Rush announces 'Clockwork Angels' tour dates

Los Angeles - Legendary Canadian rock band Rush announced today plans for a fall tour in support of the highly-anticipated album ‘Clockwork Angels.’

The tour will begin in Manchester, New Hampshire, on September 7 and will take the band to 33 cities before wrapping up in Houston, Texas, on December 2. Tickets will go on sale April 27. Clockwork Angels is Rush’s 20th studio album and the first featuring new material in over five years. The recording, available on CD and vinyl, goes on sale in June. The album’s first single, Headlong Flight, is available on the Rush website. Bassist and keyboard player Geddy Lee says Headlong Flight was great fun to write and grew out of a jam session with guitar player Alex Lifeson. “Alex and I assembled the song to be an instrumental and its original title was Take That Lampshade Off Yo Head!” Lee says. “But once we saw the lyrics Neil (Peart) had written for Headlong Flight, I knew that the spirit of the lyrics matched the instrumental perfectly and it was just a matter of making them fit and writing the melodies." Peart says that the single was the last song written for Clockwork Angels and grew from something drum teacher, Freddie Gruber, had said. The Rush drummer recalls how the 84-year-old Gruber once told him, “I had quite a ride. I wish I could do it all again.” “While working on the lyrics for Headlong Flight, I tried to summarize my character’s life and adventures,” says Peart. “My own ambivalence colored the verses, while Freddie’s words inspired the chorus ‘I wish that I could live it all again.’” Clockwork Angels deals with a young man’s journey as he attempts to follow his dreams. The quest takes him to lost cities and an exotic carnival as he crosses paths with pirates, anarchists and a character known as Watchmaker, who demands rigid precision in all aspects of daily life. Peart is collaborating on a novel version of Clockwork Angels, being written by Kevin J. Anderson. Lifeson, along with bass player Jeff Jones and drummer John Rutsey, formed Rush in Toronto, Canada, in 1968. Jones was replaced by Lee shortly after the group coming together. The second lineup change came prior to the band’s first United States tour in 1974, when Rutsey left the group for health reasons and was replaced by Peart. The trio has remained together ever since. Thirty-eight years later, Rush ranks only behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for having the “most consecutive gold/platinum studio albums by a rock band,” according to the Recording Industry Association of America. In between, there have been 19 studio albums, nine live recordings, 11 compilations, numerous Juno awards and Grammy-award nominations and induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, in 1994. An article in Rolling Stone magazine about the band commented, “It's true that Rush doesn't mean today what it did in '76 or even '96. It may mean more.” Tickets and tour information for Rush’s Clockwork Angels tour is available through Ticketmaster, Live Nation and the band’s website. Exclusive ticket packages will also be available through VIP Nation.