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I had the pleasure of sitting 3rd row of the pit at the Orpheum Theatre Minneapolis for the Return To Forever show. For those of you who don’t know, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea are 3 of the best musicians to ever walk this earth. I brought my father with as a father’s day present. He was pretty excited too. He had listened to them play while growing up.

I originally got tickets to see Al not knowing that the others were playing too. I knew Al was in a band with Chick at some point, but didn’t know the name and didn’t know that Stanley Clarke was in it. Even though I wanted to see Al play, I was quite happy to hear that these other 2 legends were playing also.

I didn’t think I was going enjoy Stanley or Chick that much, but I was completely blown away by both of them. Stanely Clarke has got to be one of the best, if not THE best, bass player ever. He played a lot of slap bass and his fingers moved at lightning speed. He did this on the electic bass, and the acoustic bass. I’ve never seen someone whale on an acoustic bass like that before. I just sat there in awe while watching him play.

Chick is an amazing composer and keyboardist. I know Al played several great songs composed by Chick on his albums, and the Return To Forever music is no exception. I was sitting too close to the stage to see Chick’s fingers move on the keyboard, but it sounded difficult to play.

Al was amazing as usual. He plays faster than any guitarist I’ve ever heard and plays so cleanly that you can hear each individual note. None of them are muffled or run together. It’s simply insane. Al didn’t get to solo as much as I would have liked to see him since he’s playing with such other great musicians, but I was OK because of their superb performances. Oddly enough, all the members got up and talked to the audience for a bit except for Al. I would have like to hear him say a few words, but oh well.

I had never heard of Lenny White before and he wasn’t really that great. He did well at keeping the beat for the rest of them, but he had a fairly long drum solo that was just sub-par. Maybe he was doing some crazy time signatures or something that I didn’t catch, but it just wasn’t that interesting.

Seeing Al play live has always been something I’ve wanted to do and I was lucky enough to experience Stanley Clarke and Chick Corea along with him. I was never fortunate enough to see Stevie Ray Vaughan play live before his death, so I had to see Al the first chance I got. This was an absolutely unforgettable night. Now I need to find a way to see Pete Sampras play a tennis match live.

I saw Rush live in concert on Sunday for the first time, and probably the last. Last because, I don’t know how long they’ll be around touring.

The show was amazing. They sound just as good live as they do on their albums. They had 3 very large video screens that most of the time had each of the members playing on them.

They also did many videos during songs, and skits before songs. One of the skits was a custom South Park clip of the boys pretending to be rush. Cartman was Geddy Lee and started singing Tom Sawyer, but sang about floating down the river on a raft with a black guy… You can watch it here. There were many other interesting things they like similar to this before songs.

There were several odd things all over the stage. On top of the amps were many dinosaur figures. In front of the guitar pedals were a row of Barbies, each holding it’s hand up with a post-it note on it. I’ve been told Alex doesn’t know what the notes say ’till he gets out there. Then there was the "Hen House". These were 3 large chicken rotisseries. Periodically a chef or someone else would come out a baste the chickens. I’ve been told the reason behind this is because Geddy Lee didn’t need to use an amp anymore. He replaced the amp with a microwave and mic’ed that. Then mic’ed a washing machine. Now there’s the Hen House. Apparently Alex came on stage and played a cord and waited for the others to come running out late. When Geddy Lee makes it out, he pulls off a stained chicken bib like he was late from eating chicken… I missed that part.

They played some old stuff at the beginning, then new stuff all throughout the middle, then old stuff at the end again. I got a little bored during the middle ’cause I don’t know much of their new stuff. Neal did one amazing drum solo that made any bit of boredom I may have had all worth while. He did quite an amazing solo and long solo, then the kit turned 180 degrees and he turned around to start his digital v-drum solo. I was in awe. He looks kind of old these days, but he hasn’t lost a beat (pun intended).

The show was about 3.5 hours long with no opening acts, just Rush playing the whole time. I honestly don’t know how they do it. I’d definitely go see them again. I was in an executive sweet this time and would like to be on the floor next time. Especially since the floor seats were actual seats.