Concert review: Rush 4/4/94 July 19, 2006
This review was originally posted on Usenet at alt.music.rush. The concert was at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis as part of the tour for Counterparts. Primus opened.
First, Primus. Although I’m not a Primus fan, I thought they were pretty good, especially in light of all the negative comments I’ve seen from other shows. The balance/mixing for them was probably the best I’ve ever heard at the Arena, possibly anywhere. It was loud, but not loud enough to be distorted, and each instrument was fairly distinct, especially bass and< drums. They are all obviously pretty good musicians, even if they are a little (some may say a lot) strange. Short and sweet, too.
Rush, overall, was damn good. The sound, again, was good, but the bass seemed a little punchy and the guitar a little washy, especially for the first few songs. For Nobody’s Hero, especially, it sounded like Ged’s strings were out of tune or something. Neil sounded incredible, even more so than usual. I have never heard drums like that. They were heavy, clean, and precise.
The guys looked like they were having a really good time, playing with the audience a fair amount. During the soloish part of Closer to the Heart, Alex got on the mic and introduced Geddy as Elle MacPhearson, Neil as Kathy Ireland, and himself as Cindy. Alex also played some sappy air keyboards, mocking Geddy.
As far as the songs go, I think it was a good mix of old and new. It was great to hear The Trees again, as well as Analog Kid (sound was kinda weird for this one), YYZ (I nearly hemmoraged), Xanadu (everyone around us went “What song is this?”), etc. The only complaint/observation I have is about the new stuff (CP). Maybe it’s just a lack of rehersal or something, but it just never seemed to really take off the way the older stuff did. It was good and the guys seemed to enjoy it, but I kept going, “this is almost really good, but something is lacking” – I don’t know what it was, exactly. This may just be because it is new material.
The lights were a bit off, as George mentioned in another post (hey George!), but the video stuff kicked ass, as usual. I missed the old Time Stands Still video stuff, but the new stuff is ok. Time Stands Still was overall the best song I would say – I had goosebumps the entire time and I started thinking about all my friends spread out in colleges across the US and I was holding back tears. Not many groups can make that happen.
If you haven’t seen ‘em, do it! If you have, you know what I’m talking about.
I remember enjoying that show quite a bit. YYZ, Xanadu, The Trees (they even got the signal seperation from the drums), but the newer songs were still rockin’. But that may be because I was listening to the new album a lot up until the show.