Date: Saturday, June 5, 2021
City: St. Louis, MO
Venue: The Pageant
Opening act(s): N/A
Headlining act: Thunderhead
Thunderhead Setlist:
The Spirit Of Radio
Freewill
The Analog Kid
The Big Money
Distant Early Warning
Subdivisions
Time Stand Still
Closer To The Heart
Marathon
Tom Sawyer
Red Barchetta
YYZ
Limelight
———————
The Camera Eye
Witch Hunt
Vital Signs
Natural Science
The Trees
Xanadu
2112: Overture/The Temples Of Syrinx/Grand Finale
———————
Fly By Night
In The Mood
Working Man
Notes:
- First concert since COVID-19 shut down the entire industry in March 2020.
- COVID restrictions remained in place, resulting in reduced capacity for this show.
- Thunderhead is a Rush tribute band; third time seeing them live.
- Rush’s Moving Pictures album was played in full to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
- “YYZ” included a lengthy drum solo.
- A video tribute to the late Neil Peart played during the intermission.
- Show #13 at this venue; first since December 11, 2019.
Videos:
Review:
The last concert I saw was KISS in Peoria, IL on February 15, 2020. It was the first of many shows I already had scheduled for 2020, which was going to be a busy year for several reasons.
To borrow from that review:
In a way, [2019] felt like a year-long going out party, and I was going out with a bang. I got married in October 2018 and had big plans for 2020 that included trying to buy my first house and perhaps even having my first child. A lot of financial prep had gone into that and I knew those two things would potentially make it a little more difficult to get out and travel or see concerts.
Still, 2020 was already shaping up to be a big year. Not as big as 2019, but still big. Def Leppard announced a massive stadium tour in December, which would give me three chances to see them between June & August of 2020. I had shows penciled in all the way through September and while I didn’t see my total reaching [2019’s] heights, it was still looking to easily be in the double digits for the sixth year in a row.
January got off to a quick start as my wife and I immediately applied for our mortgage pre-approval. We also got started on the much more fun process of trying for a kid. As it turns out, both were quite successful.
By the time January ended, we were pre-approved for a house and Brittany was pregnant.
That KISS show was my kid’s “first” concert, enjoyed from the womb.
The next concert on my itinerary was Rush tribute band Thunderhead, whom I was supposed to see with my dad at The Pageant in St. Louis on March 21, 2020. It was the week leading up to that show that shit went crazy.
The COVID-19 pandemic kicked off in March of 2020. First the NBA shut down. The rest of the in-season major sports leagues followed. Restaurants, bars, and stores closed. I started working from home. And not surprisingly, concerts were wiped out too.
I think back to those early stages now and how on March 16, 2020, my company said we’d start working from home the next day and would do so until the end of the month. At the time, I thought “this is crazy!”
Now here I am, nearly 15 months later, still working at home.
But! There is light at the end of the tunnel, and me writing a concert review is an indicator that things are finally starting to get back to normal. A little bit. I’m still working from home, but I’m fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Restrictions are being lifted, sports are back in full, and concerts are ramping up quickly.
Still, it’s very weird to start doing ‘normal’ things after the pandemic took away all feelings of anything normal. It’s almost like I’ve traveled through time, having skipped over the prior 15 months. The last time I saw a concert, I lived in an apartment, worked in an office building, and had a barely-pregnant wife. Now, I live in a house, work in that same house, and have an eight month old beautiful daughter.
I guess it’s fitting that things sort of picked up where they left off. Thunderhead was supposed to be my next concert in 2020 and coincidentally, they now end up being my first concert of 2021.
COVID restrictions remain in place for events, though they are being lifted. For this show at The Pageant, it was restricted to 25% capacity with social distancing guidelines in place. Seats were blocked off all over the venue, with only groups of two or four sporadically spread throughout. Thankfully by the time this show rolled around, mask restrictions had been lifted for those that are fully vaccinated. I had my second shot a little over a month ago but I’ve still been wearing a mask 95% of the time, as I just don’t trust people quite yet. 2017-2020 were already tumultuous years that stripped away my trust and respect for a lot of people and the pandemic only amplified that 100 fold.
