LIVE: Rush @ SPAC, 6/25/13

Photographs by Timothy Reidy

Veteran Canadian prog-rock trio Rush rolled into the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs last week. Geddy Lee and the boys were touring in support of their new album, Clockwork Angels, but they were also celebrating their recent (and long overdue) induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

SECOND OPINIONS:
David M. Johnson’s review at The Saratogian
Excerpt from David Singer’s review at The Daily Gazette: “The group routinely attacked all its tunes, the tempo always aggressive. They softened a bit on ‘Bravado’ toward the end of the second set, Alex Lifeson playing a melodic solo for one round before fanning his right hand over a high string to throw the sound back into overdrive. Geddy Lee followed with a great bass solo introduction, a prelude to Neil Peart’s first drum solo — a mere warm-up for what he gave us later — during ‘Where’s My Thing?’ Peart, who always makes the list of great drum-set technicians, stayed on his snare drum for a good part of the solo — a camera hovering directly above him gave us a great shot of his hands — before flailing methodically around his circular mass of tom-toms. The band followed with ‘Far Cry’ to end the set. The second set ran through a number of tunes from their latest record, colored by a string section. Rather than a layered cliché of gloppy, prog-rock string arrangements, the addition added intensity to the tunes (imagine the strings’ contribution on ‘Kashmir’). During the powerful ‘Carnies,’ Lifeson strummed a few fat chords to set the heavy tone, and the strings added haunting tones while Lee and Peart drove the bottom-end of the machine.