels (2012) and ending with Rush and "Garden Road", a song they never released from the early 70s. As the final notes crashed, the boys took their bow from the altar. I just KNEW Shannon and I would never share that moment again, and cue waterworks. Not a great crier, per se, so maybe it was more like a desert creek than Snoqualmie Falls, but I was moved.

Thank you, Alex and Geddy. RIP and thank you, Professor.