Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland

Bonus Features

  • Outtakes from "History of Rush, Episode 2 & 17"
  • "Tom Sawyer" featuring the cast of "History of Rush, Episode 17"
  • "Need Some Love" Live from Laura Secord Secondary School
  • "Anthem" Live from Passaic New Jersey

    CD One
  • The Spirit Of Radio
  • Time Stand Still
  • Presto
  • Stick It Out
  • Workin' Them Angels
  • Leave That Thing Alone!
  • Faithless
  • BU2B
  • Freewill
  • Marathon
  • Subdivisions
  • Tom Sawyer
  • Red Barchetta
  • YYZ
  • Limelight
    CD Two
  • The Camera Eye
  • Witch Hunt
  • Vital Signs
  • Caravan
  • Moto Perpetuo (featuring Love For Sale)
  • O'Malley's Break
  • Closer To The Heart
  • 2112 (Overture/Temples of Syrinx)
  • Far Cry
  • La Villa Strangiato
  • Working Man

Moving Pictures: Live 2011, from Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland, released on vinyl and digitally, (click here for the full linernotes)

  • Tom Sawyer (4:56)
  • Red Barchetta (6:55)
  • YYZ (4:41)
  • Limelight (4:32)
  • The Camera Eye (10:03)
  • Witch Hunt (4:42)
  • Vital Signs (5:08)

Time Machine 2011 Linernotes, Vinyl Edition

By Ray Wawrzyniak

News of a live Rush album has always been greeted with great enthusiasm from the band's loyal fans. Even after a wealth of official live releases spread throughout a five-decade career, Time Machine, captured April 15, 2011, at the Quicken Loans Arena, generated great anticipation as soon as news started to travel. This one was special. This one was recorded in Cleveland!

Cleveland, Ohio. A midsize American city straddling the Northeast and Midwest. Home of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, beloved sports teams, and a radio station program director who played a key role in Rush history. Since early 1974, when early adopter Donna Halper of WMMS dropped the needle on the first album's "Working Man," she and Cleveland have been forever linked in this band's story.

But this is more than the tale of a city.

When Geddy, Alex, and Neil decided to tour in 2010 and 2011, they were breaking their own firmly established rule. From All The World's A Stage (1976) through Exit...Stage Left (1981), A Show Of Hands (1988), and Snakes & Arrows Live (2008), Rush had always recorded tours that supported a studio album. Now, for the first time in their career, they would do it the other way around.

In early 2010 the band convened to begin work on what was to eventually become Clockwork Angels. At the same time, though, their manager, Ray Danniels, had suggested they do some touring. So, following Ray's wishes, they hit the road while simultaneously making progress on some new material.

Rush historians will attest that in years past, the band debuted songs live before committing them to record. "Xanadu," "Tom Sawyer," and "Subdivisions" were given such litmus tests. But Time Machine marks another departure. By the time the tour was ready to launch - it would span 82 dates throughout the Americas and Europe - Geddy, Alex, and Neil had already recorded two brand-new songs. And instead of following the typical sequence, they released "Caravan" and "BU2B" just prior to opening night, June 29, 2010, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Included among many Rush staples, these songs are in fact two of the most notable. For the first time ever, material appeared first on a live album, then on a studio album.

Then there's the Moving Pictures segment. Rush had previously come close to performing an entire new studio album. Often the setlist included every song but one or two from the latest release. But on this tour the band were all in for their 1981 classic, playing it in its unbridled, celebrated entirety. The complete seven-song sequence on Time Machine was in fact released on LP as the stand-alone Moving Pictures: Live 2011. However, to experience it in the context of the entire show supports the band's decision to include it in the first place. You can feel the elation of the Cleveland fans that night as "Vital Signs' closes out the suite.

Among the "hits" appearing in setlists over the years, a few live rarities show up. "Presto," the title track from the band's 1989 studio album, had never been performed on stage, so here it makes its first and only appearance on a live Rush release. "Faithless," from 2007's Snakes And Arrows, wasn't played on that tour and was thus considered by many fans to be one of the great Rush songs never to find its way into a set. Alex's incredible solo is an unequivocal highlight of this release.

Then there's "The Camera Eye," appearing here in the Moving Pictures suite. Not performed live since the end of the band's 1983 Signals tour, this cinematic favorite had been in high demand for years. Hearing it in its complex entirety is certainly another standout moment.

