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Rediscovering Rush – All the World’s a Stage IV

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Thoughts from the future:

As you might expect, following my musings on setlists, there was a helpful post on the original forum, leading me to some typical lists from this tour, which seemed to prove that the album represents one complete show, in the order it was played that night.

Not sure what that does to my argument, if indeed I actually had one.  Still, it’s a remarkably clear and well-produced live album which I rarely listen to.  I still haven’t replaced my vinyl copy, which I loved back in the early eighties.  Maybe I’ll get round to it after I’m done reposting all of this.

One thing seems clear from the original posts – I do struggle to find ways to talk about songs for a second time, especially as Rush do tend to recreate the album versions pretty faithfully.  It gets easier as we go on, I seem to recall.

Rediscovering Rush – All the World’s a Stage III

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By-Tor and the Snow Dog

OK, so from a technical point of view, how do they do all those effects?  At times it sounds like there are about 8 people up on that stage, and this all sounds pretty sophisticated for 1976.  I guess it’s actually normal for that time – this is the era of Prog, after all, but it still sounds pretty accomplished from here.  The live version of this is just as riveting as the original, and appears to have even more drums on it, if such a thing were possible.

In The End

I had actually forgotten this was on here. By now Geddy’s voice is sounding a little mellower – feeling the effects of an evening at full stretch, perhaps?  The introduction is positively laid-back, and then – “One, two, buckle my shoe”  – it’s on with the main event.  Now, this is definitely slower than the recorded version.  It sounds pretty menacing in places – and long, too.  A bit of a tour de force, this – I think I prefer it to the original.

Working Man / Finding My Way

We must be nearing the end, now – round things off with a couple of old favourites which they can play in their sleep by now.  Amazing to listen to the drums on this now – Neil’s playing takes this into another league – much more of a showcase for the whole band than just a guitar workout.  The instrumental passage is bubbling along nicely, then falls over the edge of a cliff into ‘Finding My Way’ – neatly done, and so is the climb back up into ‘Working Man’.  It all fits together really well, and just when you thought it was all over…

…”Ladies and Gentlemen, The Professor on the drumkit”.  I remember the first time I heard this; I was (and remain) blown away – every band has to allow the drummer a solo, none – I mean none – of them come even close to this for musicality and sheer joy of playing.  I keep expecting to hear blasts of horn, but this early version of the classic Peart solo has everything else, including the seeming ability to play four different rhythms at once.  Short, sharp and to the point, this leaves us wanting more (but then, all Neil’s solos leave me wanting more…)

Thank you.  Goodnight (then of course there’s an encore):

What You’re Doing

Yes, we’d like a little more, thanks – a quick blast through what now sounds like an old blues standard, and it’s all over, bar the offstage noises, which make me laugh out loud, because I’d completely forgotten about them.

Summary:

That was a blast – haven’t heard it in ages, but it’s a real snapshot of the time; halfway between gigging out of the back of a van, and full-length stadium tours, the guys have all the stagecraft, and seem to be really enjoying their day jobs.  Incidentally, I know it’s traditional to see this as the punctuation between phase one and phase two of the Rush career, but I tend to see Rush studio albums in groups of three, so this comes a third of the way through phase 2 for me – I can hear a difference between the ‘2112’ tracks and the others – but either way you look at it, this is a great live album – one of the best.

Rediscovering Rush – All the World’s a Stage II

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Bastille Day

“Would you please welcome home…”  That always sounded cool to me – imagine coming back to your hometown, triumphant, selling out huge venues where you used to play to a handful of friends and family.  First impressions – it’s tight, well-practiced – good opener, you need something to grab people from the off, and this will do nicely.  The balance of instruments is good live – just as I suspected it would be when I reviewed the studio version – I’m sure there are effects and so on to come, but this is just three guys doing their thing.  One thing – why do all crowds everywhere always feel the need to yell out into any silence?  Just asking.

