Rush: Classic or Dud?

Presto might be more consistent but the highs on Hold Your Fire are WAY higher and way more memorable than most Presto songs therefore I would take HYF over Presto

I agree. I like HYF slightly more than Presto because the good songs are really good, but there are plenty of not-so-good songs. There are more consistently decent songs on Presto (still plenty of clunkers), but none of them really thrill me. Roll The Bones has about 4 solid tracks and the rest are pretty much garbage. Also, I don't love the production on HYF, but I actively hate the sound of Presto and RTB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B52bvzudAvQ

I think reaction videos are weird, and that is not the first of these I've seen for YYZ, but awesome to see the enthusiasm, and even better to watch the awestruck reactions coming right when you'd expect them too. And now I am thinking of Michael Jackson, too.

"i feel cool as hell listening to this"

Thanks a lot for sending me down the youtube rabbit hole. This dude covering "Emotion Detector" (maybe my favorite deep cut) is awesome, not least because he focuses on the Moog foot pedals. Not that the foot part is hard or anything, but it's nice to see what someone's, well, feet might be up to during this, and imagine how hard it would be for Geddy to sing, play bass, play synths and do this somewhat syncopated pedal bass part as well, all at the same time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPcSC2BHTuU

Needless to say, one of a relatively small handful of songs Rush never played live.

Haha, just found the long list of songs they never played live:

I feel like I post this a lot in this sub, but here's the list of every song that they've never played live.
*Take A Friend
*Before And After
*Making Memories
*Rivendell
*The Fountain Of Lamneth
*Lessons
*Tears
*Madrigal
*Different Strings
*Emotion Detector
*Open Secrets
*Second Nature
*Tai Shan
*High Water
*Chain Lighting
*Anagram
*Red Tide
*Hand Over Fist
*Available Light
*Face Up
*The Big Wheel
*Heresy
*Neurotica
*You Bet Your Life
*Cut To The Chase
*Alien Shore
*Speed Of Love
*Everyday Glory
*The Color Of Right
*Totem
*Dog Years
*Carve Away The Stone
*Peaceable Kingdom
*The Stars Look Down
*How It Is
*Vapor Trail
*Sweet Miracle
*Nocturne
*Freeze
*Out Of The Cradle
*Bravest Face
*Good News First
*We Hold On

And now I am thinking of Michael Jackson, too.

I'd never made that connection before, but yeah, Rush were apparently big fans of Off The Wall.

That "YYZ" video is great. They really nail it when they point out that it doesn't sound like anything else. A large part of Moving Pictures' appeal is that it feels almost completely sui generis. Tracks like "YYZ", and "Tom Sawyer" even more, just feel like they have no antecedent, no previous songs that you can point to as an influence.

Well, I think you can find antecedents. What makes it so ingenious is that in a certain way it's sort of a prog pastiche, but they hide it super well, and a musical sense of humor, rare as that is in the first place, goes a long way. Also, brevity is the soul of wit.

That's a real shame they've never played "The Fountain Of Lamneth" or "Madrigal".

Weirdest was when they didn't play "Losing It" on the tour that had a string section! They did it once or twice on the last tour, I guess.

https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/rush_is_over_we_have_no_plans_to_tour_or_record_anymore_were_basically_done.html

Bon voyage!

forget burn out or fade away, the best way to go is just to stop, ideally on top.

surprised they didn't chain lightning on the presto tour, that's one of the best songs on the album imo

Guitar solo possibly unplayable?

heh yeah it is really "out there" like super fripp/belew/reeves gabriel shit

I think it just might be backwards!

heh yeah it is really "out there" like super fripp/belew/reeves gabriel shit

― bhad and bhabie (upper mississippi sh@kedown

how do guitarists rate Gabrels?

I am not much of a guitarist, but I have never liked him, from when the first Tin Machine album came out on.

wait, when did rush play "i think i'm going bald" live?

Reeves Gabrels is seemingly a very charming, wonderful person. Now that he lives in Nashville, it's weird to see him popping up in the comments of my friends' facebook posts just like no biggie.

i def remember him being one of the "weird guitar mag" dudes that would get props like Belew, Fripp, Vernon Reid, Alan Holdsworth, Zappa

xpost Huh, yeah, I don't know if they ever played "Bald" live. I saw this: "Along with "The Fountain of Lamneth" it is widely believed to never have been played live, although there are no known records of when they headlined during the "Down The Tubes Tour" (Caress of Steel) so they may have been played live."

i'm glad they got to stop just being the butt of stupid jokes way before they called it quits

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhVJEKb_xG8

\m/

If this is it for them, it’s such a good run. They are the Ultimate Dude Band – I’m not sure I ever met a woman who liked them. However, VH-1 was showing a few documentaries on them a number of years back and I had my wife—who fucking hates Rush—watch the biography with me. She came away super impressed and had a real respect for them.

