Customer Reviews

Working Men ( Live)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but this has to be the first time there has been a "greatest hits" packaging of previously released live recordings. For me there is no such thing as too much Rush live...but why bother with this? Most fans like myself likely already own the three live albums which this material is taken from. Speaking of which, why isn't the live album "Different Stages" represented? That has the entire version of "2112" not to mention (imho) the best available live recording of "Natural Science". Another complaint...a live compilation...a Rush live compilation..with no drum solo? Unthinkable! Okay now I realize that the version of "One Little Victory" hasn't been released however, the song is available on two other live sets and this isn't one of those songs that changes drastically from tour to tour. One final thought..this really is just another "Best of" Rush release with an audience. Most of the songs are the standards.."Tom Sawyer", "Limelight", "Spirit of Radio", "Closer To The Heart"..etc. Rush is a great live band but I really can't see any reason for purchasing this one. I do like the artwork though.

I place myself in the top 1% of RUSH fans in the world. Love 'em. But come on folks! A best of live???? The only fans I can see loving this are the ones that can't be objective when it comes to Rush. As another person mentioned, were they to release a best of live from their entire career with prev. unreleased stuff (and you know there is a warehouse of material they are saving until the end), I would be on that like right on Christ. I have about 3 hours of unreleased early studio songs, live sound board recordings and bootlegs from over the years and most of it is in stereo with some kind of mix. Got it ALL from the Power Windows website before Atlantic made them shut down the downloadable section. THAT would be worth going to Best Buy or ordering it on line.

I will support this band come hell or High Water (pun intended) but this is as pointless as middle east politics.

Another useless live Rush package. Saying you "need to own" the best live Rush songs from the last 3 or 4 tours is like saying you like being awakened by a screaming toddler at 5 am on a work day. What cracks me up about this is the fact that not only are these songs available on other live discs...but these versions are just weak!

1. Limelight - LOL. Really. Quite possibly the weakest and slowest version of this song ever recorded.
2. Spirit of Radio - If you own the Grace Under Pressure Live cd or Exit Stage Left... version...then you own the best professional releases of this track.
3. 2112- Really? We needed this version? If you are going to go all out then at least put out the Different Stages version, I mean the whole intention of this was to capture the live Atlantic Records years right?
4. Freewill - Painful. If you own Exit Stage Left...you own the only version you will ever need.
5. Dreamline - Again, a song that is readily available on Different Stages, Rush In Rio, R30 discs, and Snakes & Arrows Live.
6. Far Cry - This makes a bit of sense...still trying to milk what ever you can off of the last live and studio release.
7. Subdivisions - Have you noticed the trend here? How many Mercury/Polygram songs do we have here versus Atlantic years? Looks like even Atlantic knows Rush's best years were decades ago now.
8. One Little Victory - Oh ok. So we get the "unreleased come buy this because you don't own this version yet" track. It will be featured on the upcoming R30 re-release next month..ON BLU-RAY ONLY. Thanks for thinking about those who only own DVD players still (89.2% of the nation).
9. Closer To The Heart - Let's start the count - Exit Stage Left, Grace Under Pressure Tour 84 Live, A Show of Hands, Different Stages, Rush In Rio, and now...Working Men.
10. Tom Sawyer - We can always use the 102,000th release of this song in some way, shape, or form.
11. Working Man - A song from 1974 is on an Atlantic Records best of collection.
12. YYZ - See above for Closer To The Heart.

If somebody actually consulted..gee..I dunno...FANS...Atlantic could have actually made money here. They could have released Atlantic era only tunes that were recorded from live tours during their tenure with the label and have even more that are unreleased and fans would have snatched this up!

This could have worked for a best of live package:

1. Show Don't Tell
2. Stick It Out
3. Bravado
4. Ceiling Unlimited
5. Superconductor
6. Test For Echo
7. Time and Motion
8. Scars
9. Where's My Thing?
10. Far Cry
11. The Pass
12. War Paint
13. Limbo
14. Double Agent

Now here is something that would actually shed light on their Atlantic material and gasp! More than half of these songs were big radio hits and radio singles. They must be really hard up to sell Mercury's material over there at Atlantic.