Time Machine features a number of Rush's signature songs as well: "The Spirit Of Radio," "Subdivisions," "2112," "La Villa Strangiato" - the list goes on. Notable is "Freewill," the 1980 Permanent Waves cut received night after night with boundless applause from crowds all over the world. Just after the solo section, before Geddy sings, "Each of us, a cell of awareness," you'll hear Cleveland responding to the incredible display of musicianship with louder applause than follows any other song that night. Where "Tom Sawyer" is greeted with ritual enthusiasm to say the least, "Freewill" brings sheer pandemonium, as the album you're holding will attest.

These magnificent two-plus hours of listening offer an array of unique features worth celebrating. The historical significance of Rush live in Cleveland. The unplayed songs, the unrecorded songs. Moving Pictures top to bottom. You don't have to choose among them, but if you want to make an exercise of it, you'll certainly relish the time spent trying.

I'll be right there with you.


Video Credits

Directed by SCOT MCFADYEN & SAM DUNN

Executive Producers PEGI CECCONI, RAY DANNIELS

Producers ALLAN WEINRIB, DAVE PATTENDEN

Director of Photography MARTIN HAWKES

Edited by AARON DARK - SCHOOL, TORONTO, ASSISTED BY LAUREN HORN

Lighting Director/ Designer HOWARD UNGERLEIDER

Audio Producer MIXED BY RICHARD CHYCKI AT MIXLAND, MIDHURSIZ CANADA. ADDITIONAL DIGITAL EDITING: KEVIN O'LEARY, ALASTAIR SIMS

Audio Mastering ANDY VANDETTE, MASTERDISK, NEW YORK

Location Audio Engineer REMOTE AUDIO RECORDING PROVIDED BY MUSIC MIX MOBILE. RECORDING ENGINEERS: RICHARD CHYCKI, JOEL SINGER. PREAMP OPERATOR: CHARLIE CAMPBELL. AUDIO ASSISTANTS: JIMMY GOLDSMITH, HEATHER BESON

Production Coordinator LANA MAURO

Camera Operators KRISTOFFER ARCHEITI, ADAM BIALO, JON ESPEVOLD, PETTER HALVORSEN, MARTIN HAWKES, JENS RAMBORG, BO RANDULFF, FRANK SHORTT, INGE SIGVALDSEN, JONATHAN STAAV, THOMAS TRANTER, LINDSEY HANEY, BOB LARKIN, JAMES WEYMAN

Camera Assistants FRANK SHORTT, JONATHAN STAAV

Production Sound KEVIN MACKENZIE

Cleveland Production Coordinator JOSHUA PORTER

Cleveland Camera Operators JOSHUA PORTER, ROD SILVIERA, DE'NEIL PHIPPS, JAY SIN

Steadicam Operator NICK SUTTON

Camera Grip LEWIS GORDON

Production Assistant CHARLEY SIMMS

Offline Editing Facilities SCHOOL TORONTO, CANADA

Audio Post Production MIXLAND - MIDHURST, CANADA

Title Design DEREK TOKAR

DVD Authoring JUICE PRODUCTIONS, TORONTO

Film Equipment Transportation ROCKIT CARGO

RUSH TOUR PERSONNEL
Tour Manager & Accountant LIAM BIRT
Road Manager DONOVAN LUNDSTROM
Production Manager CRAIG BLAZIER
Production Assistant KARIN BLAZIER
Concert Sound Engineer BRAD MADIX
Lighting Director HOWARD UNGERLEIDER
Keyboard Technician TONY GERANIOS
Drum Technician LORNE WHEATON
Bass Technician JOHN McINTOSH
Guitar Technician SCOTT APPLETON
Stage Manager / Carpenter GEORGE STEINERT
Nutritionist BRUCE FRENCH
Venue Security ANTHONY FEDEWA
Security MICHAEL MOSBACH
Artist Liaison KEVIN RIPA
Audio System Engineer DOUG McKINLEY
Monitor Mixer BRENT CARPENTER
Monitor Systems Engineer ANSON MOORE
Lighting Crew Chief KENNY ACKERMAN
Master Electrician JOEY BRADLEY
Lighting Technician MATT LEVINE
Lighting Technician BILL WORSHAM
Lighting Technician MATTHEW TUCKER
Head Rigger ALBERT POZZEITI
Rigger JAMES HARRELSON
Motion Control SEBASTIEN RICHARD
Video Director DAVID DAVIDIAN
Video Engineer BOB LARKIN
LED Engineer GREGORY 'GRIT' FREDERICK
Camera Operator ADRIAN BRISTER
Camera Operator LINDSEY HANEY
Pyro Technician JOHN ARROWSMITH
Bus Drivers DAVE BURNEITE, LASHAWN LUNDSTROM, MARTY BEELER, JOE C. BUSH, JOHN MORGAN
Truck Drivers ARTHUR "MAC" McLEAR, JON CORDES, TOM HARTMANN, HENRY McBRIDE, JULIE MENNITTI, STEVE MENNITTI, RUSS SCHLAGBAUM
Merchandise Driver DON JOHNSON
Merchandiser PATRICK McLOUGHLIN
Live Nation Global Tour Rep KEITH KELLER

