RUSH IN RIO

To me, Rush is a REAL live band. And this DVD does the job. After a 5 year hiatus, the 3 stooges embarked on an exhaustive tour ending in Rio De Janero, Brazil filmed here for this disc. This is the first time they've ever toured Brazil. And you can tell it the way the audience reacts here. God bless the Brazilians, they really enjoy concerts today the way us spoiled Americans did at Woodstock and Isle of Wight. Every hand is clapping and every arm is waving in unison in a sea of teenage rockers. For almost 3 hours the boys perform material from almost every one of their 17 albums and with gusto. As a drummer myself, I have to say the highlight for me is Neil's 8 min solo Ol Bastera. The man just doesn't stop getting more and more inventive. As for Alex and Geddy, 2 of the most underrated guitarist and bassist around. And whoa! An acoustic duet with the two? Are we getting a hint of a future Rush Unledded performance here? That would certainly be interesting! Now for the gripes. Yes, the emphases on audience noise is a bit annoying. No big deal though, if want to opt out on the "you are there" experience, just go from the 5.1 to the 2.0 stereo mode, there's less audience noise in stereo and it still sounds great. Especially on Neil's drums. His snare and bass drum are dead center while his toms go from high on the right speaker to the low end on the left speaker. As for the extras on disc 2, the one hour documentary is interesting and pretty informative. And there's some great multiangle features on 3 of the intrumentals. AND not to mention a vintage video from '75 of them doing Anthem with shoulder-length hair and mustaches. All in all, a must have for any prog fan. It took a while for Rush to finally get on DVD, and this is well worth the wait. Enough said. 4 1/2 stars, minus 1/2 star for poor 5.1 mix and no DTS like they said they going to have when they were promoting this release, DAMN IT!

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