The Vapor Trails Tour began on June 28th and ended on November 23rd of 2002. Over the course of five months straight and 66 shows, they toured across North AND South America. As was the case on the LAST tour, there was no opening act, and instead, the show featured an intermission with video entertainment at the start of both sets. The show grew in terms of video and light production - something that has continued to grow ever since - and the stage itself began to take on some neat changes as well!
The Power Windows website has this to say about this tour:
For this tour every album was represented except for Caress of Steel and Hold Your Fire. This tour marks the return of "Cygnus X-1" (Prologue) after a twenty-two year rest (not counting the short teaser performed on every tour since '92). In addition, both "Working Man" and "By-Tor and the Snowdog" returned to the setlist after a twenty year rest, "New World Man" returned after a sixteen year rest, while "Closer To The Heart" and "Force Ten" were dropped for the first time since their inceptions (although "CTTH" would be brought back for the final U.S. date as well as the dates in Mexico and Brazil). It is also worth noting that in the tradition of "Witch Hunt", "Between Sun And Moon" was performed live for the first time though it was released eight years before.
Similar to the band introductions given on the Counterparts tour, each night Alex performed a unique rant during "La Villa Strangiato", a practice that would continue through the subsequent R30 tour. The drum solo included a complete triggered big band sample of "One O'Clock Jump", which Neil had performed with the Buddy Rich Band on Burning for Buddy Vol. II. "Resist" was performed acoustically, the first acoustic performance ever to be included in the setlist.
There were a LOT of firsts for this tour, and I think it finally showed us that while the band was growing old, they weren't really "growing up". Alex's silly rants, Neil coming out of his shell a bit, and Geddy hamming it up night-to-night all showed the fans that their favorite band was back, and in top form!
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As this tour was the first of the recent, post-hiatus tours to get a live release after every tour, I've decided not to offer any live material (as will be the case from now on). I will suggest, however, that you seek out the following show for the bonus live track I've tacked on to the end of my re-cut of the officially released live show,
Rush In Rio.
Matrix Atlanta 02 - Philips Arena, Atlanta, Georgia on October 13, 2002Rush - Rush In Rio - 176:17
(Live In Rio De Jinero, Brazil)
Complete Show + 3 Bonus Tracks
Disc 1 - 69:38 (As Is)
1. Tom Sawyer 5:10
2. Distant Early Warning 4:48
3. New World Man 4:03
4. Roll The Bones 6:03
5. Earthshine 5:42
6. YYZ 4:35
7. The Pass 4:50
8. Bravado 6:15
9. The Big Money 5:58
10. The Trees 5:07
11. Freewill 5:32
12. Closer To The Heart 3:01
13. Natural Science 8:34
Disc 2 - 51:10
1. One Little Victory 5:32
2. Driven 5:05
3. Ghost Rider 5:36
4. Secret Touch 7:00
5. Dreamline 5:04
6. Red Sector A 5:12
7. Leave That Thing Alone! 4:59
8. O Baterista (Drum Solo) 8:18
9. Resist 4:24
Disc 3 - 40:24 + 15:06 = 55:29
1. 2112 (I - II) 6:50
2. Limelight 4:25
3. La Villa Strangiato 10:05
4. The Spirit Of Radio 5:29
5. By-Tor And The Snowdog 4:35
6. Cygnus X-1 (Prologue) 3:12
7. Working Man 5:48
--------(The Board Bootlegs)---------
8. Between Sun & Moon (Bonus) 4:44
9. Vital Signs (Bonus) 4:48
10. Ceiling Unlimited* 5:34
*Sourced from:
(Live In Atlanta, GA on 10/13/02)
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For this tour, I used the already mostly-complete release of
Rush In Rio. I say "mostly-complete" because for SOME reason, they never gave us a live version of "Ceiling Unlimited", a NEW song from their NEW album! I always thought it was a shame that they neglected that song as much as they already did, having alternated it with "Ghost Rider" until the last month of the tour, where it was dropped completely in favor for "Ghost Rider". Don't get me wrong, I love "Ghost Rider", but the least they could have done was given "Ceiling Unlimited" to us as a bonus track like they did for the OTHER alternate songs, "Between Sun & Moon" and "Vital Signs", the former of which was played for the FIRST time this tour, and the latter of which returns from a 10-year rest (last seen on the RTB tour).
One other note about my re-cut of this show is that I moved "2112" to start the third disc. This was to place all of their older material all on one disc, opening with the first two parts of the epic "2112" and going through more tunes from their first 8 albums. On this tour and the next, they shifted their older material towards the end of the show, so I saw it fit to move "2112" to open the third disc. It also evened out discs 2 and 3 a bit as well.
For this tour, the band decided to bring back some classics and even out the set a bit. This is evident in the fact that ONLY FIVE NEW SONGS were played!! That's less than 45%, a ratio that had never occurred before now. The usual percentage of new songs played live was usually around half, but this time, it was only 5 out of 13, or only 38%! And this isn't counting the fact that GR and CU were alternated for most of the tour! The rest of the show contains 13 songs from the first 8 albums, with the bulk of them at the end of each set (14 if you count the "Vital Signs" bonus track), 4 songs from the Synth-Era/Sector Three, and 8 songs from Sector Four (or the Atlantic albums). That's not bad, with half the songs covering the first half of their career (Rush-MP), the other half from their latter portion of their career (SIG-TFE).
It's a good mix, certainly, although I would've swapped one or two songs out for others, but given this was a mass-appeal "come back tour", they needed some hits and singles that everyone would know. In fact, the first set includes ALL singles with the exceptions of "Natural Science", "Earthshine" and "YYZ" (as well as the alternate track "Between Sun And Moon"). Heck, even in the 2nd set between "One Little Victory" and "The Spirit Of Radio", those are all singles as well with the only exceptions being "Ghost Rider" (and "Ceiling Unlimited"), "Leave That Thing Alone!" and "La Villa Strangiato" (although their instrumentals were never really meant to be singles to begin with). So out of the 31 songs performed this tour, about 1/3 of them are NOT singles. That's pretty astounding, especially considering what we've gotten in the tours SINCE then!
As for this show itself - well, if you're a Rush fan, chances are you've already listened to this show...a lot...many times, in fact, and I'm sure I don't have to say much about it. I'm sure many fans were NOT expecting a live album from this tour, instead expecting Rush to continue their "Four studio albums, One live album" routine they started awhile back, but this was not the case! To document what would become their "Come Back tour" (from an indefinite hiatus), they celebrated with this release! This show the last of the tour, and featured their 2nd largest audience (with 40,000 people!) during their first time in Brazil!
The show is full of energy, with both the band and the crowd helping to bring Rush music alive! One of the most well-known moments is hearing the storming crowd sing along to the instrumental "YYZ", which is a highlight of this show for me. There's so many great moments on here, especially the Lerxst Rant (which happened throughout the VT Tour, and even continued on the following R30 Tour), the beautiful 1-2 Punch of "The Pass" and "Bravado", and the acoustic rendition of "Resist". This is such a good show, and while the overactive audience might put off some fans, I think it adds to such a historically significant show and live release. As if the album
Vapor Trails wasn't enough of a loud come back, this live album is a testament to the ever-growing and expanding live-force that is Rush!
...whew. That was a lot to type. Time for bed! Four AM is pretty late...lol
-Marc.
Topic: Rush Live Tourography - The Permanent Waves Tour (REVISITED - World Tour 1980) (Read 73608 times)