REAR SCREEN PRODUCTION
Executive Producer ALLAN WEINRIB
Producers SUZY BRADSHAW & KIM JACKSON - ELECTRIC COMPANY ART & DESIGN INC.

The "Real" History of Rush Act 1, 2 & 3
Directed by Dale Heslip/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.
Produced by Mark Hesselink
Edited by Mark Morton/School
Opening Animation by Ghostmilk
Alternate versions of "Spirit of Radio" arranged and recorded by Lou Pomanti

Presto - Edited by Jackie Roda/School
Stick It Out - Directed by Samuel Bayer, Re-edited by School
Workin' Them Angels - Directed by Christopher Mills
Faithless - Design and animation by Crankbunny, Electric Company Art & Design Inc.
Leave That Thing Alone - Design and animation by Derivative
BU2B - Concept by Date Heslip, Directed by Play Airways, Electric Company Art & Design Inc.
Subdivisions - Original Subdivisions footage Directed by Grant Lough
Moving Pictures - Design and Animation by Crankbunny
Red Barchetta - Directed by Greg Russell / Tandem Digital
Camera Eye - Directed and Photographed by Andrew MacNaughtan, Edited by Jackie Roda
Witchhunt - Design and Animation by Derivative
Caravan - Concept by Dale Heslip. Directed by Ghostmilk Electric Company Art & Design Inc,
Moto Perpetuo - Animation by Greg Russell and Brian Walters / Tandem Digital
2112 - Animation by Greg Russell / Tandem Digital
Far Cry - Design and Animation by Steven Lewis/Spin Productions

Time Tunnel Bumpers - Edited by Jackie Roda/School
Additional Steampunk Video frames - Designed by Bienvenido Cruz
Alex's Backline video & Geddy's backline video for Camera Eye Designed and Directed by Jamie Kaiser/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.
Geddys Backline video Design and Animation by Randy Knott/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.
Geddy and Alex's Back Line Amps - Designed by Dale Heslip
Construction by Mood Inc./Toronto
Lighting Supplied by Premiere Global Productions
Sound Supplied by - Clair Global
Pyrotechnics Supplied by - Pyrotek
Video Screens & Equipment Provided by Dannyo Video
Buses Supplied by Hemphill Brothers Coach Co. / Trucking Supplied by Ego Trips
Aircraft Charter Supplied by Apollo Jets
Custom Brokers - BARRY ZEAGMAN Bzee Brokerage Ltd.
Catering - Concert Kitchen, Cleveland
Venue - Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, OH

THANKS TO OUR TECHNICAL SUPPLIERS
For Alex: Hughes & Kettner Amplification, Paul Reed Smith, Gibson Guitars, Dean Markley Strings, Audio Technica
For Geddy: Saved by Technology, Fender, Tech 21/Sansamp, Rotosound Strings, Taylor Acoustic Guitars, Dunlop Manufacturing. Orange Amplifiers, James Hogg: Custom pickguards, Tom Brantley: Custom pickups and rewinds, Levy's Leathers
For Neil: DW Drums, Sabian cymbals. Promark Drumsticks, Remo Drumheads, Roland V-Drum

Art Direction, Illustration and Design Hugh Syme
Photographer Andrew MacNaughtan
Promoter - LiveNation - Gerry Barad/Arthur Fogel
Agent - Adam Kornfield for Artist Group International
RUSH/Anthem Entertainment Consigliere - Robert A Farmer
Management - Ray Danniels for SRO Management Inc.
At SRO/Anthem - Ray Danniels, Pegi Cecconi, Sheila Posner, Anna LeCoche, Cynthia Barry, Andy Curran, Meghan Symsyk, Tyler Tasson, Bob Farmer and Randy Rolfe

