The Time Machine 2011: Live in Cleveland (2011)
Disc One
1. The Spirit of Radio
2. Time Stand Still
3. Presto
4. Stick it Out
5. Workin' Them Angels
6. Leave That Thing Alone
7. Faithless
8. BU2B
9. Free Will
10.Marathon
11.Subdivisions
12.Tom Sawyer
13.Red Barchetta
14.YYZ
15.Limelight
Disc Two
1. The Camera Eye
2. Witch Hunt
3. Vital Signs
4. Caravan
5. Perpetuo Moto
6. O'Malley's Break
7. Closer to the Heart
8. 2112 Intro/The Temples of Syrinx
9. Far Cry
10.La Villa Strangiatto
11.Working Man
Once again, Rush throws us another curve. One that was very pleasing. A couple years had gone by since the last studio album, and although Rush was "working on" a new release, they weren't nearly complete. So what do they do? They release two of the completed songs as a single, and decide to throw conventional wisdom out the window and go on another mammoth tour. I can't remember any time when an artist went on tour to support a single.
Anyway, Rush fans didn't care. Any excuse to get the trio to tour was welcome, and as usually the Canadians didn't disappoint. Although this was billed as the "Time Machine" tour, it's not like the band did anything significantly different in terms of their linear history or anything. Of course, since they only had two new songs to support, this allowed them to devote more time to playing older songs, so maybe that's where the connection was made.
What was welcome was the band decided to play the entire Moving Pictures album which led off the second set. To be honest, this really wasn't that big of a leap, since most of these songs from this album are played anyway from tour to tour, but the one song from the album that fans seemed to really love - The Camera Eye was never featured. So even though fans loved the idea of the entire album being played, they were most excited to finally see The Camera Eye, in its eleven minute entirety, finally being featured.
So of course, a live souvenir was then released – both as a DVD and a compact disc. The show is featured here in its entirety (I don't believe they swapped up the set list between shows, so if you saw them on tour, this is pretty much what you heard). Of course, the band plays great, the set list is different from previous tours, the rabid Cleveland fans go nuts, and the whole thing is yet again an exhilarating treat for any Rush fan. Sadly, Geddy's voice is losing something, and you can't tell he's definitely altering his delivery style to hit all of the notes that were easier to reach 35 years ago, but it's a minor complaint.
The only setlist stinker is the obnoxious Faithless. Even more head-scratching is that Geddy introduces it as "one of his favorites". Weird.
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