Rush Snakes and Arrows Tour - Montréal - Bell Center, June 12 2008

Rush concert exceeding expectations by far, full house at the Bell Center, lots of youngsters compared to the Genesis fall 2007 show at the Olimpic stadium where most of the faces you saw around were baby boomers, myself included. Lucky enough to have had great seats, both visually and from an audio standpoint.

All three of them awesome musicians, sound coming out seems to be originating from a lot larger band than just a party of three, whole result being a sound machine that works flawlessly while performing quite difficult songs from a technical point of view just beautifully.

Alex Lifeson's guitar sound occasionnally very close to the one Pink Floyd's own Gilmour produces, but different style, more towards virtuoso style, less meditative since Rush's music is all about dynamics and very smart rhytm combinations and breaks. Long story short, Lifeson is a great guitar player and he's leading the whole band beautifully. What's even more interesting, each of the 3 Rush band members are actually taking turns in leading the band's melodic movement, it goes on seamlessly which adds to the extraordinary impression of a very tight and bright music dynamic. Geddy Lee's vocals still very bang on except for the opening track. Bass on Red Barchetta, Freewill, 2112 just amazing especially while he's singing, not easy at all to sync both. Rush is one of the few bands whose live performance sounds very close to the one recorded (with inherent limitations due to multiple instrument recordings in the studio). Great show lighting, lasers, strobes, explosions, projections on great quality screens making for a highly entertaining overall show. Neal Peart's drum solo not only of a great virtuosity, among the best I've ever seen in concert, but moreover, one of the most inventive and surprising ones ending up with a meltdown into 1920's ragtime rhytms while projections follow quite nicely.

Lost my voice for a whole next half-day after singing and shouting with them and the whole concert hall lots of their incredibly good tunes.

http://www.rush.com/v4.html - go to Multimedia, Rush radio, click on Play for less known but outright great tracks out of Grace under Pressure, 2112, etc.

Some clips from this very gig:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPt1Y3NMqxc - Tom Sawyer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_PnGCktFmQ - Freewill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBWf5HpmLn4&feature=related - Neil Peart's drum solo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFId9e7367A - Red Barchetta

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D-8shWpeVo&feature=related - Limelight

And here is Wikipedia's take on Rush, boy looks like a good start towards getting a PhD in Rush studies isn't it !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_(band))

They're really on towards a great comeback with their music and I hope it's not just wishful thinking coming from my blown-away mind after having the privilege to experience this beautiful evening filled with great music courtesy Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee and Neil Peart.