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Rush - Working Men CD (album) cover

WORKING MEN

Rush

 

Heavy Prog

2.82 | 49 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Finnforest
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator
2 stars Almost pointless

With so many live Rush DVDs to choose from a compilation of recent shows seems almost pointless save two reason: Perhaps you just want to hear one hour of Rush's most popular songs with few deep cuts interfering because you're a casual fan, or two, you're looking to sample some of the recent DVDs before choosing one to buy. The latter was more or less my motive for purchasing this compilation which is offered at a very reasonable price. And at the end of the day I don't need to purchase any more of them. This was enough for me to realize the Rush of the 2000s is not my cup of tea, at least from a live perspective.

It bums me to be negative about everyone's favorite band but sometimes you have to say it. I can't enjoy this era of the band with the slowed tempo of tracks like Freewill and Tom Sawyer. That crisp, sharp quickness is just not there on those songs and it sucks the life out of them. The slurry of Alex's muddy sound and occasional diversionary and sloppy fretboard work. The painful wince of Geddy's constant straining. And the surprisingly poor sound exacerbated by ridiculously loud crowd noise. How can a band of this caliber have such trouble with their sound? Comparing these live DVDs to recent Porcupine Tree DVDs makes it pretty clear how mediocre the Rush ones are from a sound and directorial standpoint. The fast edits and affinity for crowd-mugging cheapen the performances even further for me. These tracks often feel like trailers for themselves. Kudos where they are due of course, Geddy's bass playing is as hot as ever. And more subdued moments like Subdivisions and Closer to the Heart are still quite good.

The best moments are from the Rio show where Ged's voice is better and the crowd going wild is half the fun. It really was special to witness the passion in that Rio audience, incredible energy. I simply would much rather watch the band in their prime on ESL and GUP. I certainly rate this music highly and I love Rush, but the performances here along with the piecemeal approach of this particular DVD make it really unnecessary for most fans.

Finnforest | 2/5 |

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