In the early 1980s Rush were right up there amongst the brightest stars in the rock universe, shifting albums by the shedload and gigs selling out in a heartbeat. This was also the period which saw Rush changing direction somewhat, eschewing the hard rock of their late seventies rise to fame, embracing a more contemporary 1980s synth soundscape and incorporating it into their music, which wasn’t initially to everyone’s taste but they won the fans around. They also parted from Terry Brown, longtime producer, and the result was Grace Under Pressure, which continued using the same synth backdrops introduced on 1982’s Signals. As Geddy Lee said, our songwriting was now in a different place and we expanded our soundscape with the new technologies.
Grace Under Pressure was the band’s 10th album and considered by many Rush fans to be a masterpiece. The band’s musicianship was top level and they used synths in an intelligent manner, rather than just drowning the song with layers of sound. Geddy Lee now had three roles: bassist, vocalist and foot pedals to play keys, which was impressive given they were still performing complex and intricate pieces. The album is now being rereleased as a 4CD set (or, if you prefer, five vinyl albums) with the first disc being the original album, disc two being the same album though completely remastered and sounding much clearer.
Songs like opening track ‘Distant Early Warning’, alongside ‘Red Sector A’, ‘Afterimage’, ‘The Body Electric’ and ‘Between The Wheels’ count as being amongst the best songs Rush recorded in the 80s, though ‘The Enemy Within’, with its pseudo reggae feel, wouldn’t be included in such a list. The period the album was recorded in was a dark period which was reflected in some of Neil Peart’s lyrics. ‘Afterimage’ also invokes the tragic loss of Neil: “Suddenly you were gone, from all the lives you left a mark upon.”
But the selling point of this rerelease is the inclusion of the show from Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, September 21st 1984, which had previously been released in truncated form in 2009 as a standalone album, but here the entire twenty one track set is included, newly remixed from the original studio masters and much more pristine sounding.
With just a few exceptions, the focus was on songs included on 1980s albums. Rush were leaving their fabled past behind and embracing the modern world, and with their shorter 1980s hairstyles and smarter stage apparel, they looked like The Cars!
The set opens with the glorious ‘Spirit Of Radio’, from Permanent Waves, the album which saw Rush move away from performing side long epics and into shorter, radio friendly tunes, introducing them to a wider audience. They follow this up with ‘Subdivisions’, from Signals, where Rush show they can use synths to enhance a song, rather than dominate it. From the same album they also give us ‘New World Man’, which comes across almost like The Police, and ‘The Weapon’, which is mainly guitar driven.
With the exception of ‘Afterimage’, Rush perform Grace Under Pressure in its entirety, with the songs spaced out between other pieces. Tracks like ‘Distant Early Warning’ and ‘The Body Electric’ come across as much more powerful onstage, with Alex Lifeson’s guitar work a standout feature. Moving Pictures contains its fair share of Rush gems, and from it they perform ‘Tom Sawyer’, ‘Red Barchetta’, ‘Witch Hunt’, ‘Vital Signs’ and ‘YYZ’.
After an old favourite, ‘Temple Of Syrinx’, Neil Peart, the professor, performs the obligatory drum solo in ‘The Red Lenses’ before the set concludes with a short medley of two older tracks, ‘Finding My Way’ and ‘In The Mood’.
Does the world really need another live Rush album? There are around fourteen official live albums plus countless bootlegs and, with a comeback tour on the horizon, doubtless another will follow on from it. But, be that as it may, this gig is a superlative performance with Rush showing, even with the use of synths and less reliance on power chords, they were still a force to be reckoned with onstage, which they continued to be right up to when they stopped after Neil Peart’s sad departure.
