Rush-Beyond The Lighted Stage, Tonight 0n Palladia

[Real rock fan]

Bought the Blu-Ray, absolutely loving this (half way through it), great insight to this magnificent band.

[Rip Rokken]

One thing to say...

Neil Peart is a GOD.

That is all.

Just don't try to worship him -- according to the DVD, he really, really doesn't like that!

[Rip Rokken]

RUSH will always be my favorite band. The band I have the most merch of, the most boots of, and the most respect for...however, that being said...I've been EXTREMELY disappointed in Vapor Trails, and Snakes & Arrows.

I agree with Vapor Trails. I can't listen to that album - not because of the songs, although they are clearly not Rush's finest hour, but because the production is probably the worst I've heard on ANY album anywhere. However, Snakes & Arrows I thought was a brilliant album and a return to Rush at their best. Great production, great songs, great lyrics, great musicianship. It was one of my favourite albums of the year.

I like Vapor Trails a whooooole lot better than Snakes & Arrows. Yes, I hated the muddy production on Vapor Trails, and only a week or two started reading about how the album was made when I heard it really was an issue with fans. They apparently recorded a bunch of jam sessions and Geddy spliced them into songs. I guess that's understandable with Neal just recovering from all his tragedy. Here are some quotes from WikiPedia about it:

According to the band, the entire developmental process for Vapor Trails was extremely taxing and took approximately 14 months to finish, by far the longest the band had ever spent writing and recording a studio album. Despite controversy surrounding its production and sound quality, the album debuted to moderate praise and was supported by the band's first tour in six years, including first-ever concerts in Mexico City and Brazil, where they played to some of the largest crowds of their career. The album was certified gold in Canada in August 2002.

Production

On Vapor Trails there are no keyboards, no traditional guitar solos and no processed-guitar tones. Instead, Vapor Trails uses a more purified guitar tone, vocal, guitar and bass overdubs, and more personal lyrics.

Much of the recordings were from one-off jam sessions and many of the original takes from those sessions were used to construct the songs. Rush made extensive use of computers and music editing software to piece the jam session recordings into songs. Drummer Neil Peart remarked,

“Eventually Geddy began to sift through the vast number of jams they had created, finding a verse here, a chorus there, and piecing them together. Often a pattern had only ever been played once in passing, but through the use of computer tools it could be repeated or reworked into a part. Since all the writing, arranging, and recording was done on computer, a lot of time was spent staring at monitors, but most of the time technology was our friend, and helped us to combine spontaneity and craftwork. Talk was the necessary interface, of course, and once Geddy and Alex had agreed on basic structures, Geddy would go through the lyrics to see what might suit the music and "sing well," then come to me to discuss any improvements, additions, or deletions I could make from my end.”

Criticism

The production of Vapor Trails has been criticized due to the album's "loud" sound quality. Albums such as this have been mastered so loud that additional digital distortion is generated during the production of the CD. The trend, known as the Loudness war, has become very common on modern rock CDs.

As explained by Rip Rowan on the ProRec website, the damaged production is the result of overly-compressed (clipped) audio levels during mastering, though Rush has admitted

that there was digital distortion during recording, which also contributed to the damage. Remastering the album would not correct the damage from digital distortion that was introduced during recording, but it could correct the other, more destructive damage that is the result of overly-compressing the audio during mastering.

On Retrospective 3, Richard Chycki, who recently worked with the band on the R30 and both the Snakes & Arrows album and live sets, remixed "One Little Victory", and "Earthshine". In an interview with Modern Guitars, Lifeson remarked that since the remixes were so good, there has been talk of doing an entire remix of the album.[4] He also stated:

It was a contest, and it was mastered too high, and it crackles, and it spits, and it just crushes everything. All the dynamics get lost, especially anything that had an acoustic guitar in it.


I didn't realize they'd remastered those two songs, which happen to be my favorites on the album. "Earthshine" especially because it reminds me of Moving Pictures-era Rush. I'll have to check them out!

I just popped in Snakes & Arrows last week and tried to give it another go, but found myself feeling the same way this time around. Way too many snakes and not enough arrows. Many of the songs are just plain boring to me, with not enough melody to hold my interest. I felt the same way about most of Test For Echo -- loved the title track and "Driven", but the rest just didn't catch on for me. My favorite song by far from Snakes is "Bravest Face" -- love the lyrics, too. "Far Cry" and "Workin' Them Angels" are good too. I really didn't like the 3 instrumental tracks and thought it was way too much. They seemed very paint-by-the-numbers to me, and musicianship aside, I found them boring. The last instrumental I really enjoyed from Rush was "Leave That Thing Alone" from Counterparts -- it seemed to have more of a point to it.

Interesting that the WikiPedia article doesn't recognize Vapor Trails as a "studio outing":

Snakes & Arrows is the 18th full-length studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush. Co-produced by Nick Raskulinecz, it is Rush's first studio outing since 2004's Feedback.

Wonder if that was just a mistake, or if they don't consider them as having recorded in an actual studio. It was at least a full-length album of original music, so I don't understand the omission.

[Melissa]

One thing to say...

Neil Peart is a GOD.

That is all.

Just don't try to worship him -- according to the DVD, he really, really doesn't like that!

LOL- yep I've read in interviews over the years that he's shy apparently. So yeah if ever met him couldn't pull one of Deb's "ohmygodyouareagodIloveyou" or anything like that, lol!

[S2M]

Interesting that the WikiPedia article doesn't recognize Vapor Trails as a "studio outing":

Snakes & Arrows is the 18th full-length studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush. Co-produced by Nick Raskulinecz, it is Rush's first studio outing since 2004's Feedback.

Wonder if that was just a mistake, or if they don't consider them as having recorded in an actual studio. It was at least a full-length album of original music, so I don't understand the omission.

It was their first studio output since '04s 'Feedback'. VT was 2002......

[Rip Rokken]

Interesting that the WikiPedia article doesn't recognize Vapor Trails as a "studio outing":

Snakes & Arrows is the 18th full-length studio album by the Canadian rock band Rush. Co-produced by Nick Raskulinecz, it is Rush's first studio outing since 2004's Feedback.

Wonder if that was just a mistake, or if they don't consider them as having recorded in an actual studio. It was at least a full-length album of original music, so I don't understand the omission.

It was their first studio output since '04s 'Feedback'. VT was 2002......

I don't know what I was thinking there, LOL! I never bought Feedback, and guess I thought it was before VT. Thanks!