All songs Lee/Lifeson/Peart except "Leave That Thing Alone" (Lee/Lifeson); "Tom Sawyer" (Lee/Lifeson/Peart/Dubois); "YYZ" (Lee/Lifeson); "Moto Perpetuo" (Peart): "O'Malley's Break" (Lifeson); "Closer To The Heart" (Lee/Lifeson/Peart/Talbot); "Working Man" (Lee/Lifeson)

"During the guitar solo of the song Presto there was an unscheduled 'brain fart' on my part, and so for the sake of continuity (and to save my own face) rather than leave the song out of the show we chose to repair it with a few seconds of my live performance of that song from another show" - Geddy

All songs published by Core Music Publishing (SOCAN world excluding USA/SESAC USA except "Love For Sale" (Cole Porter) published by Warner Bros. Music
©2011 Core Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved


CD Credits

Recorded at Quicken Loans Arena, April 15, 2011 in Cleveland, OH

Mixed by Richard Chycki
Audio Post Production: Mixland Music & DVD, Midhurst
Mix assistants: Alastair Sims, Kevin, O'Leary
Recording Engineers: Richard Chycki, Joel Singer
Audio assistants: Jimmy Goldsmith, Heather Beslan
Remote Audio Recording provided by Music Mix Mobile
Mastered by Andy VanDette, Masterdisk, New York, NY
Executive Producer: Pegi Cecconi

Art Direction, Illustration and Design by Hugh Syme
Photography by Andrew MacNaughtan

THE TIME MACHINE TOUR CREW

Tour Manager & Accountant LIAM BIRT
Lighting Director HOWARD UNGERLEIDER
Concert Sound Engineer BRAD MADIX
Production Manager CRAIG BLAZIER
Road Manager DONOVAN LUNDSTROM
Production Assistant KARIN BLAZIER
Keyboard Technician TONY GERANIOS
Drum Technician LORNE WHEATON
Bass Technician JOHN McINTOSH
Guitar Technician SCOTT APPLETON
Stage Manager | Carpenter GEORGE STEINERT
Nutritionist BRUCE FRENCH
Venue Security ANTHONY FEDEWA
Security MICHAEL MOSBACH
Artist Liaison KEVIN RIPA
Audio System Engineer DOUG McKINLEY
Monitor Mixer BRENT CARPENTER
Monitor Systems Engineer ANSON MOORE
Lighting Crew Chief KENNY ACKERMAN
Master Electrician JOEY BRADLEY
Lighting Technician MATT LEVINE
Lighting Technician BILL WORSHAM
Lighting Technician MATTHEW TUCKER
Head Rigger ALBERT POZZEITI
Rigger JAMES HARRELSON
Motion Control SEBASTIEN RICHARD
Video Director DAVID DAVIDIAN
Video Engineer BOB LARKIN
LED Engineer GREGORY 'GRIT' FREDERICK
Camera Operator ADRIAN BRISTER
Camera Operator LINDSEY HANEY
Pyro Technician JOHN ARROWSMITH
Bus Drivers DAVE BURNEITE, LASHAWN LUNDSTROM, MARTY BEELER, JOE C. BUSH, JOHN MORGAN
Truck Drivers ARTHUR "MAC" McLEAR, JON CORDES, TOM HARTMANN,
HENRY McBRIDE, JULIE MENNITTI, STEVE MENNITTI, RUSS SCHLAGBAUM
Merchandise Driver DON JOHNSON
Merchandiser PATRICK McLOUGHLIN for SHOWTECH MERCHANDISING
Live Nation Global Tour Rep KEITH KELLER
Promoter - GERRY BARAD/ARTHUR FOGEL
Agent - ADAM KORNFIELD for ARTIST GROUP INTERNATIONAL
RUSH/Anthem Entertainment Consigliere - ROBERT A FARMER

Management - RAY DANNIELS for SRO MANAGEMENT INC.

