Before I became a devoted Deadhead, I was a huge fan of Rush. Many of my Deadhead friends are also huge Rush fanatics. Certainly the two bands cover different sonic territory, though for rock and roll fans, they are both landscapes that our various moods demand that we cover from time to time.

One of the coolest aspects of the Grateful Dead fan experience was that every one of their concerts were unique. On any given night, there were over a 100 different songs they might play and if you saw a run of three shows, you wouldn’t see the same song played twice. This was one of the reasons Dead fans wanted to see so many shows.

Rush on the other hand, was more traditional and tended to play the same set list on any given tour, though they did switch songs out now and again. Nevertheless, if you saw three shows on a particular Rush tour, you’d be seeing the same show each night.

Despite that, Rush never had any trouble selling concert tickets. Their shows were always amazing, creative, well produced, contained elements of humor, and delivered the goods fans wanted to hear.

Nevertheless, as a huge fan of the jamband ethos of different set lists every night, and as a huge Rush fan who loves their entire catalog (and live shows), I find myself wondering about what it might have been like to see Rush drop different set lists on consecutive nights. Their catalog is deep and their virtuosity is without peer. I know the band members adopted the approach they did for a reason, but I’d still like to imagine what Rush shows might look like if they mixed it up night to night. If you are a Rush fan as well, I hope you enjoy thinking about this parallel universe.

I am assuming this is happening at the end of their careers when all their albums are in play. I am also going to have some fun with the possibility of the jamming out of one song and into another. This is the hallmark of ‘jambands’ and Rush certainly could have done this. I don’t know enough about making music to know if these transitions would work (as far as the key of each tune), but I’m going to include some in each show anyway.