Astonishingly, Rush in Rio is the fifth live album of the Canadian power trio's career, and it's probably their best yet. This three-CD set is the audio companion to the double-DVD release of the same title: both formats commemorate the climactic concert of the Vapor Trails tour, in which Messrs Lee, Lifeson and Peart played to an ecstatic audience of 60,000 at the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on November 23, 2002. Kicking off with the crowd-pleasing "Tom Sawyer", Rush reach back into every phase of their catalogue to provide a bravura demonstration of musicianship infused with apparently limitless energy. In a pretty much flawless set of almost three hours' duration there's something to please everyone: classic 70s prog numbers ("The Trees", "2112"), the lighter 80s ("New World Man", "Bravado"), and newer 90s ("Driven", "Leave That Thing Alone"), not forgetting material from Vapor Trails itself. The surprise highlight of the evening follows Neil Peart's storming drum solo "O Baterista": an unplugged rendition of "Resist", with Lee and Lifeson on acoustic guitars. The tracklisting is the same as the DVD, with the addition of two "authorised bootleg" bonus tracks taken from earlier gigs during the same tour: "Between Sun and Moon" (originally from the Counterparts album) and "Vital Signs" (from Moving Pictures). Anyone who hasn't seen the film footage will wonder a little at the dragon noises during "One Little Victory"; nor will they get to see Neil Peart's revolving drum kit or Geddy Lee's washing machines; but with performance and sound mix of this quality, it's likely that Rush fans will not hesitate to acquire both formats. --Mark Walker (Review copyright Amazon.co.uk)
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