I've seen these guys MANY times live, and they only seem to keep getting better. They were a HUGE influence on my own musical style and recordings.

But, really? Has it come to this? I mean releasing material that has been released, and re-released and re-released.......This is almost getting as bad as 50 different release versions of Elvis recordings. How many different times, which appear and sound like the same recordings of Closer To The Heart, Tom Sawyer, etc, blah, blah.....do we have to hear?

I would LOVE to hear a release of all the "other" tunes on the albums, such as High Water, Different Strings, A Passage to Bangkok, Circumstances, and, especially, Chemistry, just to name a few.

I'm sorry, I was just NOT impressed with this and I should have known.

Another live album from Rush. There was a time when live albums could serve two purposes: satisfying a contractual obligation and the creation of a worthy document of a performance. To be honest, apart from a couple of DVD releases, Rush's live releases leave a lot to be desired. And this one is...well...why on earth would anyone want this release? Unless you have to have everything Rush does, this one is not going to make any new fans or provide a worthy document. Now, do you know what would be a worthy document? How about that unreleased live recording that Rush did during a three-night stand at the Palladium in NYC, from the Permanent Waves Tour? It was never released because Rush decided to make Moving Pictures. How about rolling that one out. Or, something more interesting from the Rush archives than another live set from the last tour. Geez! Talking about wasting people's time.

Rush is well-known as one of the best live acts from the last four decades and, even more impressive, one of the very few that has lost little with age. In the quarter century between their early 1970s debut and their late 1990s hiatus, Rush released four live albums and about as many videos. All were high quality and served an important purpose, as they roughly coincided with the end of an era in the band's ongoing experimentation and growth and the beginning of another. They were a useful summary and an intriguing harbinger, especially since, unlike many acts, Rush always plays many of its latest songs, letting one truly get a feel for recent work.

This has unfortunately changed greatly since their early 2000s reformation. The first live release after this (Rush in Rio, album and video) followed a single studio album - Vapor Trails. This was unexpected but really a pleasant surprise, since many fans feared Rush would never return, and it was good to have a document of their return even if relatively little new material was featured and there was significant repetition of past live albums. However, this was quickly followed by R30, a video with a CD of the songs. Most fans were glad to have a souvenir of Rush's thirtieth anniversary tour, and the band made sure to include songs not normally played. Even so, the only studio album between it and Vapor Trails was the covers EP Feedback. It seemed fans were being milked a bit hard, but the few who seemed to notice let it go. Given all this, few were surprised when the next studio album (Snakes and Arrows) was quickly followed by Snakes and Arrows Live on album and video. This truly seemed almost too much. Many new songs were featured as well as some unearthed oldies, but there was still much repetition, and the live onslaught seemed never-ending. Even some long-time fans were beginning to question the wisdom of such releases, but the vast majority seemed generally glad if slightly piqued.

Another such release in quick succession would be inarguably going too far, and Working Men does just that. Not even another "new" live set, it simply samples from the prior three. It is ostensibly a "Best Of" from them, picking Rush's best-known works and a few recent songs - essentially a "Greatest Hits Live." There are several problems with this aside from the obvious. First, several of these songs were on all three recent live albums, and many were even on previous ones. This is particularly exasperating since they change very little from show to show. Putting them out yet again is simply unnecessary - nay, overkill. Also, anyone who has been to a Rush show - or even heard or seen one of the recent live releases - knows that it is something very different from a greatest hits set with a few new songs.

Some may say this is nitpicking, because Working Men clearly is aimed at casuals, not hard-cores. The only thing thrown in to entice the latter is a "new" version of "One Little Victory," which has already been released in several nearly identical live versions. This is a cheap ploy to take advantage of long-time fans and should be resented. We could have at least gotten some interesting new liner notes or something similarly trifling, but even this was denied. Fans will likely be more interested in the notable new cover by long-time Rush cover artist Hugh Syme than anything, but this hardly makes the set worthwhile. As for casuals, this is a poor set even for them. Not only is it unrepresentative of Rush shows and live releases, but the compilers somehow failed to even choose the best versions. There are probably a few people out there who want a "Rush Greatest Hits Live" set, but this does not serve them well. Many will of course say Rush's best days are behind them, however great they remain, and that limiting selection to recent live works inevitably excludes the best versions. Perhaps; but bad choices were made even on this small scale. A better set could easily have been made, and nearly any fan would have made superior choices. I suppose it is possible that some casuals looking to get into live Rush will appreciate Working Men and that it may possibly lead them to check out full-length live releases. However, any of those are so far above this that one would be much better off paying the slight difference.