Anthem

Woah; Geddy speaks!  I remember this being the first time I’d hear his speaking voice.  Now, I’m not sure whether I prefer my live performances to be full of chat to the audience or not; I think that in Rush’s case, the music kind of speaks for itself, but it’s good to hear some information about a song sometimes.  Must be hard, though, to play shows for months on end and still find something interesting to say about anything.  The song is fluid and pretty faithful to the original – I imagine this is a point of pride for these guys at this stage.

Fly By Night / In The Mood

Barely a pause for breath here – straight on with the show.  What I’m hearing here is the bass sound – I wonder how difficult it is to concentrate on those bass lines while singing.  Even by this point, I suppose Geddy’s had enough practice!

Abrupt change for In The Mood – somehow, it works, but the juxtaposition is a little awkward – these two songs are not exactly natural bedfellows, are they?  Of course, the drumming stands out as different from the original, but not hugely so – it just couldn’t be anyone else.

Something For Nothing

And the contrast with this is quite dramatic – I’m trying to hear if this feels a little less well-rehearsed than the others, but it doesn’t.  I remember seeing bands in the past who were playing tracks from their new album which they seemed to be barely familiar with, but this just feels like an old friend.  It’s been pretty full-on up to now; the question is, how do they handle the change of pace which must be coming?

Lakeside Park

My previously documented ambivalence to this aside, this is pretty much the perfect song for this point in the proceedings – taking the pace down a little, using the introduction to let the audience as well as the band catch their breath, and it works better than I’d have thought – I think that the solo sounds more spontaneous than on the studio version, and the audience seem to be well into it.  I didn’t skip it this time, must be a good sign.

And at the end, I want it to go into Xanadu…

2112

… but obviously, it doesn’t.

How I remember the disappointment of realizing that this was not the full version – no Discovery?  At least, that’s how I remember it.  The overture is damned impressive; boy, these guys can really cut it live!  Syrinx is a lot less strident than the recorded version – you couldn’t really do that to your voice night after night, I suppose – and for me it’s all the better for it.  The segue into Presentation works pretty well, although the narrative loses quite a bit – it would all sound a bit odd if you hadn’t heard it before.  The vocal contrasts are handled well – is Geddy leaning away from the mic as the priest, lending a sense of distance to the proceedings?  Whatever, it works.

“The sleep is still in my eyes..” – listen to that rich baritone! Another section has been skipped, but with less damage to the story this time.  the final lyric is pure Robert Plant – never noticed that before.  And then the Finale, which seems slightly faster than I remember it – always a danger when playing live, I suppose – but it’s as creative and complex as ever, and really works in the live context.  Did they take a break in the show at this point?  I suppose they were young and fit back then; maybe there was no need…

I’m going to take a break, though – back in a moment.

Rediscovering Rush – All the World’s a Stage I

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All The World’s A Stage

A quick note from the future:  I’m not going to post individual song links for the live albums, I think.  Quite apart from it being somewhat of a pain to do, it will make the posts somewhat unwieldy, and probably not offer much in the way of illumination.

History

I love live albums.  I think I tended to buy live albums rather than compilations, since they were at least different versions of songs, and – to my mind, anyway – a better indication of what a band could actually do.  Also, there tended to be interesting stuff on them which you couldn’t get elsewhere – I’m a completist, remember?

This was the first live Rush album I owned (by the time Exit Stage Left came out, I already owned everything else), and for a time, it was my favourite Rush album.  After a while, though, I noticed that I didn’t play it much at all  – probably because I preferred the newer stuff, but also possibly because I think this is an uneven selection.  Looking at it now, it seems to me to be a record company-driven exercise in getting people to buy the back catalogue. (at the same time, I’m not sure that’s true, because I imagine this is a pretty faithful representation of the live show at the time.)  I’d love to know (yeah, I know – it’s on the web somewhere!) how much of the recorded show never made it on to vinyl; interesting to know what the full show was like.  Or maybe this is the full show – sets would have been shorter in those days, I guess.

Anyway, I’ve been debating with myself how to approach this – I’ve only just finished talking about most of these songs, so I think this will be slightly more cursory than usual.  I’ve got plenty to say about A Farewell To Kings, though, so that should make up for it.

