martindavey87 I knew early into my love affair with Rush that I was mainly a fan of their 80’s synth-heavy era. As a long-time prog fan, I gravitated to albums like ‘Grace Under Pressure’, ‘Moving Pictures’ and ‘Signals’. That’s not to say I disliked the bands more hard rock material, I just had a firm belief of what my preferences were. So, going through the bands discography from the start, 1974’s self-titled debut is a solid hard rocker that holds up today, but after that, it’s been all downhill so far.

1975’s ‘Fly By Night’ didn’t really do much for me, and sadly, neither does this, the bands third studio album, ‘Caress of Steel’.

Which is a shame, because Rush are one of my favourite bands, and the trio of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart have created some absolutely stellar albums over the years. But there’s just nothing about this one that clicks with me. There’s a couple of decent tracks, such as ‘Bastille Day’ and ‘I Think I’m Going Bald’, but I’m really not likely to listen to any of these by choice.

And to top it off, the Canadian’s make their first foray into full-on progressive rock territory, with two tracks reaching durations of almost 13 and 20 minutes respectively, but holy hell these tracks are boring! I absolutely struggle to keep listening without losing interest, oftentimes forgetting it’s even the same song I’m listening to.

And sadly, that’s ‘Caress of Steel’. As much as I love Rush, this album just isn’t resonating with me, and since their next studio album is a firm, prog classic, I think it’s time to move on to that one…

Warthur Another Rush live set which offers plenty of material but which doesn't quite hit the mark, in part because of the annoying decision to have the crowd comparatively high in the mix, something which has affected their live releases from at least as far back as Rush In Rio. It's because these live releases of theirs tend to have accompanied DVDs, and are usually just the audio from the DVD transferred to CD with some touch-ups here and there - the problem is that if you're listening to a CD rather than watching a DVD, it's probably because you want to hear the music and can take or leave the live crowd ambience.

UMUR "Exit... Stage Left" is a live album release by Canadian progressive rock act Rush. The album was released through Anthem Records/Mercury Records in October 1981. It´s the band´s second 1981 release, as Rush released their eigth full-length studio album "Moving Pictures" in February 1981. "Exit... Stage Left" was in it´s original form a double vinyl release, featuring 13 tracks and a total playing time of 76:52 minutes.

The material on the live album was recorded at two different concerts. The first show from the 1980 tour supporting "Permanent Waves" (1980) and the second show from the 1981 tour supporting the release of "Moving Pictures". The tracks are more specifically culled from the shows at The Apollo, Glasgow, Scotland on June 10-11, 1980 and from The Forum, Montreal on March 27, 1981.

Most tracks on "Exit... Stage Left" are from the four studio albums preceding this release in "A Farewell to Kings" (1977), "Hemispheres" (1978), "Permanent Waves" (1980), and "Moving Pictures" (1981), so this live album works as a sort of conclusion to that era of Rush, just like the "All the World's a Stage" (1976) live album worked as a conclusion to the earliest part of the band´s career (the first four studio albums). Only a few tracks here represent the first four albums which are "A Passage to Bangkok" from "2112" (1976) and "Beneath, Between & Behind" from "Fly by Night" (1975). The short classical music influenced acoustic guitar piece titled "Broon's Bane" which works as an intro to "The Trees", is exclusive to this release.

If you´re familiar with Rush it´s really no surprise that the performances by the band are of an incredibly high quality. Rush were always virtuoso musicians and listening to them playing live it becomes even more obvious why they are so highly regarded as musicians. The performances are close to flawless and in some cases sound very close to the studio recordings. In addition to some crowd noise (mostly heard when they sing along to "Closer to the Heart") and a few words spoken to the audience, the music features enough grit and little changes (like the drum solo in the middle of "YYZ") that this still sounds like a live recording. This trio of musical geniuses are just so good, that they are almost capable of performing their studio tracks to perfection in a live setting.

"Exit... Stage Left" features an organic, powerful, and detailed sound production, and you´re able to hear everything clearly in the mix. Tracklist selections can always be discussed, but to my ears Rush have made some good choices for this live album focusing on the 1977-1981 period but with a few excursions to the earlier material. Tracks like "The Spirit of Radio", "Freewill", "Tom Sawyer", and "Red Barchetta" are absolute beauties, but longer progressive rockers like "Xanadu", "Jacob's Ladder", "La Villa Strangiato", and of course "YYZ" are also big attractions. "Exit... Stage Left"

Warthur Time Machine is perhaps one of the more inessential live Rush albums. They'd put out enough of these at this point that most devoted fans will have multiple live versions of much of this material already, and they hadn't put out a new studio album between this and Snakes & Arrows so there's significant overlap with Snakes & Arrows Live. The audience is also too prominent in the mix - almost as though to prove that this was recorded live rather than just consisting of studio runthroughs - which is a problem which also affected R30 and Rush In Rio.

