Until last year, Rush had toured the world many times over but had somehow failed to visit the hotbed of metal enthusiasm that South America seems to be. November of last year saw the band righting that wrong, finally, by gracing the continent with three shows, all of which were ravenously attended by long-time Rush fans eager to finally see one of their favorite bands live. To say they were greeted with enthusiasm is putting it mildly. The band wisely decided to document not only the final show on their tour, but their first visit to these long-deserving people.
Clocking in at around three hours, the main concert presented on the CD version of Rush In Rio provides a healthy sampling of nearly every era of Rush and offers a few relatively rarely heard songs as well, plus a couple of soundboard "bootlegs" to fill in the tracks missing from its US tour (a very generous and wise decision to include the never-played-before-this-tour Counterparts track "Between Sun & Moon" and the long-neglected Moving Pictures finale "Vital Signs.")
The band is in top form, performing with a vitality and enthusiasm whose absence became more and more noticeable with each playing of the previous live album, Different Stages. Goading the band on is an even more enthusiastic crowd who can be heard very clearly and loudly yelling, whistling, clapping, and even singing along with every song - and I do mean every song, instrumental or no.
Unfortunately, Rush In Rio is plagued with muddy, unclear sound. It's uncertain what the root of the problem is - did guitarist Alex Lifeson and James "Jimbo" Barton really mean to mix the audience so loud that it nearly drowns out the music at times, or is this simply the best they could make of the tapes they got from the show (liner notes suggest that the latter may be the culprit, as a "somewhat primitive Brazillian recording truck" is mentioned.) This is not to say that the sound is horrendous - it's simply disappointing from a band who has such a great legacy of live recordings behind them (this set being the fifth live album from them. Notable, however, is the fact that this is the first live album since 1976's All The World's A Stage to not feature significant editing and overdubbing.) I almost feel as if they simply could not believe how responsive and ecstatic the crowd was and so wanted to share with all listeners what they heard on-stage that night. I agree it is astounding - I cannot recall another live album where I've experienced the sound of 40,000 people singing along so perfectly and loudly. Unfortunately, as "real" as it may sound, the crowd grows distracting after the initial thrill has worn off. Luckily, some tracks, such as instrumental proving-ground "YYZ," really benefit from hearing the spontaneous vocal contributions of such a huge crowd. Other highlights of the set include blistering tracks from last year's triumphant return, Vapor Trails, "Earthshine," "Ghost Rider," "Secret Touch," and pummelling second-set opener "One Little Victory," as well as returning classics "Bravado," "The Pass," "Natural Science," and surprising show-opener "Tom Sawyer," among many others, of course.
Article comments
1 - Mark Saleski
great review Tom.
i've gotta get the DVD.
does the second set opening include the video of the dragon?
man, when that dragon pounded his foot on the floor the rumble scared the heck outa me!
looking forward to the documentary as well.
2 - Tom Johnson
The intermission video isn't included. That's unfortunately because I was out getting the tourbook and drinks during intermission and entirely missed the video. There's about 30 seconds of video prior to "One Little Victory" and that's it, unfortunately. I saw other fans complaining about not getting the footage too, so you're not alone in missing it.
I wanted to put in the review somewhere but felt it was simply too "personal" sounding: this is the best concert video I've ever seen. Being a Rush die-hard may skew my opinion, and that's why it's left out, and as big a fan of live-material as I am, I actually have no other concert videos that I'm certain I'll watch many, many times. This one is a keeper, for certain.
3 - TDavid
Saw this CD in the store on Friday and it was $23.99 and I almost bought it. Instead, I'm tracking actually how long it takes to make its way to iTunes / Rhapsody / buymusic, etc. I really enjoyed Exit Stage Left. This is a band I would really like to see live someday if possible.
And I don't know about others, Tom, but I enjoy some "personal" stuff in reviews. I can read wooden, structured, professional reviews at lots of places online (rotten tomatoes for movies, for example). Hopefully here, blogcritics will share more personal reviews.
Very cool cover artwork!
4 - Tom Johnson
I include personal stuff in some reviews, but in this one it just didn't lend any strength to what I was already saying. I opted to leave it out just because I felt like it would stick out like a sore thumb. I actually plan on writing up "my life with Rush" someday because if it weren't for their music, my wife and I would never have met. Needless to say, the band and their music form a pretty important part of my life. :-)
At 31 tracks, the Rio set is going to be might expensive at $0.99 a track, isn't it? And besides, they're still crappy mp3s. I friggin' hate those things. Plus no artwork. That's a ripoff in my book. Get 'em down to about $0.10 each and that's fair.