Rediscovering Rush – 2112 IV

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Thoughts from the future

Two things stand out – I absolutely love those videos, and the last line of my summary is a load of nonsense – the answer to that question is an awful lot of them, but I’m trying not to be too hard on myself; what I wrote then is what I thought then, I’m just older now…

Anyway, since then, I’ve listened to 2112 a whole bunch of times – my children gave me the 40th anniversary box set for Christmas a couple of years back, and while there’s not much new to be said about it (famously, Rush just don’t have unheard versions or leftover songs on the cutting room floor), it’s a magnificent thing in its own right, and well worth your hard-earned cash if you’re like me.

Which, given that you’re reading this, you probably are, at least a bit.

Rediscovering Rush – 2112 III

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A Passage to Bangkok

Yeah, I remember this.  Can I say straight off that the little ‘shorthand for being in Asia’ fill is about the cheesiest thing Rush ever recorded, but it still makes me smile.  Apart from that, I remember this well – one evening in Edinburgh, I was pub-crawling my way home and found myself in the Southern – not a pub I visited often, but it was known for having a decent rock jukebox.  I think I was looking for some Warren Zevon or something (I had a bit of a reputation in those days for putting odd things on jukeboxes), but I saw the word Rush.  Abandoning my beer goggles for a moment, I managed to focus enough to put it on.  It was this, a live version, and presumably the b-side to something; I don’t know what.  Whenever I heard it after that, I smiled to myself at the thought of the unsuspecting punters in the Southern being subjected to the Rush stoner’s anthem.

And that’s another thing – how long did it take me to work out what it was about?  I’m not saying, but I lived a sheltered life.

So, once you get chopsticks out of the way, what is there to say about this?  Not a huge amount, really – it’s the ideal light relief after the storms of side 1, and it’s just a simple riff and a pleasant melody.  Kind of sticks in the brain, though.  Just to reiterate that the production values are superb now – even something as light as this feels solid and crafted.

The Twilight Zone

A little descending figure, and we’re straight into it.  If (unlikely, I know, but work with me here) you were listening to this without knowing about the TV show, you’d be a little lost, I think.  I love the way we transition to the chorus – that fluid bass still gets me.  What’s interesting about it now is its gentleness – this is almost an acoustic number – at least until we get to the solos, and then there’s something I had never before noticed – the whispering!

I wish I’d been able to listen to all this stuff through crystal clear headphones when I was 20 – I’d have been in transports…

Lessons

I don’t remember this at all, and I’m not sure if it’s going to stick with me after this, either.  I detect the hand of a guitarist here – it’s a real guitarist’s song.  In a way, this feels like the last gasp of the old Rush – there’s a more basic, blues-based feel to this.  I have to say that it all fits together perfectly well, with the possible exception of the screeching of the  end of the chorus – not sure that’s entirely necessary, but it is what it is, I guess.  It has its moments, but not too many of them.

Tears

And so does this.  A little oasis of calm in the midst of all this, it has one of the great guitar intros – I can’t tell you how astonished I was one day to discover that it’s just a transposed C chord, and it’s another of those little figures that I play whenever I pick up a guitar – once you know it, you don’t forget it.

So, I can’t work out if this is all orchestrated, or if it’s just synth work – I suspect the latter, but it’s good enough to make me wonder.  In the end this is not what we think of when we think about Rush, is it?  It’s a  song which would have been perfectly acceptable if done by someone else, but just doesn’t quite seem to fit with the rest of what’s here.  Odd.

Something For Nothing

But this is much more like it!  Just listen to that bass – there’s so much going on in the introduction that I’m lost in the music when I’m suddenly assaulted by those so-familiar ‘Rush’ chords and swept up into the sheer enthusiasm of the thing, irresistibly so by the time the solo comes along.  So hard not to air guitar along…

I also still love the lyrics – how often do you hear this kind of philosophical sentiment expressed in a four-minute rock song? There’s even a full-blooded scream in the middle of all this pondering on the responsibilities of the individual in the modern society.

Ah, I love this band sometimes.

