[Textcritic]

So, in anxious anticipation of the latest offering from perhaps the best band on the planet, I was perusing the North American tour dates on their web page, and discovered something both curious and disturbing: the Western swing of the toour looks like this:

JULY
18th Calgary, AB Pengrowth Saddledome
20th Seattle, WA White River Amphitheatre
21st Portland, OR The Amphitheatre at Clark County
23rd Los Angeles, CA Hollywood Bowl
25th Irvine, CA Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
27th Phoenix, AZ Cricket Pavilion
28th Las Vegas, NV MGM Grand Garden Arena
30th San Diego, CA Coors Amphitheatre

AUGUST
1st San Francisco, CA Shoreline Amphitheatre
3rd Concord, CA Sleep Train Pavilion
4th Sacramento, CA Sleep Train Amphitheatre
6th Salt Lake City, UT USANA Amphitheatre
8th Denver, CO Red Rocks Amphitheatre
11th Dallas, TX Smirnoff Music Centre
12th San Antonio, TX Verizon Wireless Amphitheater
14th Houston, TX

From Houston, the band goes through the mid-West, and ends their NA tour in London ON, Quebec City, Montrael, Toronto and Ottawa. Besides the lone date in Calgary, THERE ARE NO OTHER CANADIAN CITIES ON THE DOCKET WEST OF ONTARIO! No Edmonton, no Vancouver—which surprised the hell out of me, no Winnipeg!

So, living in the Lower Mainland as I do, this presents a prediciment for me; since now I will have tgo travel to Seattle to see a thoroughly Canadian musical institution. From this tour schedule, I can only conclude on of the following: That Vancouver is being skipped because either those geniuses in the Canucks organization honestly believe they will still be playing hockey in mid-July, and would not provide Rush with the venue; or, with all the outdoor venues on the schedule, the band just had no desire to play in the rain.
In either case, I am unimpressed.