But with the distancing in place, I let myself enjoy this concert mask free.
It was definitely strange to see the venue so ’empty.’ The Pageant is the venue I’ve visited the second most and it has been packed nearly every single time I’ve been there.
If I had my choice of concerts to see coming out of the pandemic, a tribute band would not be anywhere near my first choice. But with how things have gone, I was glad to take what I could get and my priority was having a good time out with my dad. Plus this served as a nice way to ease back into things and I may even follow it up with a Def Leppard tribute band in a few weeks. As long as things continue down the road of recovery, things will get real come August as I’ll attend a full capacity Foo Fighters concert at the amphitheater in St. Louis.
As far as tribute bands go, you could do a whole lot worse than Thunderhead. I’ve only seen a couple tribute acts in person while seeing plenty others on TV or the internet. Few possess the talent and stage presentation of Thunderhead.
Shortly after 8:00, the venue went dark, the Back To The Future intro video played, and Thunderhead hit the stage opening with “The Spirit Of Radio” just as they did when I last saw them in December 2018.
I failed to look back at the previous two times I’d seen Thunderhead to refresh my memory on what I’d filmed, so I got a few redundant songs… But I was just happy to be there and it was my first chance to test out my iPhone 12 Pro at a concert. Props to my iPhone 6S, who captured a ton of great stuff from October 2015-February 2020.
By the time the third song of the evening, the fantastic rocker “The Analog Kid” kicked in, I felt at ease back in my natural environment. It was crazy to think I hadn’t seen live music in nearly 16 months and I was quite happy to be taking in a show.
Thunderhead’s sets always tend to focus on the ‘classic’ eras of Rush… Specifically the 70’s and 80’s.
Tonight was no different, which was disappointing in a way. Ignoring half of the band’s lengthy career is a bit criminal, but not unexpected. The first time I saw Thunderhead was the same way, while the second time at least included two songs from the 2000’s.
In fact, tonight’s set was much more similar to the first time I saw this band back in 2014. After a good spread of 70’s & 80’s classics, a video intro started and kicked off “Tom Sawyer.” Tonight’s show was celebrating the 40th anniversary of Rush’s Moving Pictures album, so I was not surprised when the album was played in full.
Much like in 2014, it was split between the two halves of the show. Ending set one with “Limelight” and then kicking off set two with “The Camera Eye” works from an ‘end with a hit, kick off with a good production’ standpoint, but I’m a bit old school in that I think the performance of a full album should be in sequence without interruption.
During the intermission, a video tribute to the late Neil Peart played on the screen.
More epic tracks followed in set two, including “Natural Science” and fan-favorite “Xanadu.”
After a brief encore, Thunderhead returned and unexpectedly played the oldie “Fly By Night,” a track Rush themselves had long since written off for whatever reason (vocally challenging perhaps?). So that was cool to see.
“In The Mood” and “Working Man” closed out the show shortly before 11:00 PM.
While the reduced capacity of the show had an impact on the atmosphere, it did have its benefits… From parking, to entry, to bathroom access (which is near impossible for men at any Rush-related event), to the exit… Which was swift!
Having seen Thunderhead three times now, they are primarily a band I see out of convenience to celebrate the music of a now retired legend of rock while spending some quality time with my dad. I got all that tonight, but also got to breath a sigh of relief at the mere opportunity to see a concert at all.
It was the next big step in my own endeavor for normalcy. Following my vaccine, I’ve gone maskless in a store or two, gone to a St. Louis Cardinals game, eaten at a restaurant, visited the city of Chicago, and now gone to a concert. Next weekend, I’ll make my return to New York City and by August, I’ll attend a full capacity concert by one of my favorite bands.
It’s good to be back.
Links:
TurnToDust86 