Summary

Well, it’s legendary.  That in itself is enough to make it difficult to talk about, and familiarity just adds to the difficulty.  But I’m hooked all over again.  I think I had forgotten that side 2 does have its weaker moments, but overall, this is a fine package.  It’s easy to see why things just took off from heere – here’s a mature band of excellent musicians, doing what they do so well.  It rewards careful listening, and how many 29-year old albums can you say that about?

Rediscovering Rush – 2112 II

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2112

Overture

Right, let’s get this out of the way first.  It’s absolutely not (in my view, of course) pretentious to use words or concepts like ‘Overture’ in rock music. I know I’m preaching to the converted here – at least, I hope I am – but this kind of thing can spoil perfectly good friendships, you know.

So we have an overture.  A proper one, just the way Mozart or Wagner would have done it – weaving in the themes from the whole work, and prefiguring the whole thing, while at the same time playing the oldest trick in the book – the one that modern-day pop song writers imagine they invented: letting us hear the melody of the chorus up front, so that when it comes around, it’s already familiar, and you are even more predisposed to liking it.  Just as Mozart previewed the big arias, so Rush here give us snippets of the big riffs and themes, softening us up for the main event.

When it starts, I’m immediately whisked back to my little room in Edinburgh.  It doesn’t matter how long it is since I heard this, I’m never going to mistake that synthesized swirl for anything else.  Immediately, I can see that all the lessons learnt over the last 3 albums have been put to work here; the arrangement is tight, the production awesome.  At times the bass leads the way, at others the guitar dances a jig; at all times it sounds like the mature Rush sound.  This is where it all falls into place.  I’ll even forgive the explosions.

Temples of Syrinx

A seamless segue from the cataclysmic end to the overture, and we’re straight into an anthem which is meant to sound like – well, an anthem.  Here’s the strident voice used to its proper effect – there’s no mistaking what’s going on here, and for all the joyful bounce of the melody, we’re under no illusions that this is a facade, and the manufactured happiness is just that – manufactured.  The lyrics deserve a mention here – sinister without there being anything you could put your finger on; I always loved “Oh, what a nice, contented world” – chilling in it’s naive simplicity.

As we move along, I’m struck by a Rush trademark, which I must have overlooked earlier – suddenly guitar and drums are the rhythm section, while the bass does its thing, and the sound created is unmistakable.  I’m strangely pleased at having put my finger on something I’d always taken for granted.

Discovery

Possibly the boldest thing they’ve tried so far; I have always loved this.  The spare, picked opening is utterly convincing (although it is a rare talent indeed who can pick up a guitar for the first time, and never hit a bum note) and if the development to harmonics and then structured melody is rather rapid, let’s not forget that this is a narrative device, not a literal guitar lesson.

The melody is still highly effective, and the sound is possibly unique in all of Rush music – is this the only track which features only guitar and voice?

Presentation

The crux of the whole thing; the pivotal moment, and it doesn’t disappoint.  The melody flows logically from the previous section, and the narrative voice blossoms from the earlier uncertainty to the strong, true sound – we can hear he has right on his side –

Which is why the contrasting voice (Father Brown; an odd resonance for me – I somehow doubt that G K Chesterton was high on Neil’s reading list, but you never know) is so devastating.  “Yes, we know; it’s nothing new” is possibly the single most crushingly dismissive line in all of recorded music.  So much so that the remainder of the song is a kind of anti-climax; just going through the required motions (which is what the characters in the story are doing) until we can reach the devastation of the breakdown, and the pained howl of the guitar solo.

Oracle: The Dream

(How many song titles have a colon in them?  Never mind.)

Putting aside for a moment my initial reaction (a male Oracle?); what strikes me about this is the way the vocal line leads the rhythmic pattern.  This is unusual for Rush, and it stands out for me; more usually, the voice serves the rhythm and is emphasized by it in return; this is odd, prompting me to wonder if it was composed differently to normal.  Or maybe I’m just hearing things.

Soliloquy

Sparsely orchestrated, here the music tells the tale just as well as the words.  This is ultimate despair, and the breakdown is complete – as the music boils over, so the voice is lost, becoming in its final agonies almost a caricature of the Priests’ voices – the irony, I am sure, is entirely intentional.  The abruptness of the end still seems a little shocking, but there are time constraints here, and we do understand that this was the only course which seemed open to him.  It’s just a little – sudden.