At SRO/Anthem - RAY DANNIELS, PEGI CECCONI, SHEILA POSNER, ANNA LECOCHE, CYNTHIA BARRY, ANDY CURRAN, MEGHAN SYMSYK, TYLER TASSON, BOB FARMER AND RANDY ROLFE

THANKS TO OUR TECHNICAL SUPPLIERS

For Alex: Hughes & Kettner Amplification, Paul Reed Smith, Gibson Guitars, Dean Markley Strings, Audio Technica

For Geddy: Saved by Technology, Fender, Tech 21/Sansamp, Rotosound Strings, Taylor Acoustic Guitars, Dunlop Manufacturing. Orange Amplifiers, James Hogg: Custom pickguards, Tom Brantley: Custom pickups and rewinds, Levy's Leathers

For Neil: DW Drums, Sabian Cymbals, Promark Drumsticks, Remo Drumheads, Roland V-Drum

All songs Lee/Lifeson/Peart except: "Leave That Thing Alone"; "YYZ" and "Working Man" (Lee/Lifeson)
"Tom Sawyer" (Lee/Lifeson/Peart/Dubois)
"Moto Perpetuo" (Peart)
"O'Malley's Break" (Lifeson)
"Closer To The Heart" (Lee/Lifeson/Peart/Talbot)
"Love For Sale" (Porter)

"During the guitar solo of the song Presto there was an unscheduled 'brain fart' on my part, and so for the sake of continuity (and to save my own face) rather than leave the song out of the show we chose to repair it with a few seconds of my live performance of that song from another show" - Geddy

All songs published by Core Music Publishing (SOCAN/SESAC) except "Love For Sale" (Cole Porter) published by Warner Bros. Music ©1930
©2011 Core Music Publishing. All Rights Reserved

Notes

Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland vinyl edition Moving Pictures: Live 2011
  • Released November 8, 2011; 4LP 180 gram vinyl edition released June 7, 2019
  • Highest Billboard Chart Position: 1 (Video) - Video Certified Gold, Platinum & 2x Platinum by RIAA: May 14, 2014
  • The film had a limited theatrical showing in U.S. theaters October 26 and UK theaters on November 1st.
  • The first week of its release Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland (album) charted at #54 in the US, and #70 in the UK. Meanwhile the DVD opened at #1 in Canada & the US and #2 in the UK.
  • Moving Pictures: Live 2011, the Moving Pictures portion of the concert, was released on vinyl and digitally the same day as Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland.
  • Click here for the 'Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland' Transcript Archive.

In Their Own Words...

"As a tribute to the US city that first played their music, Rush confirms that the Cleveland performance of their Time Machine show on April 15th at the Quicken Loans Arena will be filmed for full-length release. Cleveland is remarkable for being one of the very first US cities where the band performed, in addition to being the first city to provide American airplay. This will be a must-see event for Rush fans in Cleveland – and for everyone able to make the road trip as it is will also mark the first live full-length filming on US soil." - Rush.com, December 5, 2010
"'We realized after all these years that we've shot films in all these different locations. But we've never really shot an entire film in America. We thought, 'Well, that's just wrong.' So where do we want to shoot? And it dawned on me that it was appropriate to shoot in Cleveland, where our entire American adventure began.' The band got its big break here in 1974, when Donna Halper, a disc jockey and music director at WMMS FM/100.7, added the Rush song 'Working Man' to the influential radio station's playlist. 'I don't think we would've had a record deal if it hadn't been for Donna Halper at WMMS playing 'Working Man' and some other songs from our first album,' said Lee." - Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 15, 2011
"Cleveland was hugely important for us, because up until we were embraced there, we were just basically a bar band in Toronto,' said Lifeson during a phone interview with Yahoo! from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. 'We were on the Southern Ontario high school dance circuit and doing clubs. 'To come to America was such a huge deal, and to come to Cleveland - with its rich connections and rock music heritage and be embraced by the city and crowd there - it really was a really great experience for us. It all started for us in Cleveland and the city has a giant place in our hearts.' So much so, in fact, that Lifeson and his bandmates are bringing their current 'Time Machine World Tour' to Cleveland's Quicken Loans Arena this Friday, April 15 and will be filming the entire performance for a full-length DVD concert release...'It couldn't be more appropriate to be doing the DVD in Cleveland. I can't tell you the number of gigs we played at the Agora when we were starting out,' Lifeson said. 'I definitely remember those gigs! The genuine interest in the band was amazing, the place was always packed and we were on that little stage playing our hearts out. When I close my eyes as a guy who calls himself 'forty-seventeen' (57 years old) now, I can still see myself up there playing and miss the skinny, sweaty long-haired guitar guy who was up on stage!' he laughed." - Yahoo.com, April 14, 2011
"During the guitar solo of the song Presto there was an unscheduled 'brain fart' on my part, and so for the sake of continuity (and to save my own face) rather than leave the song out of the show we chose to repair it with a few seconds of my live performance of that song from another show" - Geddy Lee, Time Machine linernotes
"We were worried. It was the day of the show, just a few hours before, when we got word that Geddy wasn't feeling well and his voice was suffering. A lot of those songs, as you know, the register is really high; it's his trademark voice, and I think it takes its toll. There'd been a weekend before that, back in Toronto, when he had to go and see these crazy witch doctors. There was a lot of voodoo involved! The show really was in jeopardy, but Geddy's been through it before, and he's a trouper." - Sam Dunn, Classic Rock Special Edition, June 11, 2012

