EXIT... STAGE LEFT

With the successful "Moving Pictures" as their flagship, Rush concludes one of the most progressive and splendid stages of their career, releasing their second live album "Exit... Stage Left", title taken from the character "Snagglepuss" from a Hanna Barbera cartoon series. A band in a state of grace, able to play live complex studio tracks and transmitting the intensity of the adrenaline generated by the direct contact with the audience, surrendered to the staging of the Canadians.

The setlist represents the stellar moment the trio was going through, highlighting specially pieces like the energetic and participative "The Spirit of Radio", or the impressive "Xanadu", where Alex Lifeson induces us with his guitars and pedals to a trip of unique sensations, or the instrumental "La Villa Strangiato", a sample of the band's virtuosity, to which are added some of the most outstanding songs from "Moving Pictures", such as "Red Barchetta", the novel and mega successful "Tom Sawyer", and the huge drum solo of the master Neil Peart in "YYZ".

A more than interesting curiosity is the brief instrumental Broon's Bane, a classical guitar solo by Lifeson that precedes the beginning of "The Trees".

Although the original recording presents a somewhat dirty sound, improved somewhat by subsequent remasterings in 1997 and 2011, "Exit... Stage Left" is one of the best live albums of the genre in the decade of the 80`s.

4/4.5 stars