The first thing Rush fans saw after the lights went up on Thursday night (November 21) at Sacramento's Arco Arena was a huge screen shot of planets, stars, and what appeared at first to be a steel spaceship gliding through space. It instead was a huge bolt, spiralling towards an equally enormous nut, taking its cue from the cover of Counterparts as the theme from 2010 played all around. It was a telling introduction for the band's three-hour set, one which would smoothly combine old and new music and reveal Rush's long-standing talent as a band without making egoistes of its musicians.

The first notes of "Dreamline" followed with a cheer from the audience, a moment of welcome from the band and, at the same time, a nod to the vagabond spirit in everyone. The fact that Rush's band members -- vocalist and bassist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and percussionist Neil Peart -- are getting older did nothing to diminish the power of the lyric: "We are young/Wandering the face of the earth/Wondering what our dreams might be worth/Learning that we're only immortal for a limited time." The band followed this with an older tune, "Big Money," though all of Rush's music sounded timeless and strong as they performed.

"It's been a long time since we've been here," Lee said in one of his rare between-song chats. "So we're going to play 4, 5, 6, 7 hours of music for you..." The audience went suitably nuts.

Lee explained later that one of the great things about being able to play a long set is the variety of material they can cover in a single evening. There was a rumor flying around that the band has been performing 2112 in its entirety during some stops on this tour; Thursday night they didn't cover the whole album, but they did treat listeners to entirety of the "Overture." The expansive, searching arrangements of these songs never sounded more alive.

Rush brought out a number of other old favorites, including "Closer to the Heart," "Red Barchetta," "Natural Science" and "Tom Sawyer," most of which kept close to their original sound. Towards the end of the set the band launched into "The Spirit of Radio," whose upbeat feel was a relief after some of the eerie, spacious instrumentals; it was like coming up for air.

When Rush played "Roll the Bones," the crowd sang along to its fateless chorus in unison: "Why are we were? Because we're here..." Likewise, it was liberating to hear so many people screaming "I will choose free will!" along with Geddy Lee during "Freewill."

It was rewarding, too, to hear some of the tunes from Rush's more recent albums, "Subdivisions" with its theme of alienation, and thoughts on losing oneself to love in "Animate." Another nice moment came when the band performed "Nobody's Hero," which opens with the tale of a homosexual man who dies of AIDS. I wasn't sure how this audience -- much more conservative than a typical San Francisco crowd (or so I thought) -- would accept the message. But they were Rush fans, after all, and they were open to this beautiful tribute to the deaths of everyday -- but not unextraordinary -- people.

The band also entertained a number of works from their September release, Test for Echo, whose images decided the stage decorations (down to the satellite dish-shaped laser light projectors). The video show during "Test for Echo" hinted less at the negative power of the media than the song's lyrics ("Dont touch that dial/We're in denial/Until the showcase trial on TV") do. The delicately ironic "Resist" was gorgeous and huge in its quiet denial; "Limbo" also came off beautifully, the ambient instrumental graced with Lee's almost-otherworldly harmonies.

Lifeson's guitar work remains unparallelled; he is a master of both intricately-fingered passages and simple, emotive sweeps. Through the set I heard echoes of those who have drawn on Lifeson's unique style -- Eddie Van Halen, Joe Satriani, John Petrucci of Dream Theater -- and it was refreshing to listen to the original.

Peart was given the opportunity to showcase his abilities in an extended drum solo during the instrumental "Leave That Thing Alone!", an interlude which included typical arena-rock drum tricks as well as tribal rhythms and electronic splashes. (As folks were leaving the Arco, someone shouted "Neil Peart is a God!" and the screams of response echoed across the 1/2-mile-long parking lot)

I was impressed, too, by Lee's vocal endurance; after singing strongly for 180 minutes with only a 15-minute intermission, his voice was as strong at the closing lines of "Tom Sawyer" as they were during the opening ones of "Dreamline." And his bass-playing -- a talent coveted by Primus' Les Claypool, among others -- was sharp, understated, and flawless.

Despite the fact that Rush has been making its unique and ambitious music for over two decades, the band does little to tout its own success or genius. Thursday's concert revealed, as always, that Lee, Lifeson and Peart are skilled musicians not only capable of playing a three-hour set without showing signs of exhaustion, but of keeping track of their complex compositions after so many years, tours, and changes of direction.

Although the band had just completed a set to blow the minds of their Sacramento fans, Lee was duly humble when the screams and applause came: "Thank you so very much! We appreciate it," he replied. "We'll see you again sometime... bye-bye." Unlike the Rolling Stones, the Eagles, and other bands who still record and tour on the basis that they're counted among the greatest rock bands of all time, Rush continues to make music for an altogether different reason -- because they love it, and they love to share it with their audience.

This article was originally published in Addicted to Noise.