UMUR "A Show of Hands" is a live double album release (double vinyl/single CD) by Canadian progressive rock act Rush. The album was released through Anthem Records/Vertigo Records in January 1989. The track selection on the album predominantly represents the four studio albums released in the years 1982 - 1987: "Signals" (1982), "Grace Under Pressure" (1984), "Power Windows" (1985), and "Hold Your Fire" (1987) with only "Witch Hunt (Part III of Fear)" and "Closer To The Heart" being excursions into the earlier part of the band´s discography. Rush had already covered the pre-1982 era of their career on the 1976 "All the World's a Stage" and 1981 "Exit.....Stage Left" live albums, so the tracklist makes perfect sense. A video featuring the same title as this live album was released in February 1989, but features completely different recordings and a tracklist which varies from the tracklist of this release.

Most of the material on "A Show of Hands" was recorded during the 1988 tour supporting "Hold Your Fire" (1987) in both the US and in England. "Mystic Rhythms" and "Witch Hunt" were however recorded in East Rutherford, New Jersey, during the 1986 "Power Windows" (1985) tour.

Stylistically this is Rush at their most keyboard/synth heavy, but their power trio rock instrumentation of guitar, bass, and drums are still the core of their sound, along with the distinct sounding voice and vocal delivery of Geddy Lee. The live versions of the tracks generally don´t differ much from the studio versions, but tracks like "Subdivisions", "Turn the Page", and "Mission" which are culled from "Signals" (1982) (the former) and "Hold Your Fire" (1987) (the two latter) are more powerful sounding than in their original studio versions. It´s always hard to satisfy anyone with the track selections on a live album, but since the premise is predominantly selections from the four albums mentioned above, I think Rush made some decent decisions (the least interesting are described later in the review). The only track I´m missing is "Prime Mover" from "Hold Your Fire" (1987), which in my opinion is THE highlight of that album, and one of the highlights of the 80s-era Rush releases.

Personally I´m not a big fan of drum solos and the inclusion of the drum solo track "The Rhythm Method" is not a plus in my book. Sure it was probably a blast witnessing the master himself and his incredible playing skills if you attended the actual gig and maybe it makes more sense when watching the DVD version of "A Show of Hands" (which also features the drum solo), but here it´s not that interesting. I´m also a bit critical of the inclusion of "Closer to the Heart" if it was included to represent the 70s part of the band´s output. Yes it´s a decent enough track, but it´s arguably not a highlight from that part of the band´s career, and I can name quite a few other tracks from that era (which didn´t appear on any of the two previous live albums) that I would much rather have had included on "A Show of Hands". With that in mind I´m actually happy Rush opted to include "Witch hunt (part III of Fear)" from "Moving Pictures" (1981), because that track is given a lift in quality and appears here in a more interesting version than the original.

Rush aren´t exactly the most daring or experimental live act out there and on "A Show of Hands" they seem more or less content with reproducing the sound of their studio albums. Even the tracks which feauture a more warm and heavy sounding production in the live versions compared to their studio counterparts, are played very true to the originals here. It could have been interesting to hear musicians of this quality challenge themselves a bit more...maybe re-arrange the tracks or do something a bit different, but that´s not what you are going to hear on "A Show of Hands", which actually works better as a 80s Rush best-of compilation than as a live album release. Still the quality of the recordings is so high and the musical performances on a level beyond what most other artists are able to produce, that a 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is still deserved.

Warthur As had become traditional for Rush by this point, after four studio albums they brought out this live piece to summarise this particular era of their career ranging from Signals to Hold Your Fire. This is an era which started out strong but started to flag towards the end, with Hold Your Fire finding the approach wearing thin, but fortunately the live versions of the material from that album (and the somewhat better-liked but still contentious Power Windows) show a bit more flair and style than their studio renditions.

Unfortunately, compared to their two preceding live albums Rush had less scope for throwing out any curve balls. With only three musicians onstage, and a lot of the songs in question requiring more simultaneous synth and guitar Alex Lifeson could handle all at once (the man only has the two arms, after all!), on these tours the synth parts had to be largely preprogammed, more or less killing any scope they had to introduce any variation into the songs.

As a result, the album ends up being a little lifeless, an exercise in playing the songs from the albums more or less how you remember them from the studio editions; at some points only a bit of crowd noise mixed in here and there gives the impression that the band are live at all . Perhaps hiring a guest musician or two to provide backup on the synths might have made for a more organic experience, but then again the trio's chemistry has always been so tight that incorporating more musicians into it would be a dangerous proposition indeed.

Alternately, if the album had included more 80s performances of less synth-dominated parts of their back catalogue it might have gone better - it closes with a reasonable rendition of Closer to the Heart, and the difference between that track the program-locked material before it is striking. But then again, All the World's a Stage and Exit Stage Left had already covered all the best songs from prior eras, and there seems to have been an effort made to avoid duplicating songs presented on those two; I can certainly see the logic behind that, and to some that might make A Show of Hands better value, but at the same time I think it does risk steering into the constraints the band were under.

In short, by this stage of their career Rush had written themselves into a corner with their live albums, in that everyone was expecting this release to focus on the tracks from Signals to Grace but the fact was that the songs in question just didn't lend themselves well to live performances. The album's saved by the fact that for the most part they give solid, energetic renditions of the material, and it's impressive just how much they can nail the non-synth parts live, but it's best to come this if you want a quick "best of synth-era Rush" rundown, not because you want a live album which actually sounds live.