Yup, I have a decent sized non-official live Rush collection, some actually with stellar sound quality for what they are.
The 1978 Hammersmith show is great to have in its entirety and undoctored. The shortened version on Different Stages had some fixes
Milwaukee 84 and Milwaukee 86...fantastic audience sources. I’d welcome a great 1981 board tape, also from 1982
Wow! That’s awesome. I could see Permanent Waves and Hemispheres being many listeners’ favorites, but it’s great to see you love Power Windows as much as I do. There’s just something about this album. There’s a different sound to it. I look at it as more introspective and ‘cold’ than I do many of their other albums. It took me years to appreciate it, but I was persistent and I truly thought I’m missing something. Middletown Dreams is one of the best Rush pieces. It really is. So many emotions are touched upon that it borders on melancholic.
I loved Power Windows from the start. I thought when it came out it was such a breath of fresh air from Signals, which I don't really like, and Grace Under Pressure, which isn't bad, but seems unfocused maybe is the best word for it. Power Windows is, in my opinion far and away the best of the "keyboard" albums. Personally I think it's Alex's frustration of trying to make the guitars come out over the keyboards. Funny you mention Middletown Dreams. I love that one also. The guitar tone on it is awesome. I would also mention Grand Designs as another awesome guitar tone cut. Marathon, Big Money, Manhattan Project, Territories. What's not to like about those? Wrap it up with Mystic Rhythms and you get a grand journey. The only weak song for me is Emotion Detector. Until Clockwork Angeles, Power Windows was the last great Rush album, in my opinion.
Agreed on many points. I will say that Emotion Detector does have an outstanding Lifeson solo, which can’t be skipped over. I liked Signals, but thought Grace Under Pressure was the better album. I really love this period of Rush. In fact, I’ve mentioned my love for it many times on this forum already. Yeah, it seems these ’synth period' albums are Lifeson’s least favorites, but, for me, they contain some of his best work and a lot of it has to do with how he approached the guitar and figuring out how to navigate through all of the keyboard parts/layers without drowning out everyone else. He created so many gorgeous textures and complimented the music as only he could have done.
Yeah the solo is pretty good, but takes to long to get there. hahahaha Agreed on Grace Under Pressure. Side 2 is about as good a side as you can get with Body Electric, Kid Gloves, Red Lens & Between The Wheels.
I don't really get why people hate on the synth era so much, I think some of their best songs were made during that period. It was different but that's to be expected of rush. In fact, GUP was the album that got me into Rush. Afterimage is easily one of lifeson's best guitar solos ever.
That's right, it was the 80's. And Rush delivered. Moving Pictures started up a new fan base with that epic album back in the in the town I was in.
Hemispheres is my favorite rush album. And I have to say, it just doesn't get much better than this across all the genres of music I love. If they ever do it and do it right, I'm in.
I'm glad you mentioned this because it was an important discovery for me. When I was a kid, after many viewings of that old VHS tape, I finally decided to watch the credits to the end. It was then I discovered the song afterimage, but had no idea what it was! I thought, 'did they just write this highly emotional piece with a superior bad-a$s synth part for the credits or what?!' Yes, I was watching the show over and over but hadn't yet played the album! The solo is a prime example of his genius; I'm still in awe of where/how he came up with those ideas!
That solo in Afterimage is such a cool and different solo which is basically chords but he uses them with such a fury and passion. Alex is a genius in that way.
I think Signals is the only tour that wasn't represented in any form in official releases. I think the rest of 80s tours (not counting warmups) are broken down like this: Permanent Waves: Exit Stage Left (album, side 2), first 2112 deluxe set (only A Passage to Bankok) Moving Pictures: Exit Stage Left (album and video), first 2112 deluxe set (Overture/Temples of Syrinx) Grace Under Pressure: Grace Under Pressure Tour Power Windows: A Show of Hands (album, only Mystic Rhythms and Witch Hunt) Hold Your Fire: A Show of Hands (album and video) Something from the Signals Tour really needs an official release. The GUP warmup tour would also work since it features every song except for Losing It and Chemistry.
This tour, Hemispheres, and the Roll The Bones tour are the only ones not represented in any capacity from 2112 onward (though to be fair the Roll The Bones tour had some great soundboard bootlegs that might as well have been official releases). Ideally we would just get full shows from every tour from 1978 to 1997 but that's probably a bit less likely than them giving us full shows from 78 to maybe power windows tour at the latest.
Apparently, some older fans got pissed off from 1982 to 1984 because they shifted the focus of their live show away from the pre-Moving Pictures material on the Signals and Grace Under Pressure tours. On the Signals Tour you had The Spirit Of Radio, Freewill, The Trees and the medley of Temples/Xanadu/La Villa Strangiato/In The Mood while following that up on the Grace Under Pressure Tour with The Spirit Of Radio, Closer To The Heart, The Temples Of Syrinx. Finding My Way/In The Mood. Clearly, this was a band looking forward. Perhaps people still hold grudges?
If you ever listen to any Signals tour boots they played the songs at such a fast tempo on that tour. It’s almost like they were going through a coke phase or something. LOL
They did seem to have some tempo trouble on that tour didn't they? They seemed to have that problem on the Grace Under Pressure Tour too but not to the degree that it seemed to happen on the Signals Tour.
I know I'm a little late to the party on this, but the cover versions by Dream Theater et al that are on this release are godawful and never should have been included. I would have been perfectly happy with the album on one disc and Hammersmith on two discs, and that's it. I don't know where they got the idea that the extra space on a Rush album should be given to artists who are not Rush. Nobody can cover them and make it sound good, and here's the proof. Awful, awful, awful, awful.
At this point – using myself as example – it’s surprising that serious Rush fans wouldn’t have come around to the 80s stuff by now. Provided they’ve given it another try. I had little ear for that era in real time (post-Signals/pre-Presto), but by the Clockwork Angels tour I was truly psyched to get another chance to catch a chunk of that stuff live. But I think it’s pretty easy to explain the “hate” at the time. Coming off the 70s, classic rock, and classic Rush, fans were used to guitar-based music and synths sounded not just new but in many cases cold and fake. And at worst, cheesy – Moogs had created a much warmer, and truer, symphonic approximation than 80’s Casios did, generally speaking. So one had to get past that first-impression bias to hear what Rush was doing with the technology. Geddy himself observed in the later-mid 80s that he fully understood if their early fans hated what they were now doing – because he recognized how utterly different the sound was, for those who hadn’t followed them along and absorbed the gradual shift. That said, I think Rush’s fan base was pretty supportive, by and large…did they ever not have exuberant audiences? Presto was my first tour, so I wouldn’t know. My college roommate loved it all, though – I remember him loving the Power Windows album & tour. I’m jealous in hindsight, that album sounds great to me now! (but Alex really did have some awful haircuts )
