Tag Archives: thoughtsfromthefuture

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 – 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 – 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 – Fly By Night IV

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Some thoughts from the future:

The style still hasn’t settled down, has it?  I’m a bit overthinking things in places, but I do enjoy my Edinburgh nostalgia, and it’s strange to read the words written before the whole Canada thing became a reality.  As noted above, I own this as part of the ‘Archive’ set, and every now and then I see a copy in one of Victoria’s marvellous record stores, and I never quite get round to it.  One day, though – just listening to these tracks as part of finding them to insert into the posts has given me the urge to go back and listen to it all again.  It’s pretty good, this album.