If you read this blog regularly, you would notice that I started collecting Kiss Tour Books and this is a very recent thing. As a result, I have suddenly had numerous Tour Books fall in to my lap almost literally. First were a couple of Bon Jovi Tour Books and now I stumbled across not 1, not 2, not even 3, but 4 Rush Tour Books. It is like the Tour Book Gods are speaking to me. I grabbed all 4 as the prices were really great and made it worth owning. This here is the first of the 4 Rush Tour Book posts that coming. The place I found these was Hardy Boy Records in Mint Hill, NC. I always seem to find some cool stuff from him as I have found numerous Kiss Bootlegs at his shop. His shop is quickly becoming my favorite place to go.

We’ve already covered the tour programs for ‘Power Windows’ and now ‘Roll the Bones’. This time we are going through the tour book for the Counterparts Tour which ran from January to May of 1994 and covered only 55 dates all across the U.S. And although a short tour, the setlist was pretty impressive…

SETLIST

“Dreamline”
“The Spirit of Radio”
“The Analog Kid”
“Cold Fire”
“Time Stand Still”
“Nobody’s Hero”
“Roll the Bones”
“Animate”
“Stick It Out”
“Double Agent”
“Limelight”
“Bravado” (added 4/20/94)
“Mystic Rhythms”
“Closer to the Heart”
“Show Don’t Tell”
“Leave That Thing Alone!”
“The Rhythm Method”
“The Trees”
“Xanadu” (abbreviated)
“Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres” (Prelude)
“Tom Sawyer”
“Force Ten”
“YYZ”
“Cygnus X-1 Book I: The Voyage” (teaser)

The Tour Book is a mixture of styles from both the tour books we have done so far. There are some pictures with that boring white background from Power Winders and then some more colored backgrounds and artsy stuff like Roll The Bones, but still it is great because it is Rush. We kick off like normal with the 3 page essay from Neil Peart…

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And again with Tour Credits and a band picture…

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And this time around we go quickly in to the Individual Band Member picture and comments and this time Neil didn’t write as much as usual…and Alex on the John Deere Lawn Mower is awesome!!

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Then some nice black background band pictures and as well as more and more band pictures…

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Then we get the centerfold and I have to say I am disappointed with it as it doesn’t need a border. This picture should be a full page picture to make it worthy of a centerfold…

Now it is a ton of band pictures and like normal, we get a fair amount of each individual band member as well as great band shots. Good stuff…the themes are rather varied and I can’t decide if that is a good thing or a bad design thing…

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I like this collage of pictures with Geddy at bat and playing drums. Some really great candid shots…

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And the final pages with the album listing including all the song names which is a little different than before…

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And finally the back cover…

And there you have the third tour book in the Rush Tour Book posts. The next one up is for Test for Echoes and the cool thing about that is I actually saw that Tour Book so we will have a little more discussion that particular book and show. Thanks for stopping by.