Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Rush
Label: Eagle Records
Release: 2011
Running time: approx. 180 min.
Rating: 4.5/5
This time it’s »just« a single one! A new Rush DVD! Titled »Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland«! It’s a music film that catches one snapshot of the band’s latest world tour, by one of the most eclectic trios ever to stomp across planet Earth and, to this day, probably the whole damn galaxy too. To quickly refresh your memory, the »Time Machine« tour ran from June 29, 2010 to July 2, 2011. Rush played most of the shows in North America, where the tour both started and ended. Between May 4, 2011 and May 29, 2011, they also played Europe. Four shows in Scandinavia, a 10-day run through the UK, and the one and only touchdown on the continent proper, with a show in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and another two days later, on May 29, 2011, in Frankfurt, Germany. This time us Europeans really had to go out of our way to catch one of the few shows of this Rush tour in Europe. If the »Snakes And Arrows« DVD marks the Rush show in Rotterdam, and the »R30« DVD the band’s Frankfurt gig, this time Rush decided to put their entire show from Cleveland, at the Quicken Loans Arena, on April 15, 2011, onto a DVD.
»Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland« is the first officially released Rush film-and-sound document to come from US soil. Given that Rush have already »covered« South America and Europe with this kind of DVD release, the logical move is for Rush to shoot their next DVD at home, in Canada.
The Quicken Loans Arena, home of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, seats 20,500. Add the floor and you’ve got room for something close to 30,000 heads. A jam-packed hall on April 15, 2011. Sold out, too. Why did Rush pick Cleveland of all places? Because it’s the first American city where, in the early seventies, Rush got backing from the local radio stations, which spun the music from the Rush debut.
The film »Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland« was shot by Banger Production, who also had the main say in making the DVD documentary »Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage« (2010). This DVD is special first and foremost, of course, because of its outstanding set list. The film is shot in the manner of the previous DVD »Snakes And Arrows«. With multiple cameras placed at several angles around the arena.
Since this is the DVD release, and a double live CD edition is also available, this time I’m focusing primarily on the visual side (the music will get its due in the review of the double live CD). The Rush show, which runs a good three and a half hours in total, opens with a film skit projected on a giant screen behind the stage that sucks us into another dimension in an instant. It’s a short film full of that contagious Rush humor, set in the hypothetical “this could happen” life in the faraway galaxy of Willowdale, starring the bonkers, overweight Professor Schlobowitz (Alex Lifeson), who invents a time machine! A lot of the gags revolve around sausages this time. Throughout the whole show, not just the short film, where the gluttonous Schlobowitz nearly chokes to death on a sausage. Next comes a demonstration of the device in front of an Irish cop, O’Malley (Neil Peart), and a mustachioed officer with a monocle (Geddy Lee). For the experiments they pick the band Rash and their song The Spirit Of Radio, in a Finnish-Russian polka variety, then a “disco Amanda Lear, late seventies” one, and a lazily shimmering “jazzy funk” one. Not one of them satisfies anybody in the room, until the fat inventor fires off one last “super dooper” sound on the miracle machine, accidentally hits the red button too, and it carries us out of the galaxy and the Gershon joint straight into the Quicken Loans Arena, where the real Rush hit us with The Spirit Of Radio. Every song in this document is backed by a film story projected on the screen at the back. In the interplay of lights and the intense embrace of the famous Rush show, it’s a ticket to a special parallel world – the Rush world, which lasts three and a half hours.
The first part of the show is shorter, and the set list serves up some juicy gems like Time Stand Still, Leave That Thing Alone, Stick It Out, Marathon and Presto, along with the brand-new BU2B, the staples Subdivisions and Freewill, and the »Snakes And Arrows« songs Faithless and Working Them Angels. A 20-minute intermission follows, and the second part opens with yet another typical Rush comedy film, this one about cuisine. When the number 1981 appears on the scene, it starts rolling on the screen, with Geddy Lee (director Cecil), Neil Peart (cameraman Percy) and Alex Lifeson (manager Ray Danniels) trading off the lead roles in the shots.
