RUSH - Cygnus-X1.Net

As 'Strangiato' begins and Geddy edits out Levxst's lovely vocals, Iask myself "how will Alex fare now his fingers aren t t quite as n.imbleas they used to be". The answer is - remarkably better than on the night.Although it broke my 11eart to admit it, there were times during thattrack that I really felt Alex struggle, and that Neil and Geddy werepul ling him thrnugh.I've been thlnk ing about this for a while now, and listening to mybootleg tapes - both NEC and Wembley, and things just aren't quite right.But then I think - he's played brilliantly in songs like 'Force Ten' and'Turn The lage', so maybe it's just my imagination. lerhaps the morerecent material suits Alex best, who knows?Anyway Alex has such a warm character and personality, and 1 stillthir~ H.Y.F is excellent proof of his continued ability as an excellentguitarist, that I'm sure that he, like the band, will continue on intothe go ' s. So to the close. with 'In The Moo~', funny, witty (Alex withhis light box, brilliant •••• ). As cartoon s fly back into space, I can'thelp but wish they had put the whole show on t a pe. In conclusion Ilove it. l erhaps a bit too po l ished in places, but miles ahead of Exitand' GU F videos in visual teChniques and audio quality.NEA1 BEATTY (COVENTRY)Dear Ed,I 've just PQrchased the l ates t Rush video 'A ~how Of Hands' recordedlive at the Birmingham N3 C during the recent tour that they did,and I must say I'm sadly disappointed in the overall ~ roduction andt :'le feel of the video. Most of the time the camera angles used were verypoor and seemed to be a little out of focus, I feel a lot more rlanningcould have gone into these two areas.The track listing, what happened to 'Subdivisions·, 'Time Stand Still~and 'l,ock And Key'? We've had 'Spirit Of Radio', 'Tom Sawyer' and 'RedSector A' once before already and 'Closer To The Heart' has already appearedon both the' 'Exit StaGe 1eft ••• f and. 'GUP' tour videos - where is:the logic behind this? The drum solo (The Rhythm Method) wat; very good,and was even fj.lmed quite well until the end where the platform onwhich the drums actually stood rev'olved a number of times to great .cheers from the audience - one- of the highl i ghts of the tour, howeverit was missing from the video apart from the lamt five seconds whereyou just see the platform coming to a halt before the next song, howthey managed to miss that out I don't know.I bought the video in the hope that it could posibly recreate some ofthe atmosphere that I felt after having seen Rush on two nights at theWembley Arena back in April last year - sadly it wasn't even close. Formy money the GUP video is a far better representation of Rush live, isas their first offering on video 'Exit Stage 1eft ••• ', I'll keep mycopy of 'A Show Of ;:{ands ', but it will be a while before I watch it again.I would like to see what your other readers think, are they happywith the finished work?LI~,I-PETER (SURREY)