It’s not hard to see why – they are just such underdogs who by all rights shouldn’t have made it out of the Toronto bar scene but instead had a massive career for four decades and maintained their dignity the whole way, while also managing to make a bunch of really impressive records. They were terrific in the 70/ and had some moments in the 90s but Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures, ... Exit Stage Left, Signals, Grace Under Pressure, and Power Windows is such an unbelievable run. Bon voyage, indeed.

counterpoint: my brother's wife is the biggest Rush fan I have ever met and I find that at least 50% of my conversations with her, no matter where they start, wind up in Rush territory.

This is nice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYx5AOMtwU0&app=desktop

Hmmmm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYx5AOMtwU0

counterpoint: my brother's wife is the biggest Rush fan I have ever met and I find that at least 50% of my conversations with her, no matter where they start, wind up in Rush territory.

I'm kind of in awe of this guy's chops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GD5Xo1Tkh4U

I just started Power Windows this week. I'm really impressed, I had heard very mixed things but this has some great stuff on it, "International" is amazing. Do any of the following albums have this sound?

Hmm, sort of. Hold Your Fire is in the same vein, but more mushy 80s in sound.

Grace Under Pressure is great (a little different but very 80s in a good way imo)

They are the Ultimate Dude Band – I’m not sure I ever met a woman who liked them.

― Naive Teen Idol, Thursday, March 22, 2018 8:59 PM (yesterday)
Have heard this said in various ways for decades and accepted it without much thought. It's true that the biggest Rush fans I've known have all been nerdy guys, but that's hardly a surprise, given my personality & social circles. Might say more about me & mine than the fandom at large (I've never been to a Rush show, so I wouldn't know).

Anyway, I mentioned this bit of received wisdom the other day, to the bemused shock of my GF and her best friend. They love Rush. They see/embrace the nerdiness and had never noticed any "dudes only" signage. Which kind of shocked me in turn, but only because I habitually mistake my imaginary version of "what people think" for reality.

I know at least a few female Rush fans, and the last few times I saw the band live there were plenty of women in the audience.

They are definitely a "nerd" band, though.

Grace Under Pressure is a darker, more stark album, but just as fantastic. JiC is correct that Hold Your Fire comes off as a lesser follow up. It has a lot of the same synth stabs and sound effects, but lacks the exuberance that's all over Power Windows.

various XPs

Welcome back, contendo! Did you spend your entire time away crafting that last line as new board description fodder?

Thanks! And yes, yes I did.

hey contendo :)

Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows are my two favorites. The former is, yeah, starker and darker. The latter is more polished/expansive and ... invigorating, despite the sometimes equally dark themes.

favorite buried gem: "entre nous"

Hold your fire IMO has great songwriting imo and I like the ‘arrangements’ too. Just not the soundspace they are in. But the good easily outweighs that

Double imo

"Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows are my two favorites" two of mine also. actually I don't really care for any of their full albums after Power Windows. Hold Your Fire has some good stuff and there is good stuff on all their subsequent albums but to me PW is their last great back-to-front album.

Test for Echo is the only Rush album that I have no fondness for at all. But I really like Grace and PW for the mix of tight arrangements and triggering/electronics, which, ironically, probably would not be so prominent of they weren't dated. There was some great article I read - or maybe an excerpt from a book? - that went into all the pioneering sampler stuff they were doing to do what they were doing.

"International" is amazing.
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, March 23, 2018 5:15 PM (one month ago)

Oops, it's called "Territories".

After the low expectations this album feels like such a gift. I think "Territories" and "Grand Designs" are two among their best songs.

power windows is great, it's one of my three favorite rush records (the other two being signals and grace under pressure)

Totally. It's where there was this perfect collision of songs, production, playing and concision. It always irks me when people call Rush a prog band based on just a couple of the '70s records Most of their songs are busy and complicated, but they are rarely particularly long, and they're almost always immaculately arranged.