So yesterday was a big day for me. Why? Well, let me start by saying that I've been a Rush fan (The prog-rock band, not the "Big, Fat Idiot" on the radio) since 1980 when my older brother Steve came home with a copy of Permanent Waves and started playing "The Spirit of Radio" on his POS stereo.
Then I got to see Rush live in Oakland in 1981 during the "Moving Pictures Tour," I was really hooked.
I'll admit they are an odd band (Hell, they'll even admit it!), but there's something really appealing about a power trio who can do all these complex musical things with their instruments and duplicate it live.
Geddy Lee's voice is not the easiest to warm up to, but once you get used to it, it's not that big of a deal.
Yesterday, Rush released a 3-DVD set of Rush concerts between 1981 and 1988. I watched the 1981 concert yesterday (which had great sound, but the film quality was kind of blurry). I did listen to the Grace Under Pressure CD (which was an "extra" feature bundled in the DVD set) on the way to get pizza with J and Maya yesterday afternoon, and it was really great (to me, anyway)!
On the way to the dinner, J asked me "Don't you ever get tired of hearing the same songs played live? After all, you have all these live Rush CDs."
Hmmm…
Okay, I'll admit that a Rush concert has all the improvisational moments of open heart surgery (got that line from a newspaper review of one of their concerts), and Rush has been releasing live albums with Grateful Dead-like speed for the past few years, but for fans it's interesting to hear how the band has made minor alterations to their songs over the years.
I don't listen to their live CD as much as their studio CDs, but there are some songs that sound better live than their studio versions. Off the top of my head, I would say that "Driven" from the Different Stages CD is better than the studio version on Test for Echo.
Okay, I think that's enough for "Rush Talk" for now. I'm going to crawl back into my geek cave and do some air drumming or something stupid like that. 🙂
–PK
P.S. Wanna read some Rush CD reviews I penned? Jefito has part one HERE and part two HERE.
Epinions has one HERE.
