A SHOW OF HANDS

When a band has been around as long as RUSH has (30+ years), their musical styles will change and evolve, just not always for the best. I group the bands third set of releases into what is known as Rush's "Synthesizer Period". All of these albums came out during the 1980's and represent the band's post-Moving Pictures era. The albums are Signals (1982), Grace Under Pressure (1984), Power Windows (1985), Hold Your Fire (1987) and A Show of Hands "Live" (1988).

A Show of Hands is a snapshot of the Hold Your Fire tour. Only two songs on the record, Mystic Rhythms and Witch Hunt were from the preceding Power Windows tour. I'm only giving Show of Hands 2 stars. But this is compared to all of Rush's other Live offerings, which I consider better. Production is good, even better than Exit Stage Left, but I just don't like a lot of these selections, which are predominantly from Power Windows and Hold Your Fire, my two least favorite Rush albums. Personally, I would just like to forget that the 80's even happened and that one of my favorite progressive hard rock bands had to travel down this dark path of synthesizer laden "new wave" crap.

On the bright side, for a fully loaded single disc that used to cost about $14, you can now pick up this '97 re-master for around $8 brand new. Now that's a bargain for us completists.