However, it is hard-cores who should truly be aghast. They should feel nothing less than insulted. It is widely-known that Rush fans are some of the most loyal, more than willing to buy anything and everything put out under the band's name. Record executives know this well and have been milking it extraordinarily hard in recent years, but this is just too much. Working Men is nothing less than a compilation of compilations; worse yet, it is not even a good one. I sincerely hope that fans will not fall for this shoddy release and that the boycott teaches cynical executives to avoid such shoddy releases. We can only hope Rush had nothing to do with this; fans have supported them long and loyally and deserve better. This is one of the most ridiculous anthologies ever and hopefully will not be repeated.

What more I say? After being a huge Rush fan for most of my life, they've finally released an album I have no interest in.

Was it too much effort to create a compilation of unreleased live material? What about all of the fun variations out there, like Working Man with the reggae-style intro? They've ignored a wealth of good material out there, and it seems like they just phoned this offering in.

I still love Rush! But especially after all the recent live albums and DVDs, this "best of" live album really comes across as something of an insult to the fans. And I think it is entirely fitting that a fan of The Thinking Man's Band may mull this one over and say "No, thanks."

I hope the next offering again lives up to their lofty reputations.

Why? A simple question... If a company is going to release a collection of live material from a band who already has numerous collections of live material, why not make it worth the effort? Why not make it an interesting collection? The band still sounds good, but there are already PLENTY of versions of each of these live tracks available. If it was a complete show from some day gone by... some collectors would want that. If it was a collection of live tracks that haven't been presented before, Fans would have a reason to purchase that as well. This? This is just a sad marketing ploy.

Like all the other reviewers, my favorite band has been Rush since the '70s. It's hard to believe, but they do seem to get better with age. While I prefer the older studio stuff (A Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres are my favorite albums), Rush seems to perform better than ever. For the most part their 21st Century live playing has been caught well on video (with the exception of Rush in Rio that was overwhelmed by the crowd, both visually and in terms of audio).

That being said. If someone does not own any recent live Rush albums, this may be a nice primer for them. However, there is one unforgivable oversight on this album and that is the lack of a drum solo. My anticipation of every live event I've gone to or a release of a live album/DVD has always been the drum solo. Not to detract from Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee, but without Neil Peart, they never would have obtained the success that they have enjoyed. No other band has a drummer that transcends the role of rythm section to being one of the 3 critical/integral instruments in the performance.

Lastly, I am a diehard Rush fan, not a fanatic. Have always loved their music, love most of the lyrics, but they're just three men. I don't need to spend $15.00 for one unreleased song. It is somewhat disappointing that they are cashing in on the remaking remakes. Two of my other favorite bands, the Who and Yes have a ton of best of albums, but at least they don't exist anymore.

Now Canada and America (for the most part) are free countries and I applaud capitalism, but if Rush wants to remain commercially viable and palatable to their fan base, they need to produce new material. Other than they're cover EP, they've only produced two albums in nearly a decade. Of course, I'm grateful that they were able to "come back together" and produce anymore albums at all. I just prefer they're old pattern of 4 studio albums and 1 live album.

I gave this 3 stars because, as I said, it would be nice for the casual Rush fan who is without the prior 3 live albums, but a total waste of money for the diehard Rush fan. I like the free market. Rush can sell whatever they want and we can choose to buy whatever we want. Having full knowledge of what was on the album/dvd, I didn't buy them.

This compilation is loaded with some of what I consider good Rush classics. But it lacks a real appeal to the die-hard fan, since it is the same songs yet released again. Other than the allure of One Little Victory labeled as "previously unreleased" (a bit misleading since it is a live released song on CD, just not this particular take of it), the only hope for this compilation is the artwork, which carries that specific Rush-art look. If only they had done something to this release, like a genuinely-previously unreleased live track (say, Freeze or Sweet Miracle), then we'd have a real goodie on our hands.