Grand Finale

If you’re going to have an Overture, you’d better have a Finale, and this is a beauty – satisfying the classical geek in me with its two competing themes, cleverly intertwined with the darting guitar solo.  If I have a quibble, it is that the ending is obscure, but then I realize that it may well be deliberately so; who wins this battle?  Just who has taken control, and of what?  You can read it both ways and the music doesn’t help, either.

I think that, as a younger man, I assumed that the good guys had won, that the Elder Race had come back to sort everything out.  Now, I’m older and more cynical, and I’m not so sure – my feeling is that the music tips us the other way, that the nascent revolution caused by this suicide has been brutally stamped on.

But I could be wrong.  What’s not to like here?  A song cycle, properly constructed, with themes and counterpoints, narrative tension and an unresolved ambiguous ending.  No wonder I like Mahler…

In the end, am I amazed?  No, not quite, but it’s still pretty damned good, and I am happy to have found new things in something which I knew so well.

Rediscovering Rush – 2112 I

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2112

History:

I’ve been scratching my head over this, I really have.  I feel like I’ve owned this forever, so it must have been my first Rush album, yet I know it wasn’t.  I know I owned it before ‘All The World’s A Stage’, because I remember getting that home and being disappointed by ‘2112’ being edited highlights.  It wasn’t first, then, but it was close to it.  A thousand years have passed me by since then, and although I have heard most of this relatively recently (I own a copy of ‘Different Stages’, remember, and I had two tracks from side 2 on my mp3 player months ago), I wonder if the original version still has the power to amaze?  Because that’s what I really remember about this – being amazed by it; I was a big ELP fan as a teenager, and I wasn’t new to sprawling epics, and concept pieces (although I can’t honestly say that the lyrics of Pete Sinfield prepared me in any way for the Solar Federation) but I was blown away by this.  Wonder if I still am?

Rediscovering Rush – Caress of Steel IV

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Some thoughts from the future:

There was a noticeable gap between the last two posts, as the family went to Canada on vacation for a couple of weeks – I remarked on it at the time, but perhaps hadn’t quite grasped the significance of what that trip was about to mean to us all.

Still, I remember vividly listening to ‘Caress’ on the flight over, and again in the hotel in Vancouver as we tried to rediscover our equilibrium and banish the jetlag.  Maybe it was because of that that this review feels odd to me – I’m happy rediscovering ‘Fountain’ for sure, but at no point do I try to review it as a whole – and I think that’s why my optimism was misplaced; I genuinely did enjoy finding it again, but I’ve scarcely listened to it since, and I think that’s partly because there’s so much other good stuff out there, and partly because, for all my enthusiasm, it really doesn’t quite hang together as a coherent whole.

I put it away when I’d finished writing that post, and I doubt I’ve listened to the whole thing more than a couple of times since.

I did, however, buy a vinyl copy of ‘Archive’ some months back – replacing my original with another UK pressing was a joyful moment, and I definitely did listen to all of it then, so I know for sure I’ve heard it all the way through at least once since 2005…

 

Rediscovering Rush – Caress of Steel III

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The Fountain of Lamneth

I: In The Valley

I have no idea what to expect, here.  There must be a reason why I don’t remember listening to this – I generally give everything a fair listen, but this is all (with one short exception) completely unfamiliar to me.  I’m afraid my heart sank when I heard the opening; why would they do a Stairway to Heaven track?  However, it very quickly redeems itself, and resolves into a terrific Rush riff, and a veritable mini-epic.  The two vocal styles really clarify the story (we’re going to hear that device again, as I recall) and the story is clear – the tale of a life, the 6 ages of man.

Love the ending – crisp, clear chords, very Rush, very effective.  My spirits are suitably uplifted.

II: Didacts And Narpets

(Presumably ‘parents’ is not a cool word).  Wow.  All together now: Heeeere’s Neil!  This puts a huge grin on my face – fills and rolls which still get an airing 30 years later, originated here.  Fantastic, if a little too King Crimson.

