R40 LIVE

I was really excited for this after the St. Louis R40 show. Adhering to an extremely strict vocal regimen for the tour, Geddy sounded better than he had since Snakes & Arrows, seemingly rebutting the idea that anyone in the band was "losing it" (if only we knew), and a friend of mine who had sat the show out based on Geddy's declining register would be able to see what he'd missed when the tour got its inevitable album and video. Welp! Geddy was apparently having an off night in Toronto, and he sounds as strained and stifled here as on any other live release from the decade. The performances are expectedly tight, but the powerless singing drags the whole experience down. In St. Louis, Alex was having an off night and completely mangled the "Tom Sawyer" solo, but while such a moment would be unacceptable on a CD or Blu-ray (at least from these guys), it's much easier as a listener or audience member to put up with a few awful seconds in an otherwise electrifying concert than to enjoy a show where every moment's edge is dulled. More importantly, R40 had an abundance of shows where nobody was having an off night, easily viewed on YouTube (the Houston show is my favorite and has an excellent full-length upload). On its own, this is yet another passable late-career Rush live release, but with a sense of what the rest of the tour was like, particularly in its vocal dimension and that element's improvement over the previous tour, it's just disappointing. Rush went out with a bang, but this is a whimper.