Rush
Exit...Stage Left
resequenced and expanded by }{eywood


Exit Stage Left. One of the best live albums I've ever heard, up there with KISS Alive, the Peter Frampton thing and Unleashed in the East. But like Unleashed in the East it was an incomplete representation of Rush's show at that time. Thanks to the DVD release with the same title and the bonus tracks added to the 2012 release of 2112 a great deal more of it is now available to us. I have taken the CDs and DVD and combined them, changing the order to that of the setlist for the Moving Pictures tour, but with slight vaiation to account for a couple extra songs that were on the CD from the Permanent Waves tour. Consequently the "Closer to the Heart"/"Beneath Between & Behind" medley caused me to move "Closer..." from its proper place in the set after "Red Barchetta" to a much earlier point in the set. "Jacob's Ladder" and "A Passage To Bangkok" are also from the PW tour, not having been played on the MP tour. I also managed to restore a bit of Geddy's dialogue.

I've remastered the whole thing so the three sources sound alike, and giving it some low end that I always felt ESL lacked. In a few places it sounds a bit compressed due to bass boosting an already compressed file, but that's the price I pay for doing these things.  For the 2112 tracks I used phase cancellation to isolate the giutar track from the mix and alter its place in the stereo field to more closely match the sound of it on the ESL album.  I also added some reverb for the same reason.

All in all this sounds a lot more like a real Rush show that the original release did.

01 2112 Overture
02 The Temples of Syrinx
03 Freewill
04 Limelight
05 Closer To The Heart
06 Beneath, Between & Behind
07 Jacob's Ladder
08 A Passage To Bangkok
09 YYZ
10 Broon's Bane
11 The Trees
12 Xanadu
13 The Spirit OF Radio
14 Red Barchetta
15 Tom Sawyer
16 Vital Signs
17 By-Tor And The Snow Dog
18 In The End
19 In The Mood
20 2112 Finale
21 La Villa Strangiato


as far as the editing goes, the 2112 stuff is from the expanded 2112. Most of the material from the CD is here, but the beginning of "Closer to the Heart" is from the DVD (the edit back to the CD version is in the middle of the word "philosophers" as the drums come in). The end medley from "By-Tor..." through "2112" is from the DVD, as are various bits of dialogue and audience noise throughout.

More to come. Enjoy!