On The Road Again: Rush "Exit...Stage Left"

miércoles, 21 de junio de 2017

Rush "Exit...Stage Left"

Exit...Stage Left is a live album by Canadian band Rush, released in 1981. A video release of the same name, with slightly different content, was released in 1982 on VHS and later on LaserDisc, and in 2007 on DVD.

The album was voted 9th best live album of all time in a poll by Classic Rock Magazine in 2004.

The first, third, and fourth sides of the original vinyl issue were recorded in Canada during the Moving Pictures tour, while the second side was recorded in the UK during the Permanent Waves tour.

The original CD issue removed "A Passage to Bangkok", as CDs could only hold 75 minutes at the time. It was included on the 1997 remaster, as CD capacity had increased to 80 minutes by that time. Before the remastered version was released, the same live version of "A Passage to Bangkok" was released on the compilation Chronicles in 1990.

"YYZ" is extended from 4:24 (studio version) to 7:45 by a Neil Peart drum solo from 2:22 to 5:31. The second verse of "Beneath, Between, & Behind" is omitted. On "La Villa Strangiato," the introductory classical guitar solo from the original recording is played on electric guitar and doubled in length, Lee sings part of a nursery rhyme in Yiddish during the "Danforth and Pape" section (the liner notes include a translation of his words), and a short bass and percussion solo is added before the "Monsters! (Reprise)" section.

The title comes from the catchphrase of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Snagglepuss. The term "stage left" is a stage direction used in blocking to identify the left side of a theater from the point of view of the performer, as opposed to the point of view of the audience.

The whole title came from a character in an American cartoon called Snagglepuss. He's a great little creature, a lion, and every time there's trouble he flees, uttering 'Exit...stage left' or 'Exit...stage right'. But the fact of the matter was that the album cover picture was taken from stage left. And coincidentally that's the direction in which Snagglepuss runs most of the time.
— Geddy Lee, Sounds magazine No. 66, November 1981

We wanted to have Snagglepuss's tail on there. You know, 'Exit Stage Left', with a picture of just his tail. Forget it! They wanted all kinds of legal hassles and tons of money.
— Neil Peart, Jam! Showbiz, October 16, 1996

An item from each of Rush's previous eight studio album covers can be seen on the front and back cover of this live album, though each has been modified in some way. The snowy owl from Fly by Night flies above Apollo, the man in the suit from Hemispheres, who stands next to Paula Turnbull, the woman from Permanent Waves. The puppet king from A Farewell to Kings sits atop a box stenciled with the band logo from Rush. Next to him is a painting of the Caress of Steel album cover, held by one of the movers from Moving Pictures, with another mover standing behind. Next to this is Dionysus, the nude man from Hemispheres. Behind this scene, the starman from 2112 hangs in the background, next to an "EXIT" sign. The scene was shot in Toronto's then-abandoned Winter Garden Theatre.

Rush's first live album, All the World's a Stage, is also represented by the cover's background image, taken at a concert at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium in Buffalo, New York. Both album covers show Rush's live setup on an empty stage, although the band no longer used the white carpet by the time of Exit...Stage Left's release.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart, except where noted.

Side one