Liquidmuse

It's interesting, because I dipped into Philly, heard Geddy warbling through "How It Is", and wondered how he was gonna make it through the rest of the set. From what I heard, the second half of Toronto 2 had the best Geddy vocals in a long, long time.

So one, it's impossibly brave and yes poignant for Rush to do this. What other rock band would play a song as a special treat on a farewell about how age is beginning to win? That said, the conspiracy guy in me thinks they're clever enough to each have a key error in there---Alex flubbing up his first chord, Neil avoiding the big crescendo fill at the end of the violin solo, Geddy kinda choking on the last note even though that was one of his better vocal nights. The realist in me understands those were just flaws/aversions, and it's weirdly perfect that they're there for that song.

Wow, I'm a singer myself, and there's barely any difference between those two "high note performances" in Freewill. The DVD version may be a bit more polished, but you can always throw reverb in there. I'm not saying they didn't maybe pitch-correct it a little, but I'm sure there are better examples of "Geddy replacement" (like I mentioned earlier, the pretty big difference in the original GUP concert video and the DVD for Ged). I'd heard Cleveland was a train wreck that nite for Geddy, and I always suspected they replaced those Freewill high notes like you said, but that's the same vocal line reading. Funny enough, I re-watched the whole thing on Blu-Ray, and Geddy's vocals annoyed me a whole lot less than on the regular DVD. Wonder if they just tweaked the Blu-ray. All that said, yeah, it kinda annoys me actually that fans through the years didn't understand how much touching up their favorite bands went through on concert releases. Like hair transplants and hairpieces, it engenders a false sense of reality for the public and of people's own personal expectation ;-) (in Rush's case, like when I saw a poster of Al from 1984 with the classic doll-cornrow hair transplant peaking out of the Flock of Seagals wave, I was stunned! ;-) (this was 1995 or so) And I think it's a bit weird Alex was sporting the proud bald spot not even 3 years ago or so on many filmed performances, but now is wig man. I guess people just don't notice details (but isn't that what we do as Rush fans? ;-))

His vocals in that second Toronto show were out of this world (though I also found it appropriate/poignant that his last big note in "Losing It" was a bit of a mess). To be honest, I'm noticing a lot of fans of different bands remarking about the improved vocals of their aged lead singer. I have to think it's new and stronger (doctor prescribed) steroids. If we have the technology (HGH/TRT, etc.) why not use it?

Funny, because the vocals for the Grace concert video were almost perfect, but then the DVD re-release seems like they left in the original performance, warts and all. I kinda wanted the pristine version. Also, from 5.1 to Stereo Sound (The Trees solo?) in Rio, Alex fixed the first couple notes. And didn't they fix/tweak a lot of Ged's vocals on Time Machine?

One thing I noticed 1st to 2nd (just watched both solos) was Neil forgot in the 2nd show to do the big "4 limb intertwined double-bass/tom roll crescendo", which to me has been his main calling card from the very beginning. So weird. Then again, he kinda looked like he was unsure what the next part of the solo was in each performance, which I think ties to age as well as his new improv nature. Hope they pick the first solo and most of the 2nd show.