Rush Eucon,

Manchester Academy

Yes, it's that time of year again - the European Rush Convention comes to town, the town in this case being Manchester. It contained all of the stuff I like: Rush Idol (advanced Rush-based Karaoke with musical intruments), raffles (which I won not a bean in), charity auctions (for stuff I would not dream of bidding on) and guest speakers (this year it was Terry Brown - the legendary producer of many of the greatest Rush albums).....

 Terr Berr and friends launch into Limelight......

Terr Berr in vocalist mode.....

Bass player giving the famous "Trumpton" wave.....

Hazy's latest appearance on my site - blowing everyone away with his (and the rest of the band's) take on By Tor & The Snow Dog

Gueseppi in ultra atmospheric mode....

.... him again in conventional guitarist mode...

Vocalist on Freewill.....

A short break in proceedings to show the global nature of Rush-nerdism.....

Me with an old co-worker from the past, Phil Campbell. Phil was the driver trainer at Shell Stanlow when I worked on the Stanlow Desk at Wythenshawe..... it was his lad that took all of the pics of me playing Working Man below.....

Terry Brown (AKA Broon) - legendary Rush nob-twiddler on most of their best albums.... guest of honour...

The raffle - during which time I will win nothing.....

Hazy and friends return for a second helping of By-Tor and the Snow Dog... they blew the bloody doors off... even the vocalist has run for cover.... they are Lucy on vocals (hidden here), Ian Chapple on guitar, Jon on bass and Hazy on drums....

Lucy waits stage left during the extended middle-eight of By Tor....... in fact this photograph has hints of the legendary Rush LP Exit Stage Left that forms the backdrop to these pictures - the lady, the flight cases, the lighting..... spooky.

Yours truly and my band for a second rendition of Working Man.... judging form the way I am holding the cymbal, this is during the Dah-Dah-Dah-Dah-Dah bit.....

Me appearing from behind the kit - a Yamaha Oak Custom.... if you click the You Tube link you can see the perforrnance of Working Man that we did.

Terr Berr has exited Stage Right for a few minutes whilst we go through our freeform part of the song....

Working slowly towards that big finish.....

Still getting there....

Close up of me - looking a bit mad....

Oh dear... it's all gone a bit Spinal Tap - the failure of the guitar strap has resulted in this very un-rock and roll pose from Terr Berr that she is no doubt delighted that I have put on the website....

Now that's a bit more rock and roll - the big finish!

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