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Rush - Snakes & Arrows Live 2 CD Set Audio CD

A fair review of the Rush "Snakes & Arrows Live 2 CD Set" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Rush reviews here, or go back to the Rush tabs.

Rush Band: Rush
Title: Snakes & Arrows Live 2 CD Set
Rating:
Release Date: 2008-04-15
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Limelight 2: Digital Man 3: Entre Nous 4: Mission 5: Freewill 6: The Main Monkey Business 7: The Larger Bowl 8: Secret Touch 9: Circumstances 10: Between the Wheels 11: Dreamline 12: Far Cry 13: Workin Them Angels 14: Armor and Sword 15: Spindrift 16: The Way the Wind Blows 17: Subdivisions 18: Natural Science 19: Witch Hunt 20: Malignant Narcissism Drum Solo 21: Hope 22: Distant Early Warning 23: The Spirit of Radio 24: Tom Sawyer 25: One Little Victory 26: A Passage to Bangkok 27: YYZ

More of the same... below average sound quality
Rush isn't The Dead, they don't improv much or change song structures around. How about playing some tunes that we never hear live, rather than the same setlist for every new live album? Other than the new album material, we've heard ALL of these songs on other live albums, and that sucks. So hearing the same songs played the same way time and time again gets OLD. About as OLD as these guys feel at this point. What about songs like Losing It, Camera Eye, Countdown, etc. Would love to hear those for ONCE! Also, the mix on all the audio that Alex seems to get involved with seems to end up muddy and over compressed. Perhaps you need to get another engineer involved? The Replay DVD set was practically ruined by Alex. :(
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An album as good as SNAKES AND ARROWS deserved a better live treatment
I've found this practice dubious, but nonetheless I picked up SNAKES AND ARROWS LIVE, a document of two concerts in Rotterdam in the autumn of 2007. Rush used to release a live album every four studio albums, but starting with 1998's DIFFERENT STAGES they've been issuing live recordings left and right. Unfortunately, the result

The most immediately apparent flaw is the sound quality. SNAKES AND ARROWS, while not a shining example of balanced mixing, nonetheless rose above the "loudness wars" catastrophe of VAPOR TRAILS. Unfortunately, SNAKES AND ARROWS LIVE drops us almost all the way back to a pit of no dynamic range, compression, and aural fatigue. Alex Lifeson had a hand in mixing this, and I wish he hadn't, as he turns almost every recording he manages into a slurry. There are a few exceptions, namely the instrumentals, which are not perfect but nonetheless enjoyable. The second killer is the quality of Geddy's voice. It would be unreasonable to expect him to hit the strident high tones of the band's 1970s output, but it seems like he's even approximating the pitches of fairly recent songs. Certainly his voice has declined since I last saw the band live in 2002.

Had I actually gone to the concert and had the whole live experience--or at least were watching the DVD on a home cinema--instead of judging this merely from my stereo, I probably would have enjoyed this set a lot more. The band brought a few neglected gems out of their catalogue, such as "Digital Man" and "Between the Wheels", and they play plenty from SNAKES AND ARROWS, which is a pretty strong album. I can't recommend this unless you are a Rush completist.


Great live recording of world's greatest rock band
There is power in a well-engineered and not over-driven sound. Having attended seven Snakes & Arrows shows, many from the front row, I can personally attest to the sound fidelity that this recording brings to the concert listening experience.

Since I am guessing that there won't be many folks even looking at this that are not fans of RUSH my guess is that there is little to say beyond "this is a great recording of the concert and you should own it. ".


Longevity
Sure any band worth its salt can crank out a few decent singles for a few years. The true test of a band's greatness is its longevity in my humble opinion. But will they still have anything important to say in ten years? Twenty? How about thirty?

This tour (which I was lucky enough to witness) provides proof to any that may still need it that Rush remains a force to be reckoned with. The ultimate cult band, Rush was the soundtrack to the high school years of several generations of young men (including myself) and (less often) women. Here the band rips into their classics with fire and energy, introduces some relatively strong new material, and does everything with that grain of salt that keeps them entertaining. I bought this CD set as a souvenir of the tour, and whenever I give it a spin it takes me right back to that moment.

I only hope Rush keeps on going for many more great years. To me, they are just as important now as ever.


RUSH ROCKS!!!!! 9 out of 10
The only problem i had with it was that they did not include red barchetta. This great album, now this not the best album that they've put out but its still a great album. .


You can see a complete list of all Rush discography, or go back to the Rush tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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