But on top of all that, this captures the band on an off-night! Geddy Lee apparently had a terrible cold, but bravely performed anyway, and whilst that was nice for the people live in attendance at the same thing I feel like it should have prompted them to cancel the recording and just record a different gig on the tour instead - or, even more sensibly, just tape several gigs on the tour and pick the best one. And if they did the latter and decided that this was the one to release live anyway, that's mildly embarrassing to say the least.

Warthur Snakes and Arrows Live is a live album where the sheer precision of the band in bringing their material to the stage works against them - it's basically like listening to a rather long Rush mix tape with some applause sounds in it. I have to give it the edge over Rush In Rio and R30, because those are two albums where for whatever reason the crowd sound was allowed to intrude on the music a touch too much for my taste, but at the same time it does feel like the band clocking in, delivering entirely standard and acceptable performances of their material, and clocking out again. Good, sure, but if you're a Rush fan you've heard better live renditions of most of these and the new stuff probably isn't in your top tier of Rush tracks.

martindavey87 Originally released on VHS in 1990, ‘Chronicles’ features twelve music videos by rock legends Rush. Totalling at just over an hour, these are all available on YouTube, and thus, makes this DVD redundant. However, with that said, it’s Rush! While none of these videos are overly memorable, the music is absolutely fantastic, and in particular, focuses a lot on the bands’ 80’s synth-era material (my favourite Rush era). With hits like ‘Tom Sawyer’, ‘Subdivisions’, ‘Red Sector A’, ‘Distant Early Warning’ and ‘The Big Money’, there is no doubting the quality of the content here.

Still, the DVD format of these video compilations is obsolete, and only worthwhile to collectors like me. And while this one is heavily dated today, it’s still a great watch for fans, and if you come across it cheap, it’s more than worthy of being in your collection.

Warthur As with Rush In Rio, this came out in DVD and CD versions, depending on whether you want the visuals or just the audio. And as with Rush In Rio, the crowd is just a wee bit too prominent in the mix to my tastes - we heard them cheering at the start, gang, we don't need more reminders when they were there when the draw is Rush's music. Beyond the R30 Overture medley, this is largely the sort of thing we've heard extensively before, and generally speaking I find latter-day Rush live albums are less notable than earlier ones, in part because the band got so polished that the live renditions of their material don't really differ enough from the studio versions to feel fresh.

AtomicCrimsonRush "Replay X3" is a terrific box set of the 3 earlier Rush VHS concerts and it has been mastered to provide great picture though not all widescreen unfortunately. The sound is excellent without any noteable dropout unlike the VHS antiques. The packaging is excellent, booklets included and all original art prints on the seperate covers. There is also a bonus CD of Grace Under Pressure which is worthwhile.

DVD 1 is Exit...Stage Left, a 1 hour concert from the early years or Rushtory when they had long hair, and features a strong setlist with the likes of Limelight, Tom Sawyer, and a rare appearance of the brilliant Xanadu. The usual suspects are here such as the wonderful Red Barchetta and quintessential Freewill along with lighters in the air stalwart crowd pleaser Closer To The Heart. It is always great to see them having fun with the instrumental YYZ and a real treat is to hear the medley at the end with By-Tor And The Snow Dog, In The End, In The Mood and 2112 edited together masterfully. The VHS or DVD delivers what it promises, Rush in their hey day with great quality sound and editing. The band look young of course and jump around a lot more and there were no signs of chicken rotisseries or clothes dryers back then, but a heck of a lot of lighting and laser effects more than makes up for it. The concert also comes with a lot of interview footage and voice overs between songs, and some footage of the band backstage while the songs play and that is a treat compared to the usual straight concert footage. Too short but quite sweet. A real blast from the past that will please Rushaholics.

