EXIT... STAGE LEFT

This is an energetic live album. Previous reviewers wrote that this album doesn`t have a good recording. I agree with them. But it still has very good live versions. Me, being a drummer, I enjoy very much listening to Neil Peart`s playing. I listened to this album for the first time in 1983. It was (and it is) for me really an "exercise for learning" trying to play the drums along with this album and others by other bands. I can say that I learned some "tricks" listening to Peart. My favourite songs from this album are:"Spirit of Radio", "YYZ", "Jacob`s Ladder", "The Trees", "Xanadu" (with one of the most difficult drums and percussion parts), "Free Will" (great lead guitar!) and "Tom Sawyer" (the heaviest of all). I think that it should have been very difficult to play live with sequencers, as they are programmed synthesizers. Rush did it. They sound "precise", even if the rhythms are constantly changing. Maybe the rhythm is the same, but Peart never plays it in the same way, even if they repeat sections of the same song.So, this gives the songs more variety ("Red Barchetta", for example). Geddy Lee also plays some rhythm guitar in some songs ("A Passage to Bangkok", "Jacob`s Ladder","Xanadu" ), and also plays some synthesizers live ("YYZ", "Tom Sawyer", as I have seen in the "The Grace Under Pressure Tour" video). A very good live album.