(reviewed by Nick Karn)
It had been a loooong time since Rush had been on a full-scale tour (since 1997 supporting Test For Echo, obviously due to Neil Peart's tragedies), but after five long years, with a new album to tour behind (Vapor Trails), they returned to the stage. And what an appropriate time to catch the band on stage for the first time than their 'comeback' tour, where they would be unearthing a few songs they hadn't played in awhile? A little under two months after actually buying tickets, me and fellow web reviewer Casey Brennan finally arrived at the Tweeter Center (man, why did this place have to change its' name to something so friggin' retarted?), rented a couple chairs, and took our seats on the lawn just around a half hour before the show was to begin at 7:30. Oh, and they were going to play two sets and an encore for a little over 2-1/2 hours with no opening act, so a lot of music was ahead of us. Yeah!
After waiting for a bit, the band finally took the stage. I'm telling you, from where we were sitting before the show started, it didn't look that far away, but it's amazing how your eyes play tricks on you in that place. Thankfully, even though we couldn't see the band that well, we could certainly see the big screens behind them, which often showed them playing along with some great visuals, and that was enough. Oh, and they opened with the 'required stage favorite' "Tom Sawyer", one of four songs they would play from Moving Pictures (which naturally tied with Vapor Trails as the most represented album throughout), and as usual, it was pretty faithful to the original, but still ass-kicking anyway. And it was good to know they can still play the damn thing after 21 years!
In fact, a lot of set one was pretty much l1ike that, only it had the extra power and volume the concert experience gives off. "YYZ" was especially tight, kicking unfair amounts of ass in that aspect, and the crowd applause after the short 'solo' bits throughout was especially adrenalizing. I don't remember the exact order of the first set, but I do know that "Distant Early Warning" was played right after "Tom Sawyer" (and the lights moving back and forth during the synth parts before the chorus were cool!), and "New World Man" was played after that. Hmm... right before the show started they had the "Three Blind Mice" music going and only played one song from Signals through the whole night. Gee, what live album does that remind me of? ;)
But of course, the differences between this concert and A Show Of Hands couldn't be more far off (well, other than the drum solo later on in the second set - more on that later!) I could count on one hand the number of songs Geddy actually used keyboards at all the entire concert (to Alex's liking, I bet!), and during some of the songs that did have them like "The Big Money", they were probably either sampled or triggered with his feet or something like that. By the way, right when that particular song started (an excellently energetic rendition of it), some guy a few rows ahead of us pointed to his Power Windows tour shirt (I want!), which I thought was cool. Oh, and they didn't play anything from Hold Your Fire all night, one of just two albums unrepresented the whole show (the other was the unfortunately overlooked Caress Of Steel - they should really bring back "The Necromancer" some day!)
Back to the first set. As far as I remember, three new Vapor Trails songs were played here, all of which convinced me that they were really made for the stage. "Ceiling Unlimited" was a fantastic bass-heavy ass whooping, the performance of "Earthshine" made me at least partially see why so many fans consider that song the classic of the album, and "Secret Touch" was alright too, I guess. Oh, and they also played a couple Roll The Bones songs here - "Bravado" in particular was one of the highlights of the night for me (great extended guitar solo from Alex, with the bird flying through the clouds visual really working on that one), and the title track had more energy and less wimpy sound than before, plus it had a visual of a skeleton guy dancing and lip synching to the rap in the middle, which I found to be.... genius (okay, maybe not!).
There were a few other songs played that had recently been revived for this tour - "The Pass" from Presto (good!), "Vital Signs" from Moving Pictures (yay! the thought of the crowd singing along to 'everybody got to deviate from the norm' is one of those dumb pleasures of Rush shows...) and "Between Sun And Moon" from Counterparts (ehh, not that good... but it was alright here I guess). And finally, they ended the set with another peak period classic "Natural Science" from Permanent Waves, another faithfully played number (nice to know their instrumental precision is still strong!), after which Geddy said something to the effect of returning in 20 minutes after some 'brain surgery'.
