You are the best clicker who ever clicked this link... All the World's a Grape Live Album Score: **** 1/2 Hey, I'm beginning to see why there are Rush fans in the world, and how important it is to hear how this group sounds live! They ROCK!!! It's a true shame that I only have computer speakers and headphones to hear this album. It would be much better to put this album on a surround sound stereo and crank up the volume to 11. Well, I'm living in an apartment, and the guy who lives upstairs probably wouldn't appreciate it that much. But he ticks me off anyway, because he's always stomping on the dang floors!! Anyway, back to this album. Before you consider purchasing a live album from a band, you're going to have to figure out A) How much you like their studio songs and B) If they're capable of being a good live band. Nonetheless, considering this group does have a handful of good songs is the minor point. Considering this band has two of the most celebrated musical virtuosos in rock 'n' roll history (Alex Lifeson on guitars and Neil Peart, who is considered THE LEGEND of drums), you'd better believe this live album is going to ROCK. ... I can tell you from first hand experience that, yes, it's awesome. This album convinced me why there are so many geeky fan-boys who love this band. First of all, the live version of "2112" is shockingly AWESOME compared to the original version. When I reviewed that album, I didn't think much of that track, because I found it so boring. But this live version kicks the kids to kingdom come! However the best song on the album, in my opinion, is "Working Man / Finding My Own Way," something that was featured on their debut, eponymous album. Neil Peart gives a drum performance there that makes us sorry that he only joined the band on their fourth release. That song, which even features a full-blown drum solo, is the most entertaining song of them all. There are a few missteps here, in my opinion. "In the End" just doesn't seem to be much of anything. The band evidentally didn't have it together there. I'm not sure why, because they seemed so excellent in the other tracks. Also, I still think "Lakeside Park" is a doofy old song. Of all the ones, why did they have to play that? But these are only minor complaints. The vast majority of this album is excellent to sit through. Imperfect, but so what? This is what rock 'n' roll geekdom is all about. Individual Track Reviews: Rush makes an interesting song selection to start with. "Bastille Day" doesn't sound any worse than it did on the studio version! That's a compliment, but I didn't think the song was so hot on the album. Oh well. I guess you don't buy this album for the melodies. You want to know how they do on their instruments. Well, Alex Lifeson delivers a few very entertaining electric guitar solos as Neil Peart drums away as if there's no tomorrow! So, this is a slightly improved version. It is a known phenomenon for bands to know how do to a song better when they get around to touring live, because they have a better idea how to develop the song. ... Listen to the crowd ... They're loving it. Rush's trademark "choppy chords" works pretty well here. "Anthem" was another song that I never cared for. Oh well! (OK, does anyone else hear Geddy Lee screaming "Rudrow?") Well, if we're going to keep track on songs that sound better live than on the studio albums, the beginning of this song definitely sounded better on their studio album. The electric guitar solo in the middle of this can only be performed like that live in front of screaming mental patients (their fans)! Hey, who am I to diss these face-melting instrumentalists? I love it, too! "Fly By Night" was a good song in the studio album, so it's no surprise that this is one of the better songs here as well. All those excellent glammy chords are fully in place here and you can hear Neil Peart strutting his stuff very easily here. He plays an interesting rhythm in the middle of the song whilst Lifeson delivers his nearly earth-shattering solo. The song gets more energetic as it gets to the end, too. Ah, what a concert this must have been. I still don't think "Something for Nothing" from their latest album, 2112 is that good of a song. But it is very good live. You won't care that the melody is trite, because the instruments are amazing! Hear the NOISE! The electric guitar work on here is enough to lift the spirits of all nerdy boys the world round. Oh, and anyone who enjoys doing air drums will have to check this out. This is arena rock tastiness at its best. A variation of the title, this live version is "Something from Nothing." Now, the studio version of "Lakeside Park" was something I really didn't like. This one's a tad bit more hard rocking and for whatever reason, less emphasis is placed on Geddy's vocals. This helps immensely! All that said, this is still a pretty boring song. I don't know why they wanted to play this one... Oh no, this is where they play their big old chunk of prog rock. Fortunately, they scaled down the 20-minute song to 16-minutes! They could cut it down a little further than that, though! Well, all the studio stuff they did with the song (notably, the space age stuff at the beginning) wasn't done that much on the stage. They substituted that with their guitars. ... But this live version is a hell of a lot more fun than the studio version. Gosh, do you hear these guitars going off all over the place? And the bloody drumming? S-weet. They were so restrained in the studio or something! Excellent. Trust me, this version is more entertaining. MUCH more entertaining. "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" is 12 minutes, which is a few minutes longer than the studio version. I'm not a big fan of how this song starts at all! Holy cow, man ... the melody sounds pretty bad. But after a minute of that, the remaining 12 minutes are pretty good as the song picks up energy. They even do the dog barking effect with this guitar here, which probably better than they did it in the studio. Naturally, what they do with the extra few minutes is to demonstrate more of their instrumental virtuosity. There's A LOT of that, man ... oh man ... Apparently because their arms were tired, they stop everything in the middle of the song and try to create atmospheric textures with the guitars. It's not as bad as I would have thought. Peart chimes in with some rolling drums pretty soon, and the rockey rolley comes back for the final three minutes. The electric guitar solo is amazing!!!!!!! Wow, how boring! Especially after coming out of that electric guitar solo on "By-Tor." "In the End" begins woefully quiet and ballad like. It's not until the two minute mark they get around to putting some umph in the instrumentation, but it's just not the same. Neal Peart tries the best he can with his drums. I'm just not impressed. This song doesn't have the unbridled energy that the previous ones had, and this is a snoozefest. When Geddy starts belting out his lyrics, which gets echoed through some stage. Now let's all say this next word together: "Meh!" "Working Man" was that excellent song they released on their debut. Hey, Neil Peart gives some impressive drumming. ... He wasn't on the band's first album! Anyway, this is probably one of their better written hard rock song with some excellently written guitar crunches and even a few melodic hooks or two. They extend this to 15 minutes to make time for the usual earth-shattering electric guitar solos and drum solos. This combined with the fact that this is one of their best written songs makes this my pick of the album. However, I'm sure that comes hotly debated by Rush fans! (Heck Neil Peart fans should love this song, because it features "Professor" Neil Peart on a drum solo that's actually not too shabby. Usually, I despise drum solos and think they're poison. Peart at least knows how to play an audience with them.) The band, who ate up this performance like pancakes, cheers and screams for an encore! Trust me, I would have been, too. Hey! They came back! "What You're Doing" is another song from their excellent debut album, and it's translated entirely well on the stage! It's thundering like a ... bunch of thunder (I ran out of metaphors). The song was a well written hard rock work to begin with, but like most the other songs on the album, this really rocked live. Seriously. Give me a comment here and be free.

All reviews are copyrighted by the author, Michael Lawrence. He is a NASA engineer ... no wait, not NASA engineer ... what is that word ... oh yes, unemployed.