III: No-one At The Bridge

Part three is the ‘troubled twenties’; unsure of what life will bring, our hero feels adrift and aimless – gone is the certainty of youth, to be replaced by a nameless dread.  Ditch the sound effects, and this will be a great song.  It’s interesting that there was obviously not enough confidence in the ability of the music to give the nautical feel, so we have seagulls and waves, just in case we don’t get it.

But I love this, and not just because it’s a tightly put-together song.  Long, long ago, in a flat in Edinburgh, I taught myself to play this: the rippling low-end arpeggio, and the sudden shift to chords.  It took me ages to transcribe from sheet music, but was (and is – I still play it whenever I pick up a guitar) deeply satisfying to play.  The weird thing is that I barely remember the recorded original, but of course I know it intimately.  To hear it again after all this time is shocking – I thought the chorus had more power chords in it, and the voice more panic – probably that’s just the way I did it.  Now I hear it again, I notice two things – it’s just fine the way it is, and my left hand is unconsciously fingering the ‘sea swell’.  Cool.

As we near the end, the bass goes practically subsonic, a very powerful effect, and Alex lavishes a glorious solo all over it.  Love it.

IV: Panacea

OK, I gots to know:  is this the Canadian pronunciation of ‘panacea’?  ‘Cause it set my teeth on edge, and I needed three listens to appreciate that this is actually a mighty fine song.  The redemptive power of love is a hackneyed concept, but this is beautifully done, from the ‘Farewell to Kings’ opening to the sumptuous chorus, I’m right there with it, and find myself humming it for days afterwards.

At this point, I should mention that the production on this whole album is excellent.  I hear it particularly here, where the mix of instruments and voice is just about perfect – the drums are almost inaudible in places, subsumed to the common good, and it’s a little jewel of a song as a result.

V: Bacchus Plateau

(or: Days of Wine and Roses – so much of this whole side has been done before, but it all sounds fresh.  Impressive work, guys)  I’ll ignore the fade in (as you know, I’m not a fan), and concentrate on the song.  Take this section in isolation from the rest of the song, and – although it’s very much a Rush song – you could just imagine someone like The Byrds having a hit with this – all 12-string and harmonies.  The first time the chorus hits, it’s a wondrous resolution of the early tension (like all the best music), and because it feeds on Neil’s middle-age wannabe status, it’s probably the strongest of the six parts here.

Quite exceptional bass and guitar work, too – once again, I love the solo.  We’re firing on all cylinders here, but I have to deduct a mark for fading out.  Sets up the finale beautifully, both lyrically and musically.

VI: The Fountain

And here we are – journey’s end; life’s end and it appears we go out the world backwards.  Part 6 is, of course, part 1 in reverse, but where ‘In the Valley’ was a little cumbersome lyrically, this has been well-tempered, and flows nicely – musings on spirituality, even a hint of Buddhist reincarnation.  Certainly the drum fills have been reincarnated from the first section, although I think that’s a different solo.  Nice staccato ending again.

And then we complete the reverse journey with a recapitulation of the opening, followed (to my surprise, as I was about to switch off) by a reverse chord.  Neat.

You know, if this was split into six songs, and didn’t suffer from a ) being on  ‘Caress of Steel’, or b ) being a ‘concept’, this would be some of the best-loved early Rush stuff. ‘Panacea’ and ‘Bacchus Plateau’ in particular are really strong songs, and deserve a wider audience.  Much to my surprise, this is probably my favourite so far.

Summary:

I always thought this was the weakest Rush album.  I think I was wrong (although don’t ask me to make that call just yet) – I’m going to have this in the car from now on, principally because I love the whole sweep of ‘Fountain of Lamneth’.  If you haven’t heard this, or have forgotten about it, do yourself a favour.  If you have, and you don’t like it, try just listening to side 2 – there are definite weaknesses in side 1, but they are easily compensated for by ‘Fountain.’

As always, just one guys opinion. Your mileage (kilometrage?) may vary.