If you’ve followed the career of the Canadian band Rush, you’ll
\nknow that they’ve always followed a pattern of releasing four
\nstudio albums, followed by a live set. Following the release (and
\ncorresponding success) of their one-side concept album
\n2112<\/i>, Geddy Lee and crew took to the road, and recorded
\ntheir live show in support of the album.<\/p>\n
The end result,
\nAll The World’s A Stage<\/i>, is an interesting look at one of
\nthe all-time greatest band’s early days, but also shows some signs
\nof age.<\/p>\n
With only four studio albums under their belt (and their days of
\nhit singles still lying a few years ahead of them),
\nbassist\/vocalist Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart
\ndid their best in putting together a set representative of where
\nRush was in 1976. And, let’s face it, you can’t go wrong with an
\nalmost complete presentation of “2112,” though I honestly would
\nhave preferred to have heard the entire song. (Only one or two
\nmovements get cut, so it’s not like the song has been terribly
\nbutchered.)<\/p>\n
And, honestly, when was the last time you heard such historical
\nnuggets as “Lakeside Park,” “In The End” or “Anthem” played in
\nconcert? Granted, a few tracks have not aged as gracefully as I
\nwish they had (like “Anthem”), but these cuts are still full of
\nlife and bring a smile to my face each time I hear them.<\/p>\n
The first big mistake on
\nAll The World’s A Stage<\/i> is the inclusion of the monstrosity
\n“By-Tor & The Snow Dog,” a song that I never liked on
\nFly By Night<\/i>. The whole song gets its due – which is much
\ntoo much in my book. Sure, it filled time in the show, but there
\nwere much worthier songs on the other studio albums that could have
\nfilled this time. To make matters worse, they cut parts of “2112”
\nand left this in its entirety – no fair.<\/p>\n
Mistake number two is something that Rush continue to do even in
\nrecent shows: medleys. I happen to like both “Fly By Night” and “In
\nThe Mood”, and would have liked to have heard them played in their
\nentirety. Why merge them and take away power from each track. Same
\nthing goes for “Working Man \/ Finding My Way,” two amazing tracks
\nfrom their debut album.<\/p>\n
But, for the most part,
\nAll The World’s A Stage<\/i> still is more pleasing than
\nfrustrating. Hearing an early drum solo from Peart (who Lee calls
\n“the professor on the drum kit”) is exciting, and proves that Peart
\ncould well be the greatest living drummer. Tracks like “Something
\nFor Nothing” and “What You’re Doing” still send chills up my spine,
\neven though the songs haven’t seen the concert stage in some time,
\nto the best of my knowledge.<\/p>\n
Even though this album is now 23 years old, it is an accurate –
\nand sometimes frustrating – picture of a band on the verge of
\nsuperstardom. If you happen to like the early works of Rush, then
\nAll The World’s A Stage<\/i> is an album you should check out. If
\nyou’re more schooled in the songs you hear on the radio, you might
\nwish to first pick up either the older albums or one of the
\nanthologies, just to get a taste for them first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5697],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36250","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-rush","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36250"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36250"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}