Nearly two years after this thread had moved on, I've decided to resurrect it given the not-so-recent news that the upcoming 40th Anniversary edition of
A Farewell To Kings will feature the ENTIRE Hammersmith Odeon show from 1978. The show, originally released as a single-disc bonus on the band's fourth live album
Different Stages, it omitted four tracks - "Lakeside Park", "Closer To The Heart", "2112" and Neil's drum solo. The biggest of these, of course, is the inclusion of "2112", which features "III. Discovery" in its entirety, which was not played in full on the version found on
All The World's A Stage. This was the longest version of the song the band had played from the 2112 tour all the way til the Test For Echo Tour in 1996, so having a soundboard recording, officially released mind you, of this version of "2112" is surely a gem to my ears and eyes.
Below is my original post, documenting the Drive 'Til You Die tour, including my original cut of my Rush Live Tours compilation, which will soon be rendered obsolete now that the whole Hammersmith Odeon show will come out. I am super excited to have the WHOLE show, FINALLY, and it makes me wonder if the band have had access to more full soundboards.
The Hemispheres Tour has a couple of great complete soundboards, but from there on, there are some gaps here and there...
-Permanent Waves (though there are many great partials)
-Moving Pictures (the band SURELY have a complete show of this tour somewhere)
-Signals (as far as I know, there are no great soundboards, if any)
-Grace Under Pressure (several soundboards, and one official but partial show, but nothing complete)
-Power Windows (the Philly show is great, but is missing the last 24 minutes of the show, and a cut in "Red Sector A")
-Hold Your Fire (a near complete Birmingham show is the best we've got, missing "Limelight", and a few bits at the end of the show)
After the HYF tour, there have been pretty complete soundboards of great quality, and after TFE, full complete shows (with a few exceptions of some songs, like no soundboard release of "Time And Motion" from the TFE Tour, or "Ceiling Unlimited" from the VT Tour.
I wonder if, in the coming years, we will get 40th Anniversary editions of the 1980's albums and if so, we will be treated to complete shows from those tours?! The PEW and SIG tours are probably ones I'd want the most, as they're probably the most incomplete when it comes to having good boots of them, despite how great the St. Louis 80 show is, it's still incomplete (even with the inclusion of ESL tracks from that tour).
Touring on their first studio album in what would retroactively be named their 2nd Phase, Rush embarked on (what I'm pretty sure was) their longest tour yet, or at least, the one with the most dates, covering North America from August 17, 1977 to May 28, 1978
Opened For: Blue Oyster Cult
Opening Bands: UFO, Max Webster, AC/DC, Cheap Trick, Pat Travers, The Babys, Hush, Grinderswitch, Crawler, Uriah Heep
According to the Power Windows website, they still did opening sets, but only for Blue Oyster Cult. Otherwise, they were headlining, and with 5 albums worth of material, they had a LOT of music to choose from to cover.
This is the last tour Rush performed any shows as a supporting band. Although shows early in the tour featured a setlist with "Cygnus X-1" preceding "Something For Nothing", eventually those songs traded places and the setlist was standardized for the rest of the tour with the exception being that "Anthem" was dropped occasionally for unknown reasons. This is the last tour to include the song "Fly By Night".
Bastille Day
Lakeside Park
By-Tor and the Snow Dog (abbreviated)->
Xanadu
A Farewell to Kings
Something For Nothing
Cygnus X-1
Anthem (dropped from 12/10/77, 2/17 & 2/23/78 shows)
Closer To The Heart
2112 (minus Oracle)
Working Man
Fly by Night
In The Mood
Drum Solo
Encore: Cinderella Man
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
This tour's compilation mostly comes from the official live release of a AFTK show in the Different Stages live set. However, three songs (and Neil's solo) were missing/taken out of the Hammersmith Odeon show - "Lakeside Park", "Closer To The Heart", "2112", the last two likely due to their inclusion in the first disc of Different Stages from the Test For Echo Tour.
With that in mind, I chose one of the better sounding Audience recordings of that tour to fill in the gaps.
Rush - A Farewell To Kings Tour - 94:50
(Live In London, UK on 2/19/78)
(Different Stages - Official Release)
Disc 1 - 47:22
1. Bastille Day 5:05
2. Lakeside Park* 4:26
3. By-Tor & The Snow Dog 5:11
4. Xanadu 12:21
5. A Farewell To Kings 5:54
6. Something For Nothing 4:00
7. Cygnus X-1 10:25
Disc 2 - 47:28
1. Anthem 4:54
2. Closer To The Heart* 3:10
3. 2112* 19:08
4. Working Man 4:00
5. Fly By Night 2:04
6. In The Mood 2:36
7. Drum Solo* 5:25
8. Cinderella Man 5:09
*Missing songs fillled in by:
(Ron's Vault Release #5 - AUD)
(Live In Fresno, CA on 9/28/77)
32:09 - Non-SB Sourced
The Hammersmith show is pretty good, and being an official release, it's not hard to have any better, despite the 3 missing pieces, although any die-hard Rush fan wouldn't mind not having CTTH on a release (though this would be the first tour with it), or "Lakeside Park" (with the ATWAS version sufficing). The true missing gem would be a slightly longer version of "2112" than presented on ATWAS, but that's not a BIG loss.
As for the rest of the show itself, it's pretty amazing! You get FOUR new songs from the then-new album, as well as the awe-inspiring medley of "By-Tor & The Snow Dog"/"Xanadu".
To end the show, we get yet another "Working Man" Medley, and the unusual decision to put a NEW song in the encore (something the band has rarely done, but would later do on tours in the 80's). Over-all, this set list is as expected for this tour, although one might miss complete versions of songs from their first two albums, they now had 3 songs over 10-minutes long being played, and with that number of epics, they had to shortened songs. Which I am perfectly okay with considering how great "Cygnus X-1, Book I: The Voyage" is.
-Marc.