A little after 9:00, by which time it started to get dark outside (thankfully the weather cooperated with us all night - it was nice and mostly clear out), the lights went down and the second set began. Right before it started, some animated clip involving a dragon was shown, and by the end of that, a huge burst of flames went up at the back of the stage as the band broke into "One Little Victory", probably the most intense of the Vapor Trails performances here. And that's where things really started to kick ass, since the whole vibe of a great concert experience began to intensify, particularly when the insane back and forth power of "Driven" was going. Also of note was how much arena rock power "Dreamline" had - like I've implied, the songs from Roll The Bones sound thin and unconvicingly produced in the studio, but the songs they played really work live! Especially the 'we are young!' chorus of this one (to which I responded, 'NO YOU'RE NOT!' - just a little jab at the guys...)
And continuing with the more guitar-heavy theme of the show, other than the keyboards that normally establish the main rhythm of the song, most of "Red Sector A", including some of the melodies originally played on keys, was done on guitar here, and it was awesome. This song also had some of the most impressive light show displays too! The "Leave That Thing Alone!" instrumental (from Boringparts again) was kinda dull, but at least there was a visual of a weird looking creature of sorts on the screen bouncing up and down, so this was the genius portion of that performance. There was also a Neil Peart drum solo here too, but thankfully, his solos are among the very few of the kind that don't bore me to sleep. This one was pretty darn exciting to watch - it was basically the same sort of solo he did on A Show Of Hands and Different Stages at the core (with a few additions, and I loved how he was playing incredibly fast at other points), but still quite good anyway.
At some point in the middle of the set, Geddy announced that 'this is the part of the show where we exhibit a little warmth', and then he and Alex proceeded to play a nice acoustic version of Test For Echo's "Resist", during which Casey went to the bathroom. But while he was still in there, they started playing the first couple parts of "2112", and he ended up missing like, half the 'Overture' portion. Bastard. That part just kicked ass, though - that song has incredible energy and riffage, and the volume sure didn't hurt things at all. And the way a really bright light flashed during the stop-start riff near the end of it followed by a 'HEY!' from the crowd was just awesome, and the 'Temples Of Syrinx' part, sung in a similar way as on Different Stages, was no slouch either.
Probably the funniest moment of the night, though, was during their rendition of "La Villa Strangiato", by which point they had shifted their focus to the 1974-1981 years. The actual main portion of the song was done normally (and just as energetically and flawlessly as ever), but right in the middle of the song, Alex stepped up to the mic and started rambling in a hilarious voice about 'a scary story' and several other completely unintelligible and random blabberings, and the screen showed Neil's face during this part, which needless to say, was a great moment. Afterwards, they did "Limelight", which was just a beautiful singalong portion here, and during "The Spirit Of Radio" Geddy got the crowd to clap along to the chorus, which made things even better and more exciting. And with that, the second set ended.
Shortly after, they returned to the stage for an encore of earlier mid 70's stuff (which they don't play much of these days on account of Geddy being ashamed of his voice back then). This basically consisted of a three song medley - an excitingly intense shortened version of "By-Tor & The Snow Dog", the portion of "Cygnus X-1" where the spoken section ends and before the singing starts, and the debut's "Working Man" to close out the entire show (I can't think of a better ending here, especially since the show really had a retrospective feel to it). Regarding "Cygnus", though, I really dislike the studio version of this one, but it is amazing how that braindead opening riff can come to life on stage (even more entertaining was when I was singing along with it 'this is a riff... this is a dumbass riff, yeah'), and I dare say the part with the other slow, just as braindead riff, supported by the visual of a washing machine getting caught in a time warp with lightning flashing in the background, actually kicked ass.
Overall, this was a fairly impressive, highly entertaining live experience which proved that this band can still very much hold their own in concert. They're a little clinical on stage at points, sure, but man does the energy and excitement ever come through. It didn't hurt that the sound was very excellent from where we were sitting, either. Anyway, I would very much recommend seeing them if you haven't before, if the results of this and other shows I have heard about are any indication.