Review
Rush turns the Bell Centre into a time machine
Montreal Gazette, 22.06.2015
It’s understandable that much of the attention paid to Rush’s R40 tour has centred on the warning that this is likely to be the peerless power trio’s final major run of road work. After 40-plus years of active duty with only one notable hiatus, it’s difficult to conceive of a world without regular visits from Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart.
But Sunday’s 2 1/2-hour Bell Centre show wasn’t the occasion to ponder Rush’s uncertain future. This was the time to celebrate a catalogue that has remained amazingly consistent in quality (if not in tone), and a live band that is still capable of being surgically precise and visceral at the same time.
The opening animation of Lee, Lifeson and Peart strolling through the years was packed with so many in-jokes (and jabs at the musicians’ old bird’s-nest and raccoon-tailed hairdos) that one was quickly reminded of the singular world this band has built for itself. With “casual Rush fan” being an oxymoron, the film surely triggered years of memories for most of the 14,370 in attendance, and when the curtain rose on the flesh-and-blood trio, one already felt a vicarious pride in the four-decade journey that was about to be honoured.
Kicking off a retrospective concert with a trio of tracks from 2012’s Clockwork Angels was a show of confidence in the recent material, and a setup for the evening’s reverse-chronological conceit. A few hiccupped lines in the fiery opener, The Anarchist, smoothed the air bubbles out of Lee’s vocals; the sustained notes in Headlong Flight were more representative of his astonishing clarion calls throughout the night.
The trio’s enduring camaraderie was visible from the start, the players trading grins and swinging the spotlight back and forth with the mutual admiration inherent in a 41-year partnership that clearly hasn’t been taken for granted. Far Cry and One Little Victory bristled with the urgency and battle-scarred strength that has characterized latter-day Rush, and both featured pyro blasts that remained stunning even for repeat visitors.
There were acknowledgments of the esteem in which this band is held, all of which felt jubilant rather than self-congratulatory. The footage of fans holding thank-you signs and posing at meet-and-greets were sweet bits of reciprocated affection; the mash-up of the Trailer Park Boys, Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage and other prominent fans lip-syncing the Roll the Bones rap was a priceless opportunity to see famous faces geeking out as enthusiastically as the average ticketholder.
The idea of sequencing the set as a backwards march through time was a masterstroke that ensured a comprehensive song selection. There was only one major time warp, which left the ’80s trio of Power Windows, Hold Your Fire and Presto untouched. Otherwise, almost every album was represented in a careful balance between surprises and standards.
The intermission was bracketed by two of the latter. Subdivisions’ sleek keyboards were given a contemporary counterpart in Lifeson’s borderline-industrial guitar pulse. When the lights dimmed for the second set, Tom Sawyer’s growling synth and proto-rap confirmed that even Rush’s most popular songs remain sensationally odd by the arena standard of measurement.
Red Barchetta boasted one of Lifeson’s most lyrical solos, and if word hadn’t trickled out that the guitarist’s arthritis is one of the main factors in Rush’s future being up in the air, his affliction would have remained invisible. The lightning lead-in to The Spirit of Radio crackled with as much life as ever.
From there, standing on the edge of the 1970s repertoire usually represented by a few tokens, the set list offered one shock after another. Closer to the Heart was expected (and sparkling); the menacing 1980 cut Jacob’s Ladder was not. The lyrically sparse cloudland drama sounded firmly contemporary, with a rumbling storm and sunlight shaft conjured through a military buildup and serene afterglow.
Peart’s death-defying drum solo was included amid excerpts from the two books of Cygnus, the sci-fi saga boiled down to a mostly instrumental tour de force. In a band that typically dazzles with virtuosic interplay, Lee’s isolated funk bass from Book 1 demonstrated how potent a few notes can be.
Truncated or not, a single ’70s epic would have been a gift on a standard tour. On this anniversary outing, there was more. Xanadu brought out the dry ice, the double-necks and a 38-years-later sense of maturity amid the whiplash tempo changes. A condensed 2112 brought out everything else: the crowd-participation intro, a dystopian singalong, the autobiography of “listen to my music … there’s something here as strong as life,” the burning world of the grand finale.
There was nowhere else to go but back to the very beginning in the encore, structured like an opening set circa 1975. Lee, Lifeson and Peart seemed to relish connecting with their much younger selves in the brash Lakeside Park and Anthem. By the time they got to the Zeppelin tribute What You’re Doing, the evolving stage design had been pared down from Clockwork Angels’ ornate futurism to a pair of amps perched precariously on high-school gymnasium chairs.
They’ve come so far. Early in the show, Lee said: “We’d like to keep going backward. It’s a state that suits us well.” On this night, yes. But it’s a tribute to Rush’s continued relevance that such a loving overview of its history is the exception, not the rule, when it comes to live performance. It was a thrill to hear so many beloved songs return to the stage. And it will be a thrill to hear new material if Rush finds its way back to a studio and back to Montreal. One can hope there’s a road to an R50 signpost.
Jordan Zivitz, Montreal Gazette