Artist: Rush
Label: Atlantic Records
Release: 2008
Rating: 4/5
Years fly by incredibly fast. The release of the triple-disc Rush live set “Rush In Rio” (2003, RockLine review HERE) still feels like yesterday, and already a new live document of this legendary Canadian art rock outfit is on its way, “Snakes And Arrows Live”, recorded in October in the Netherlands, in 2007, so on the European leg of their world tour.
The new live album is, once again, a completely different experience from any officially released live album the band has put out so far. Rush wouldn’t be Rush, of course, if they weren’t aware of that. The band is a tight operation that knows how to milk its cash cow well, and feeds it carefully at the same time. For the new tour, Rush naturally used the set design and iconography of the new studio album “Snakes And Arrows” (2007, RockLine review HERE). The whole stage was symbolically decked out with arrows and snakes, and they didn’t even skip drummer Neil Peart’s headwear. Just as brand new is the presentation of the films rolling on the gigantic screen at the back. And the third “little thing” is the band’s newly discovered hobby of roasting chickens, which replaced the washing machines of the “Vapour Trails” tour onstage.
Okay, that’s the small stuff out of the way, let’s finally get to the music. The album opens with Limelight (“Moving Pictures”, 1981), just like (interestingly enough) the 1998 live album “Different Stages”. From there on, you’ll hardly find any close parallels between the live albums. The setlist has been completely overhauled. The bulk of the songs this time comes from “Snakes And Arrows”, nine of them in fact, but they definitely can’t take the top spot away from the classics. Rush love to play the new songs from the current albums they’re promoting on tour in blocks, usually (two or four in a row). This time the block of four is, interestingly and happily, split in half right at the end of the first disc with one of the best “Snakes And Arrows” songs, Armors And Sword, and the start of the second disc with the cataclysmic Spindrift. That means the first part of the show was dominated by songs from the Rush classics, to the sad realization of all of you who favor the band’s early albums from the seventies, since this time the band gave priority to the eighties. They even brought the album “Hold Your Fire” (1987) back into the set with the song Mission. The highlights of the first disc are caught in the compactly tight yet incredibly fiery performances of the classics Circumstances (“Hemispheres”, 1979), Between The Wheels (“Grace Under Preasure”, 1984), Entre Nous (“Permanent Waves”, 1980) and Digital Man (“Signals”, 1982). Slotted perfectly into this lineup is the instrumental masterpiece The Main Monkey Bussines from the new album, where the guys seriously flex their muscles. This song in particular proves that Rush are the kind of live band whose studio repertoire only gets its true shine when they play it live. This instrumental in particular is stretched out even further, and in it Rush stage that very moment that makes us count them among the greatest live rock acts of all time. Here the working chemistry of the trio, the extraordinary communication and the sense of each other onstage come together directly.
The sound of both discs is completely different from the sound of “Rush In Rio”. Even though the band recorded the album in a stadium, it keeps a much warmer sound this time. Geddy Lee’s vocals in particular are pushed further up in the mix, as is the framework of the lower tonalities, which adds to the feeling of more intimacy, more directness and more realness. On “Rush In Rio”, Rush rode the waves of the thunderous roar of the crowd, and “Rush In Rio” feels, if I may exaggerate a little, like the embodiment of a deity in front of crazed Brazilian fans. Here, of course, there’s none of that. The reason is the calm, well-fed Dutch audience, which naturally gets into the Rush world differently and reacts differently to the band’s stimuli onstage. On the other hand, this atmosphere works unfavorably especially on YYZ, which this time sounds like Rush are playing it in a garage for rehearsal, precisely because of the absence of the ecstatic singing of thousands of voices that the crowd would otherwise provide. In terms of the eruption of emotion and the emphasis on every intensity of the show in a musical, atmospheric sense, “Rush In Rio” is a good notch higher when comparing the two albums.
The interpretation of the songs themselves also differs from “Rush In Rio”. Secret Touch is stretched out more in the closing section and enriched with a Lifeson solo slalom. Elsewhere on the album too, we’re constantly witnessing this already standard special trait of Lifeson’s soloing, which surprises and charms the listener with the feeling of spontaneity his playing carries. And with every new live album, as always, the band’s opus is enriched by one new piece. I’m talking about Peart’s drum solo, which this time too combines refined technique, exploratory wit and, of course, extravagance, in fact the dream of every drummer.
The second disc doesn’t hide surprises like the first, with the exception of the return to the set of the fantastic classic Subdivisions (“Signals”, 1982) with the characteristic eighties Oberheim synthesizer sound, which leaves an exceptional mark on this song live as well, another special gem, Witch Hunt (“Moving Pictures”, 1981), and as a bonus for everyone who misses the Overture 2112, since it isn’t in the set this time, A Passage To Bangkok, which still won’t be enough for the diehards of old Rush. The obligatory ones are here too: Natural Sience, The Spirit Of Radio and the closing Tom Sawyer (“Moving Pictures”, 1981), a song that was also played during the breaks at the Group A ice hockey championship in Canada in 2008, but which is nowhere near as bombastic as on “Rush In Rio”, where Rush open the show with it. Criticism also goes to the insistence on two songs from the average album “Vapour Trails” (2002), even though Rush return to the stage with One Little Victory with a pyrotechnic effect (watch for the explosive bang at the start of the song), when they could have swapped them for any songs from other albums, especially from the repertoire of those overlooked ones from “Presto” onward into the nineties.
This time Rush cut the pauses between songs and Geddy’s stage banter even more aggressively, so they managed to cram all the songs onto two discs with a total length of about 155 minutes, or two hours and 35 minutes. That gained them 10 minutes, since the show without pauses and interruptions lasted two hours and three quarters of a minute, minus, of course, the main half-hour break between Dreamline and Far Cry. The listener is deprived of that feeling this time
“Snakes And Arrows Live” adds up to confirm the indestructibility of this trio. It’s a new, different live album, and weighing its quality in terms of better/worse is rather pointless, mostly because of the very changed repertoire. The interpretation of everything is once again 100% Rush through and through. The guys lose none of their potent qualities with age! These rock pioneers sound fresh, almost rowdy, more like twenty-somethings than venerable elders! This live disc is a must for all Rush fans and for everyone who appreciates the power of this band’s one-of-a-kind charisma, especially when it hits the stage and so convincingly creates that unique Rush world!
Lineup
Geddy Lee – vocals, keyboards, bass guitar
Alex Lifeson – guitar
Neil Peart – drums
Track list
CD 2.:
1. Limelight
2. Digital Man
3. Entre Nous
4. Mission
5. Freewill
6. Main Monkey Business
7. Larger Bowl
8. Secret Touch
9. Circumstances
10. Between The Wheels
11. Dreamline
12. Far Cry
13. Workin’ Them Angels
14. Armor And Sword
CD 2.:
1. Spindrift
2. Way The Wind Blows
3. Subdivisions
4. Natural Science
5. Witch Hunt
6. Malignant Narcissism – De Slagwerker
7. Hope
8. Distant Early Warning
9. Spirit Of Radio
10. Tom Sawyer
11. One Little Victory
12. Passage To Bangkok
13. YYZ
