ALL THE WORLD'S A STAGE

After 4 hard rocking albums, Rush released this energy boosted dash through their hardest rocking metal. The guitar is outrageous, Geddy is screaming his lungs out and Neil hits every tom that dares to cross his path.

The sound isn't as good as the studio albums but that would have been hard given the spectacular production values of all Rush's classic albums. The latest remaster is ok though if you boost the treble level a bit. The playing is excellent, precise and full of energy. This is Alex Lifeson's big moment with Rush and his guitar is all over the place, he's equally at easy plucking chords as he is with massive riffs and solo's.

There's not one dip in this entire set and there are many reasons to pick some of these live versions over their studio originals. The setlist has all the best tunes of the debut album and with Neil on the drums and Alex's extended solos they come highly recommended. But also more recent material gets dusted off. I never cared much for Lakeside Park but here it comes alive, also 2112 works better in the slightly more concise version here. On the studio album, the part where Alex learns to play the guitar is fun the first time you hear it but gets quite annoying in the end. It is entirely skipped here and I think it's a good improvement. My favourite part of the album is By-Tor & the Snow Dog which is downright fantastic here.

All The World's A Stage is one of those albums I played to death in secondary school, revisiting it for this review was as much fan as it always used to be. It's an excellent live document and if you are only a casual fan of Rush's hard rock years then you could do with just this album instead of the first 4 studio albums.