04.10.2004
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RUSH
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Mazda Palace - MILANO - 21.09.2004 - presented by BarleyArts report by Achille Benigni
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AN EVERLASTING EVENT A
foreword: it is said that the quality of a concert largely depends from
the acoustic properties of the place where the concert is performed. And
since in my life I have seen hundreds of live shows, I more than often
verified the truth of this axiom; sometimes just average concerts
managed to be good thanks to the good environmental acoustic or to the
excellent place where they were held, and some other times great
musicians have been penalized by technical or amplification problems, or
by sound engineers not living up to their names.
Rush’s
live show in Milano goes into the second case. And that’s a shame,
because sound aside we can’t do anything else but praise this that has
been announced as the extraordinary event: a top shape band that for the
first time in 30 years of extraordinaire career happened to come in
Italy – a hot and very competent audience, as many musicians were
there and few the casual listeners, even because of the modest
commercial appeal that this awesome Canadian trio shows here in Italy.
As absurd as it may seem, Rush in Italy have never fared better than
“niche” band. Their audience is an élite (especially when one
confront it with the oceans of people that follow Rush in the rest of
the world), and also “transversal” as it counts among its rank both
progsters and metalheads. And
the audience surely happened to be satisfied from the three and odd
hours of show in which the band proposed a anthological setlist – as
everyone expected, for a band celebrating its 30th birthday
– gathering from the whole repertoire, from the first album to the
most recent “Feedback”. Concert
started sharp at 20.30, as the big screen on the back of the stage
starts to shot a series of images inspired to the covers of the albums (Signals’s
dog watering the hydrant, Apollo-like man from Emispheres, Flying Dragon
from Rush in Rio…etc) followed by a funny old man asking himself
whether Rush have to play in Bangkok. As
they took the stage, Lee, Lifeson and Peart started a medley, called R30
including Finding my Way, Bastille
Day, Hemispheres, Cygnus; almost a
praise to the first part of the musical history of Rush, characterized
by a more hard and direct sound, derived from Led Zeppelin. Unfortunately,
in this first part of the concert the sound is very bad and the sound
engineer doesn’t manage to obtain the best instruments setting. It
will take at least 20 minutes to obtain an acceptable level of sound;
meanwhile they play Spirit of Radio,
Force Ten, Animate
and Subdivisions, a superb song from Signals. The
sound is still bad. What
a pity! We can’t enjoy the vocals of Lee and the epic synth riffs. Things
get better with Earthshine, even though the first good sounding song is
Red Barchetta, introduced by the exceptional harmonics of Lifeson’s
guitar. This beautiful song from Moving Pictures is just the first of a
formidable sequence: Roll the Bones, Bravado, YYZ and The Trees,
all four made more precious by the light-show and videoclips that an
experienced direction broadcasts on the giant screen (dancing skeletons
on RTB, the wood in The Trees). The
Seeker follows, a cover from a famous Who’s song (just the
first cover of the evening) and One Little
Victory, a modest song from Vapor Trails, here made more
enjoyable due to a funny video that shows the flying dragon as breathes
fire on the audience. After
a deserved intermission of 15 minutes, we see another video showing
three puppets of our heroes on a spaceship facing the flying dragon (and
defeating it), the martial tempo of Tom Sawyer introduces the second
half of the concert. The famous song is performed at the top of
excellency, as Dreamline as well, where Alex plays one of his
“essential” soloes, as green lasers slice the space of Mazda Palace
creating pictorical light shows. After
a superfluous Secret Touch there is
the beautiful and unforeseen Between The Wheels,
followed by Mystic Rythms and Sector
A, all sung with excellent voice by Lee that passing years notwithstanding
still preserves a notable vocal extension and gained in expression as
well.
And
what about Neil Peart? We had yet to talk about him, yet the
“Professor” deserves his personal moment of glory. We all know how
good he is on drums, but seeing him playing live is a true experience.
His elegance, metronome precision in taking on the most difficult
timings, and the energy that, age notwithstanding, still shows, all make
his performance a show within the show; and it’s a good thing that the
direction focuses on Neil’s drumming, even thanks to the camera placed
above his had allowing us to admire the coordination of his hands (in my
opinion just that camera would have been more than sufficient!!). As a
consolited tradition, even in this show
Peart has his own space with his solo (once called The Rhythm
Metod) that during the years assumed the aspect of a true song. In
general I find drum soloes boring, but in this case, thanks to the
musician’s fantasy I could not help but keep looking, as Neil used the
whole 360° drum set(!) also with xilophones, metallophones and
electropad. And here comes the unplugged moment in which our ears (and the hands and feets of the Professor as well!) have some rest, as Geddy and Alex with their acoustic guitars play a pleasant version of Resist and Heart Full Of Soul. But the acoustic time is brief: sweeping sounds and cosmic images introduce the following song and the audience roars… 2112, the suite that sent Rush into the hard-rock progressive hyperspace, performed in a reduced version. Unfortunately the guitar volume is once again too loud. Too bad, because you can see that Lifeson is doing a good job. The problem is that with these massive uses of reverb and feedbacks (a natural choice for such a trio, in which the guitar has to create the main harmonic fabric), should suggest to not pump up too much the volume unless you want to lose all the harmonies. Yet that’s it. Our
consolation is the excellent setlist that gives us La
Villa Strangiato (in which Alex performs some strange
vocalizing, doubling the guitar lines), followed by By
Tor And The Snow Dog and Xanadu
(both edit versions) to end with the classic Working Man. The
encores are the two cover rock-blues Crossroads
and Summertime Blues and the
everlasting Limelight.
After
31 songs and 3 and odds hours of music the trio salutes the audience and
goes away, as Geddy, smiling, acknowledges for the last time Italy, that
was waiting for them from 30 years. And, from what we have seen, it was
worth waiting for. A
last remark is due: usually when you see a concert of a band celebrating
30 years of music the risk of the pathetic is right around the corner.
Often, in the best case, you have the feel that the artists are there
for a contract obligation. And
in my opinion this makes such a concert an everlasting event. SETLIST R30
Overture: Secret
Touch Encore:
Achille Benigni for gryphonmetal.ch
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