The second part is longer. In it, Rush play the whole of the album »Moving Pictures«, which turned 30 in the year of the Time Machine tour. Here comes the obligatory new, never-before-heard Peart drum solo called Moto Perpetuo, and the expected nod to the seventies Rush classics, rounded off in the encore by yet another fantastic version of the classic La Villa Strangiato, which opens with a sarcastic polka intro motif, and then the band spice it up with the classic Working Man wrapped in a reggae arrangement. Let me also point out that the songs on »Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland« are once again played a little differently than on earlier live albums. You’ll keep discovering the details for a long time, but what stands out most is how the new recording departs from the earlier ones in interpretation and in sound compared with the studio originals. That shows especially on songs from the eighties albums, where synthesizers were front and center in the production. Marathon, Time Stand Still and Subdivisions have a far more organic sound than on »A Show Of Hands« (which doesn’t mean these are better versions, just different ones, in line with where the band is at in 2011), despite decent renditions of the necessary dose of synths. In such a sonic landscape, Alex Lifeson’s (excellent) backing vocals also take on a whole new value and effect. The different bass lines are most noticeable in the instrumentals YYZ, Leave That Thing Alone and of course the unsurpassed La Villa Strangiato, where Mr. Alex Lifeson »explodes« in the finale. For the songs from the album »Moving Pictures«, what’s typical of this document is that the keyboards offer a different experience in the details. I can say that in the sophisticated transitional passages they even gain atmospheric weight. But you have to prick up your ears. Vital Signs and The Camera Eye lead the way among them. In Vital Signs, Lifeson picks up a Fender guitar for the only time in the show (a Telecaster, which fits the sound trend of the early eighties – the Vital Signs arrangement doesn’t hide it, from the days when it was fashionable for bands to mix reggae touches into their art eclecticism – the first parallel, also with a Telecaster, is Andy Summers and The Police.
Every fan of the band has to have this DVD. It’s simply a one-of-a-kind, unrepeatable document. With its own particular atmosphere and energetic pulse. Of course, what’s front and center in everything on this DVD is the visual fascination. The play of spotlights, most of which comes from the gigantic movable lighting rig hanging from the ceiling above the stage. It transforms constantly through the show and, with its movements, recalls a hovering spaceship. On this stage the speakers are disguised as time machine crates, washing machines and ovens with poultry in them. In Far Cry a miniature remote-controlled replica of a Zeppelin floats out into the arena, and even before that a salvo of soap bubbles is launched into the room.
The trio is once again »omnipotent« on stage in their interpretation. Impressions of the music itself (its interpretation, the sound and the band’s form on the night) on this document will be covered in detail in the review of the double live »Time Machine: Live In Cleveland« CD, where we’ll focus entirely on the music. Needless to say, what an all-out percussive trio can pull off on stage remains incredible until you see the film itself. The trio is so seasoned that nothing ever goes wrong for them. A touch of humor is one of the pillars of the Rush persona. The eye contact and gesturing between the three of them at the show is seasoned with a cheeky helping of mugging and winking between Lifeson and Peart and between Lee and Peart. Lee and Lifeson are incredibly energetic, agile musicians who, with their nimbleness and not a speck of rust, still show the restlessness of twenty-year-olds with genuine rush (»Rush«) of untamed musical enthusiasm. The hall is in a trance, the reactions are ecstatic, and the crowd carries the band on giant waves of ecstatic between-song excitement. The American »Rush-trekkies« are by no means as intense in creating atmosphere as the one captured on the DVD document »Rush In Rio« (2003).
The DVD doesn’t show the giant counter that counts the years from 1974 toward 1981 (during the intermission) – that would have been madness, after all. I’m only mentioning it as a curiosity, and the closing film is left out as well – a parody of the comedy “I Love You, Man” and of the goings-on backstage after a Rush show, where Jason Segel and Paul Rudd, the biggest Rush fans in the history of planet Earth, smuggle themselves backstage with fake AAA passes.
As a special extra on top of the concert film itself, this time there’s an interesting inclusion of two lost ancient video clips, which by their historic value belong right on the documentary DVD »Beyond The Lighted Stage«. They’re the ancient version of Need Some Love with John Rutsey on drums, and one of the first live performances of the »Fly By Night« classic Anthem from New Jersey in the US.
A gorgeous new film document of one of the most interesting and distinctive bands rock’s universe has ever produced. Those of you who may have caught Rush at one of the »Time Machine« tour shows, don’t hesitate to buy this souvenir. Rush fans already have this DVD at home, and once again I can stress that this document is also an excellent starting point for anyone who doesn’t know the band, so you can start discovering the unique Rush world through it!
Lineup
Geddy Lee – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards
Alex Lifeson – guitar, backing vocals
Neil Peart – drums, percussion
Production
Allan Weinrib & Dave Pattenden
Track list
First set:
The “Reral” History Of Rush Episode No. 2 “Don’t Be Rash”
01. The Spirit of Radio
02. Time Stand Still
03. Presto
04. Stick It Out
05. Workin’ Them Angels
06. Leave That Thing Alone
07. Faithless
08. BU2B
09. Freewill
10. Marathon
11. Subdivisions
Second set
The “Real” History Of Rush Episode No. 17 “…and Rock and Roll is my name…”
12. Tom Sawyer
13. Red Barchetta
14. YYZ
15. Limelight
16. The Camera Eye
17. Witch Hunt
18. Vital Signs
19. Caravan
20. Closer to the Heart
21. 2112 Overture/Temples of Syrinx
22. Far Cry
23. La Villa Strangiato
24. Working Man
Extras:
Outtakes from “History of Rush, Episode 2. & 17.”
“Tom Sawyer” featuring the cast of “The History of Rush, Episode 17.”
“Need Some Love” live from Laura Second Secondary School
“Anthem” live from Passalo New Yersey
