Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Rush
Label: Roadrunner Records
Release date: 08.11.2011
Running time: approx. 146min
Rating: 4/5
Alongside the new (this time single-disc) DVD »Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland«, Rush have also put out their new concert document on two audio discs, as a double CD with the exact same title! Releasing live documents has become a given for Rush over the past decade. With studio albums coming at ever longer intervals, these are welcome moves that break up the long waits, and at the same time the band’s form over the years is served up, or brought within reach of any receiver, plain as day. One thing still holds, though. Music is made first and foremost for listening, so there’s a quiet rule and basic axiom that’s still in force: a live double CD is more of an obligation than a DVD.
To quickly refresh your memory, the »Time Machine« tour ran from 29.06.2010 to 02.07.2011. Rush played the bulk of the shows on North American soil, where the tour both kicked off and wrapped up. Between 04.05.2011 and 29.05.0211 they also played in Europe. Four shows in Scandinavia, a 10-day run across the United Kingdom, and the only stop on the continent proper, with gigs in Rotterdam in the Netherlands and, two days later, on 29.05.2011 in Frankfurt, Germany. This time we Europeans really had to go the extra mile to catch one of the few Rush shows on this tour in Europe. If the »Snakes And Arrows« DVD marks a Rush concert recorded in Rotterdam, and the »R30« DVD the band’s show in Frankfurt, this time Rush decided to put their entire show in Cleveland, at the Quicken Loans Arena, from 15.04.2011, on DVD.
Quicken Loans Arena, home of the Cleveland Cavaliers NBA club, has 20,500 seats. Open up the floor and there’s room for a number that must be close to 30,000 heads. Packed to the rafters on 15.04.2011. Sold out, too. Why did Rush pick Cleveland? It’s the first American city where, in the early seventies, Rush got support from the local radio stations that spun the music from their debut album.
»Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland« is the first officially released (film and) audio document by Rush that comes from US soil. Since Rush have already “covered” South America and Europe with this kind of release, the next logical move is that after the US document, Rush record their next live CD on home soil in Canada.
The live CD leaves out the film sketches at the start, the middle, and the end of the show, and some of the pauses between individual numbers are trimmed (the DVD keeps all that). Some authenticity gets lost there, but you really shouldn’t miss it. This kind of treatment is simply standard for CD releases like this. And it’s definitely a good thing, because the listener focuses purely on the music, and their imagination has free rein to intensify the feelings that hit them while listening to the double CD. Visualizing a document is, on that front, exactly the most tasteless habit, because it plants the picture straight into your head and so blunts your imaginative flexibility, leaving the listener less focused on the music and able to take it in more superficially. I say »able to«, so not necessarily!
Still, it gives you goosebumps. How could it not, with Rush right there? The euphoria of a 30,000-strong crowd is captured, and so is the band’s excellent live form. To sum up the trio’s work: Peart and Lifeson are spotless, and so is Lee on bass and keyboards. But this recording shows that Geddy’s vocals just aren’t as explosive anymore in the highest registers of his delivery. This is the Rush document where his singing is least convincing. Still masterful all round, he still sounds like a complete one-of-a-kind without whom there’s no Rush world, but in the highest registers he can’t build up the vocal power we’re used to from the band’s earlier official live documents.
Otherwise, the setlist is put together just as the title of the document says. In the manner of a trip through time. It opens on a very fitting note. With the classic The Spirit Of Radio, one of the most apt choices to open a Rush show, because, in a single track, it instantly and vividly lays out the whole art point of this trio. It has what put this band on the throne of the planet’s biggest rock acts. Melodic accessibility and catchiness plus a heaping dose of the eclecticism of Rush’s one-of-a-kind artistry. Combine those two and you’re something special. Different from everything else and universally appealing. The first part of the show rolls through juicy favorites from individual Rush albums, like the classics, poppy Time Stand Still, the excellent instrumental Leave That Thing Alone, a less interesting moment from »Counterparts« but a noisier moment of the show with Stick It Out, then another melodic art-perfection in the »Power Windows« classic Marathon, and one of the nicer surprises of the setlist with the semi-ballad Presto. There’s the brand-new BU2B, plus the standards Subdivisions and Freewill. The »Snakes And Arrows« album is represented by Faithless and Working Them Angels.
One slight annoyance is that the complete performance of the album »Moving Picures« is split across the two CDs. The first disc closes with Limelight, and the second opens with The Camera Eye. Rush didn’t allow themselves the extravagance of a triple CD this time. That, on the flip side, would have gratefully given them room to keep »Moving Picures« whole on a single disc. »Moving Pictures« is an incredibly strong album that’s always worth hearing in one go, with no interruptions. In fact, it’s pretty much a rule that an album like that gets listened to in one piece. Together. From start to finish.
After Vital Signs, Rush take us back to their early period and string together classic after classic from the seventies, with the exception of the new Caravan and, right before the end, Far Cry (»Snakes And Arrows«). Here comes the obligatory indulgence in the form of Neil Peart’s new, one-of-a-kind drum solo, which conjures up yet another unforgettable and unique showcase from this master of the drum craft. A brand-new mood, combining his improvisational wizardry. The Rush trip back to the seventies classics is rounded off in the encore with yet another fantastic version of the classic La Villa Strangiato, which opens with a sarcastic polka motif, and the band tops it off 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 be discovering the details for a long while, but the new recording obviously departs more from the earlier ones in comparison with the interpretation and sound of the studio originals. That shows especially on tracks 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, in line with where the band stood in 2011), despite decent renditions of the unavoidable dose of synths. In such a sonic landscape, Alex Lifeson’s (excellent) backing vocals also take on a whole new value and effect. Different bass lines are noticeable especially in the instrumentals YYZ and Leave That Thing Alone, and of course the unsurpassed La Villa Strangiato, where Mr. Alex Lifeson »bursts open« in the finale. What’s typical of this document for the »Moving Pictures« tracks is that the keyboards offer a different experience in the details. I’d say that in the sophisticated transitional parts they even gain atmospheric weight. But you have to prick up your ears. Leading the pack are Vital Signs and The Camera Eye. 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 when it was fashionable for bands to mix reggae touches into art eclecticism – the first parallel (also with a Telecaster) is Andy Summers and The Police.
A new document from one of the most interesting and special bands the rock universe has given us in its history. Those of you who may have caught Rush at one of the »Time Machine« tour shows, don’t hesitate to buy this souvenir. And there’s no need to stress anymore that this live document, like its predecessors released between 1998 and 2008, is yet another great starting point for everyone who (still) doesn’t know the band, so you can start discovering the unique Rush world with it! A live document beats any best-of compilation. Always!
Lineup
Geddy Lee – vocals, bass guitar, keyboards
Alex Lifeson – guitar, backing vocals
Neil Peart – drums, percussion
Track list
CD1.:
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
12. Tom Sawyer
13. Red Barchetta
14. YYZ
15. Limelight
CD2.:
01. The Camera Eye
02. Witch Hunt
03. Vital Signs
04. Caravan
05. Closer to the Heart
06. 2112 Overture/Temples of Syrinx
07. Far Cry
08. La Villa Strangiato
09. Working Man
