Rush at Wembley Arena Tues. 9th October

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   A Gig and a Half !!

It's been over 20 years since I last saw Rush here at Wembley, and how far have the boys have come along in that time?....here we see a band still very much at the top of its game, using state of the art technology to spread its message, and thankfully still manages to send itself up occasionally!

The band played for three hours including a short break, no support, just gold-plated world class musicianship, some great songs and many interesting little excursions in between, making full use of the now obligatory triple screens above the stage - the backdrop films and animations during this and many other songs were excellent, and covered images from monkeys and apes to Gene Krupa during most of the songs, and a short introductory comic film introduced the guys and we were away... 

Many claim "Permanent Waves" and "Moving Pictures" are the band's greatest achievements, their set list drew heavily from these albums, featuring "Limelight", an extremely rousing version of "The Spirit of Radio/Freewill" ( the crowd  picked up their "concert hall" cue bang on time - the "Wembley Roar" has now taken on a new significance!) , "Entre Nous" a magical performance of "Natural Science", the grandiose "Witch Hunt" went down a storm, but among  the biggest crowd pleasers were "Tom Sawyer" which included a South Park gang "Lil' Rush" cartoon introduction, and a sparkling version of "YYZ" at the encore. Rush have such a huge back-catalogue of songs going back many years they could hardly leave out "Passage to Bangkok", and "Circumstances",  they also included later songs from the album  "Hold Your Fire", "Subdivisions" from "Signals", "Red Sector A" and "The Enemy Within" from the "Grace" album. The most anticipated songs of the night though were from the new album "Snakes and Arrows" featured throughout the show, this album has to be the best material the band have offered for some years.  Geddy's voice is still on top form, he only missed one top note the whole evening, and his lightning fast fingers never let him down.

Neil Peart delivered a fabulous drum solo, the most innovative i have seen in many years of drum solo watching - he appeared to have two kits back-to-back which rotated on a platform, two sets - traditional drums and electronic effects, all percussion with amazing results, followed by an acoustic guitar solo from Alex,  and for some dazzling guitar solos Alex Lifeson used mainly Les Paul guitars, among these a beautiful red sunburst, he also had an acoustic guitar mounted on a stand used during songs, being replaced with a mandolin during the second part of the show.  Geddy Lee had his trademark Jazz Bass for most of the show, changing it for a red one at one point, his keyboards and - his "Henhouse" ! Those in the know may be familiar with this particular piece of Geddy's stage rig, but the "Chickens" looked  very good to me! The sound quality at Wembley is often criticised, the building was originally designed for an Olympic swimming pool, so though the sound seemed to boom and reverberate round the Hall the band's overall sound was  clear and powerful.

On the first occasion I saw Rush I felt very privileged to be in the first few front rows, the band were right in front of me, I could see right up Geddy's shades, everyone was happy - but in these days of thousand-hits-a-minute online booking I'm somehow always destined to end up near the back - one can marvel at the Lighting effects from the rear of the Hall quite comfortably, maybe they're lost to those seated at the front!   Tony R's excellent photographs from the Newcastle concert show the stage set out the same way that it was at  Wembley, a few rows from the front it would appear! 

The boys were back in town, what a night - or as I heard one happy punter put it..... "a gig and a half!"........that it WAS! 

Edited by mystic fred - October 11 2007 at 02:22

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