DVD 2 is Grace Under Pressure, another of the earlier concert performances of Rush running for about an hour with a lot of songs from "Grace Under Pressure" of course and it is nice to hear these. It begins with a glorious opening with The Spirit Of Radio, and a noticeable glowing effect on the band especially the white shirts, as if Vaseline had been rubbed on the lens. This is the 80s and this effect was prominent on film clips of artists such as Nik Kershaw and Dire Straits or Duran Duran. It looks kind of weird on Rush as they were never pretty video boys. Unfortunately the fuzzy effect is prevalent throughout the recording, and it kind of annoys me, especially the way the bright lights phase over constantly. Lifeson wears a white sports jacket looking like the mad scientist of metal, Peart has a white T and red cap that he loses later, and Lee wears grey suit jacket and white T. The hair dos are 80s personified; Peart has a rat tail, Lee has a mullet and Lifeson has a Flock of Seagulls quiff. Oh well, it is what it is. The music is brilliant.

The Enemy Within is rarely heard live but sparked my memory and it's a great song. The Weapon is always fantastic, one of my favourites, and it begins with a Dracula character on screen telling people to put on their 3D glasses. Witch Hunt begins with a screening of a bunch of cultists burning books with torches. It is a great song from "Moving Pictures" recently heard in the Time Machine concerts. Lee's vocals are excellent throughout and the guitars are incredible. New World Man is another one rarely heard live recently and it is OK though not one of the better tracks from "Signals". Synths are heard here though no one seems to be playing them, so I suspect some recorded music was used. It was the age of the video clip and a clip is shown of some animation and a boy looking up to see a huge airship in the sky. Distant Early Warning follows and it is a great song from GUP, that has become a concert favourite. The clip shows the boy riding a missile and the laser light show follows.

Red Sector A is an awesome song and I loved hearing it on this DVD again, with one of the strongest melodies of the Rush catalogue. The laser show looks great here. The lyrics by Lee are terrific and when Lee sings "smoking gun" a massive explosion goes off causing the crowd to roar. The lyrics are actually based on family experience and is a homage to his mother and father that survived the holocaust. Though Lee re wrote the lyrics to have a broader perspective that it may apply to any holocaust like situation such as Rwanda. Closer To The Heart is always a crowd pleaser and the crowd know it well enough to drown out some of Lee's vocals. There were no mobile phones back then but plenty of lighters go up in the air.

The obligatory medley is here with a terrific merging of some classics, YYZ, Temples Of Syrinx, and Tom Sawyer. During YYZ the crowd are obsessed with air drumming throughout. Tom Sawyer features the Moving Pictures animation on the screen. It is nice to hear Lee be able to reach those high notes too in the chorus.

Vital Signs is one I have not seen live on other concerts till the "Moving Pictures" live concerts of recent years. When Lee takes off his jacket his white T glows like the rest of the band's halos. It is a weird effect really and perhaps the worse part of the DVD. It ends with Finding My Way and In The Mood, from the earliest album. it is a great crowd participation song with the crowd visible throughout, a guy even lights up a pipe at one stage. Overall, this is a great snippet of songs from the Rush 80s years, worth checking out for certain even if for nostalgia if nothing else.

DVD 3 is A Show Of Hands, a 90 minutes concert experience and as such way better than the previous DVDs available, namely "Exit Stage Left" and "Grace Under Pressure". It is excellent also due to the use of animations on the big screen and the overall setlist. The songs are from "Hold Your Fire" mostly and I believe they are better heard live than on that album so that is a drawcard of this particular DVD. It also has a very solid quality sound throughout and the band look great and have heaps of fun. From "Hold Your Fire" the songs appear, Mission, Prime Mover, Force Ten, and Turn The Page so there is a lot from their latest at the time.

Closer To The Heart is always present of course along with quintessential Tom Sawyer, and The Spirit of Radio. I always love to hear the magnificent Red Sector A and hard rocking Force Ten, and it was great to see them play Mission, another one rarely heard live on these DVDs.

Marathon, Territories and The Big Money from "Power Windows" are good rockers for the crowd to get into. The drum solo by Peart is terrific, with his vibes section and patented cymbal jazz splashes along with some incredible triplet work though his drums are still stationary in this era, and not as many.

The concert ends with a brilliant medley 2112, The Temples Of Syrinx, La Villa Strangiato and In The Mood. Overall a strong concert, one of the best live documents of the band and worth getting hold of above the rest.

The Grace Under Pressure Bonus CD, is a previously unreleased audio from the newly remastered Grace Under Pressure concert soundtrack and it is a fantastic Rush sound.

"Replay x3" is definitely worth getting as it houses 3 very good concerts of the early years and these are only available now with this set released in 2006.