SNAKES & ARROWS LIVE

Rush have released quite a few live CDs and DVDs recently, the question is do we need another one? Well, I'm not too sure in all honesty. One of my major criticisms of Rush live is that they tend to stick too rigidly to the studio version, especially Peart who often reproduces his drum parts note for note. When they do occasionally let rip and improvise a bit, they are fantastic, but there's not a lot of evidence of this here. There are a few welcome additions which haven't featured on live recordings before, such as "Entre Nous" (one of my personal favourites) and "Circumstances" and the tracks from "Snakes and Arrows" work well in a live setting. The sound is of the cavernous variety as you might expect and reminiscent of Rush in Rio. Overall, nothing earth-shattering here and I just wish they'd let rip a bit more.