Timbale

Totally agree...but what I didn't know was how much his partner "Po'" brought to it all.

I tripped across this documentary on Apple... Squaring The Circle is the story of Hipgnosis. The film features interviews with Aubrey Powell (and archived interviews with Storm Thorgerson) as well as members of Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel and others. Really worth a watch if you love those bands and their iconic album covers. I learned a lot of stuff I didn't know, even as a huge Floyd and Gabriel fan!

It would have been interesting for sure. I've always wondered if he would have pushed, or at least accentuated more, Lifeson's interest/influence from The Edge around that time. I really love Alex's approach to rhythm guitar around this era...but with Lillywhite at the helm, I wonder if it would have sounded TOO close to U2...

Amazing. For me, particularly seeing footage of Neil from this era is a bit mind blowing. My first Rush show was September '84...and of course I watched Exit Stage Left many, many times...but the long haired, mustachioed Neil behind the chrome kit was like ancient, unvisitable history to me growing up. Never, ever thought I'd get to see a single moving image from that time..

I always thought the drum sound in particular on P/G took a step backwards from Signals. I know lots of people don't like the production on Signals - for me it's a fave. I really like Bill Szymczyk's work on The Who's Face Dances. Despite having Jones instead of Moon, I think it's a superior album to Who Are You. I think it would have been cool so see what he would have done for Rush.

Post of the day for the Jack Woltz reference.

That was amazing! I did not know they had projections that early in the timeline - I had NEVER seen the "priests" image before! Also didn't know the double necks were used live for some of those songs - Bytor, etc. And what was with the tiny guitar Alex was playing at the end of the show?!

Back before Neil needed his drum tech to hand him a mallet to hit the tubular bells... Amazing footage.

Elvis's song writing is on another level.

I already did one...but I love this thread....and I didn't see any rules about one post only, so... here are 10 songs that would be good to get to know me - when I was 14 years-old. Some still represent me. Some really don't. Magic Power - Triumph Run To The Hills - Iron Maiden Cygnus X-1 Book II - Rush Photograph - Def Leppard Soul Man - The Blues Brothers In A Big Country - Big Country Right and Wrong - Joe Jackson King Of Pain - The Police Stonehenge - Spinal Tap Against All Odds - Phil Collins

I just can't imagine why they would do that...it would add to the work load to swap out (back in '84) ACTUAL film clips from show to show. I'm not arguing with you..it just seems like an odd choice. I could more see it on the last few tours, because it's all just digital. But to my knowledge on the last tours, the vids were all the same for different cities...

You mean just rotated the different takes for different shows?

It might not even be my all-time favourite...but I think the greatest book I've ever read was The Grapes Of Wrath. I was astounded how modern and forward thinking it was.

Have you heard Ethan Hawke's version of Waterloo Sunset? It was from the soundtrack to Juliet Naked - it is surprisingly good. I adore that song.

So I recently watched a bunch of this Grace Under Pressure bootleg from Montreal...which is a couple months before the Toronto show that was filmed (my first ever Rush show!). It is super dark and grainy...but doesn't sound too bad... I noticed two things watching it - 1) The count Floyd intro to The Weapon is different from the intro that is on the afore mentioned P/G tour video. Why do you think that is? Do you think the intro at the Toronto show actually WAS the same as the Montreal show, but they changed it in post? (All of the shots of the projections on the p/g concert film seem to be superimposed above them. I always imagined that the filming of the rear projection looked really bad and that's the best fix they could come up with.). The strange thing about the count Floyd intro is that it isn't really different in any interesting or substantial way...it's almost like it's Joe Flaherty's second take or something... 2) There were rear projections for Red Lenses! I had no memory of that...and the video is so dark you can't make out what they are. Does anyone here remember what the imagery for Red Lenses was?!

Love seeing Fearless on your list!

A great (and tough) question! Whittling it down to 10 is near impossible!! No Beatles?! No Floyd?! No Stevie Wonder?! The Who?! One jazz song?!! Good god... The Sea Refuses No River - Pete Townshend Save Me - Aimee Mann Most Of The Time - Bob Dylan Afterglow - Genesis Family Snapshot - Peter Gabriel Vital Signs - Rush Blue Rondo a la Turk - Dave Brubeck Quartet On The Nickel - Tom Waits Crazy Love Vol II - Paul Simon Indoor Fireworks - Elvis Costello

First things that came to mind - Paul Simon's new piece Seven Psalms...I guess it's an album of sorts...it's a 33 minute song cycle of sorts. Very beautiful. Peter Gabriel's i/o...as it slowly comes out! He is releasing a song a month this year, on the full moons. The first song, Panopticom was ok to me...but there other songs since have been really great. The title track and Playing For Time are top tier Gabriel in my view...and this far into a career, not many artists are doing that...

I don't know HOW I missed this release...but just watched the version of Forever Young from this album on youtube. So good!!

Lyrics are a big part of what I like about Rush...and Tom Sawyer has always left me cold. The two instances off the top of "mean, mean" are annoying to me, and most of the lyrics do nothing for me, save for "changes aren't permanent, but change is", which is a nice turn of phrase. I think the concept of a modern day Tom Sawyer just doesn't conjure anything for me. I don't connect to it. And, I believe Dubois gave Peart the partial lyrics when they were "Louis the warrior"...so the Tom Sawyer thing is down to Neil.

I almost picked Vital Signs...I agree with what everyone has said about it...but in terms of TONE I think it fits MP quite well...whereas I Think I"m Going Bald (my pick) sticks out like a sore thumb on COS. It's silly on an album that is otherwise quite serious (minus the nostalgia of Lakeside Park) and it is kind of the opposite of progressive, being essentially a copy of the In The Mood riff. Vital Signs (one of my top 5 Rush songs) doesn't stick out on MP...it's just perfectly placed to show that they are headed somewhere else...but to me it sits perfectly on that record.

I think maybe we're getting into semantics, haha...I wasn't implying that the internet has turned out to be a great thing and Peart was wrong to be pessimistic about it. I just think that Bowie got that it was going to create an entirely new way of communicating...not good or bad, but something that had not yet been seen. I feel personally, on balance, it's had a negative impact on society. But I didn't feel like Peart was grasping the enormity of the shift in the way Bowie was. Peart seemed dismissive of it in a simplistic way, that's all I meant. :)

Well, to be pedantic, I didn't say "best ever" - I said I've seen solos as good, but none better. Of course this art, it's not a competition...but to me, this solo is every bit as impressive, in its own way, to something like Peart's solos.

I can't recall where I read it...some interview with him, maybe more than one... he just seemed very hung up on "it's not real life" in way that felt very simplistic, given his intellect. (When I think of how prescient David Bowie's views on it were, I feel disappointed in Peart.) Even the lyric "Let's dance tonight to a virtual song"...is it in the tour book, maybe, where he comments on it, saying, well, what IS a virtual song and how can you dance to it? And it's like...I get it, but what are songs delivered in the medium of cassette, or vinyl, then? It just seems like he was a bit "grandad shaking his fist at cloud" about this thing that was clearly a systemic shift in how we all communicated. I just found his take on it simplistic.

I think Neil had a very dim and negative view of the internet - certainly back then. I don't know if he ever expressed more nuanced views on it in later years...but when he realized he could post a bunch of stuff about riding around on his motorcycle on a blog, he seemed to embrace it