jnoble

Yeah I didn’t really care for the flamenco style Lee adapted starting with Counterparts. He was playing too many notes too fast from then onto the end of the bands career And the lines weren’t nearly as well thought out and melodic

Lee was recording with a Wal bass, of course it sounded thin and twangy HFY and RTB are Rush's softest wimpiest sounding studio albums out of all of them. Presto was thin too but not as lush and overproduced

Couple years ago on this forum somebody complained that the studio production of HYF made it sound "like cardboard". I totally understand that as I mentioned in my previous comment on this topic here there's just way too much reverb on everything. I wonder if the master tapes could be remixed to strip some of that out and make it sound more dry and natural and powerful?

I categorize Virtuality in the same lane as Spindrift... a great guitar riff in search of a better song

Exactly. That 2112 was absolutely from the Germany performance even with the odd skipping in the introduction whooshing sounds which I thought was a defect on my CD but apparently it was on the source material tape. And yes I don't know why they didn't pitch correct that Twilight Zone bootleg either. It's not like they didn't have the capability to do so.

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. I think if it really existed it would have been seen by now

I listen to this today possibly for the first time and I noticed... I don't know if anyone else has... that the key of the song is a half step slower than the proper key 2112 was played in like they pressed on the CD at the wrong speed. It appears to be the same performance on the Hemis tour bootleg 'Black Forest' I have that separately and it doesn't sound that way. On a slightly similar note I can't hear Geddy's rhythm guitar playing whatsoever on the passage to Bangkok from the Pink Pop Festival show during the guitar solo. It's like they didn't mic his amp or something when he was playing his double neck and switched to the six string guitar. You can hear him playing though at the end of Xanadu

If Open Secrets , High Water and Tai Shan didn't exist the album would be one of their best of the '80s IMHO. Yes it was soft lush and decidedly not hard rock but the arrangements melodies and music itself were very very good. The of-its-era production with everything soaked in a thick layer of reverb especially the drums and vocals didn't help it from sounding dated years later. I like to pretend that the album ended appropriately with Turn The Page and the last two songs were bonus extras not intended for the original album.

I liked it when it first came out and I remember being really excited when I heard the title track for the first time while at work played over local FM radio. And I remember in the very early days of the internet reading the pre-release song titles on the old TNMS site leaking the album title and myself insisting that Test For Echo was a working title not what the final product was going to be named... boy was I wrong about that lol Unfortunately it didn't age well and I like the title track and yes I do like Half The World REM-ish as it is...the lyrics are sadly more appropriate now than they've ever been. What is also the beginning of trends in Rush's music that I didn't like all the way up to the end of the band... the dense over distorted layers of guitar and bass making the songs sound muddy, the quality of Neil's lyrics just weren't as compelling as they used to be, decidedly mediocre "meh" songwriting (Color Of Right, Totem, Carve Away The Stone) , Geddy's bass tone wasn't good and I didn't care for Alex's choice in guitar tones either. Something that would continue on Vapor Trails 5 years later. I very rarely listen to it. The tour was good but the album was mediocre for their standards.

I feel like I'm one of the few Rush fans who really enjoys this song

The idea was well intentioned but the final result left something to be desired. Of course it's just my opinion I know a lot of fans love it

I was always surprised they didn't do BS&M live on the Counterparts tour

Nah. RTB was one half great (RTB, Dreamline, Bravado, GOAC, WMT) and one half extremely mediocre (all the other songs) Rupert Hine's marshmallow soft gutless production did it no favors.

RTB was the worst "Alex album" even more so than Presto/HYF/PoW in terms of guitar tone & placement in the mix

It wasn't just the mix, Alex's choice of guitar tones on that album was suspect