5 - TDavid
Personally, I'm not planning on buying this online, Tom. I was just saying that I was tracking the time it takes to get to these services (namely Rhapsody) so I can listen to it and decide whether I want to buy it.
I'm just curious what the delay is from store release to making it to the online venues.
On the strength of including vital signs live alone, I probably will get the CD.
Thank you for the excellent review!
6 - Mark Saleski
ya, no artwork.
you miss out on the cool picture of neil with sponge bob in the foreground.
;-)
7 - Mark Saleski
by the way, anybody ever seen Neil's Work in Progress video?
cool stuff, even if you're not a drummer.
8 - Tom Johnson
I haven't seen that, actually. I really want to, but haven't found a reason to justify the cost given the fact I'm not a drummer. However, Christmas IS coming up . . . might be time to add that to the list!
9 - Mark Saleski
i do play a little drums (in addition to guitar) but one of the things i really love to watch are documentary type things where how the music is constructed is discussed.
A Work in Progress is full of that stuff. totally worth it.
10 - Tom Johnson
I just looked it up on Amazon - $59 is a bit pricey! Of course, it's got only a niche audience it'll sell to anyway. I'm still intrigued enough that I'll probably have to get this at some point. Just to see how he plays normal song parts should be interesting. He does stuff in his solo on the DVD that is mind-boggling. I know he's maybe not quite up to par with the jazz greats, but for a rock drummer he's incredibly fluid while hitting very, very hard. Especially intriguing is being able to see him triggering things. It really explains how he's able to pull off some of what he does. I remember seeing discussions saying that he wasn't really playing everything you hear in his solos, but people were getting triggered sounds confused with not really playing them. His solo makes clear that he plays ALL of what you hear in his solos.
11 - Mark Saleski
the fluidity comes from his complete change in technique. he talks about it a lot on the video. he took a break from Rush to retrain himself...taking a bunch of lessons from jazz drumming guru Freddie Gruber.
12 - Eric Olsen
I am not sure how to respond to Rush. There are plenty of people whose taste I really respect who love Rush. I like "Working Man."
13 - Tom Johnson
I don't know exactly what it is about Rush that grabs some people completely and entirely turns others off. There aren't many in-between fans. What grabbed me as a teenager was the mature melodies I heard in their music paired with unusually literate lyrics (1989's Presto being the album whose songs I first identified with.) Nothing seemed "excessive" - even in the midst of the hair-band movement, even being a fan of that kind of music, I was already realizing its limitations. It's clear on any Rush song that you're hearing three great musicians (two of them up there with the best in the business) but nothing they did was overly show-offy. Peart's drumming was "busy" but never to the point where it overshadowed the song.
Finding Rush was the first really mature decision I made with music. It was the first time I feel like I truly made a decision for myself and not based on what was playing on MTV or what everyone else thought was cool. This was meaningful music in a sea of turgid, stupid crap, but it wasn't trying to push an agenda. Peart's lyrics might address issues, but it did so in a way that didn't make the issue more important than the songs. Nor did he tend to tell you what was right or wrong - something I tire of very quickly - he just wrote about the issue and tried to show you everything. Like their song says, "Show, don't tell." (That's probably the greatest lesson I picked up in college creative writing classes. I wish more writers (here at Blogcritics and in general) understood what that really meant - and used it.)
That probably doesn't answer anything for you, does it Eric? :-) I think Rush is a "you either get it or don't" type of thing. I wish I knew what it was that caused people to be so turned off by them. I sure can't see it.
14 - Eric Olsen
T, Haha - tricked you into getting personal!
That was very nice and descriptive, thanks. I was never a hater, but not a lover either - guess I'm a rare 'tweener.
15 - Tom Johnson
Rude, Eric, rude. Nah, actually, this just gives me more drive to actually start working on the chronicles of me and Rush throughout my life. :-)
16 - TDavid
RE #3: Update! Both Rush in Rio and Vapor Trails are now available at Rhapsody -- fully available for streaming and burn ($purchase$).
So it took from Oct 21, 2003 until Nov 14, 2003 to get to Rhapsody which is not too bad. Neither of these CDs are available at Napster 2.0. Vapor Trails is available at iTunes, but not Rush in Rio. Didn't check out AOL or Musicmatch for availability.