"I know that the mechanism that brought us up doesn't exist anymore. For instance, a perfect example of how reversed it is, in those days we made no money touring for a long time, even into the successful years. You counted on record sales and songwriting to make your living. And touring was a way to publicize that. Suddenly, in the last 10, 15 years all that turned around and our income is entirely from touring, and recording is an indulgence. In a band like Rush, no one's going to pay us to make a record. It's going to be an indulgence. Even Snakes and Arrows basically paid for itself and that's it, and if we want to make a living beyond that we have to go on the road and tour." - Neil Peart, GuitarCenter.com, February 2, 2010
"Everybody was kind of itching to get on the road and try and get in 'peak playing form' before we recorded the bulk of the record [Clockwork Angels], just to see what that effect is. In a way, we have this tendency to take a long period of time off, and then we kind of get our chops together and then go record. We thought it's kind of ass-backwards really, because when you finish a long tour, you're in such amazing playing shape that really, that's the time you should go in and start laying down tracks. But of course, you're exhausted by then, so we're trying to figure out if there's another way of attacking it. We thought it would be fun to put together a tour that was sort of 'future/past,' because those are some of the themes that are floating around the lyrical content and visual content that we're using for these new songs. So we thought, "Let's go out and do this Time Machine tour, where we can go mine our past, and at the same time, point to the future, try some new songs, and get us in shape......I think it's going to be an interesting challenge to play some of those songs, especially 'The Camera Eye,' a song we haven't played in years and years. Obviously, we'll probably do a slightly newer take on it. You never know what effect bringing older songs back has on you. There are times in the past that we thought, "There is no way we can make this song work," and then you get into rehearsal, you start playing it, and you're really pleasantly surprised how much you're enjoying it. And sometimes it takes on a whole new life.I think we've stopped being kind of cynical about our past in a way, and sometimes having a second look at an older song gives it a whole new story." - Geddy Lee, RollingStone.com, April 21, 2010
"To benefit the relief efforts in Haiti, one dollar of each ticket sold will be donated through several charities including 'Doctors Without Borders'. Rush will also contribute a portion of their proceeds at the culmination of the tour." - Rush.com, November 28, 2010
"We're bringing a bunch of other old stuff back, 'Jacob's Ladder,' too. We're rearranging it slightly, as with 'The Camera Eye,' changing a couple of things, having another crack at it. It's going to be a lot of fun for us." - Alex Lifeson, NewYork.Timeout.com, April 21, 2010
"'[Moving Pictures] was the album that took us to the next level,' notes Lifeson, who credits drummer Neil Peart with the full-album idea..." - Billboard.com, June 22, 2010
"Peart proposed the idea of doing an entire album after he saw Steely Dan on a recent tour. 'He was really impressed with the fact that they were doing different albums night to night,' Lifeson says. 'That's perhaps a little ambitious for us.' The band had already decided to perform 'The Camera Eye,' the longest song on Moving Pictures, for its current tour, so it was an easy leap to choose the album. 'We thought it would be a nice way to incorporate doing that song, a little more of a special presentation,' Lifeson says. 'The other stuff from that album, we've been doing for a while on and off, but it was nice to condense it all into the album and present it that way.'" - Allentown Morning Call, August 25, 2010
"The big question for us was 'The Camera Eye'. I thought we had never played live. I wrote this [in the tourbook] and I was proven wrong: the fans have shown me that we had played it in 1980! [sic - 1981] Ok, we played it 30 years ago, but never again thereafter. We were concerned that it was too long and we would probably have done some things differently." - Neil Peart (translated from the French Quebec cyberpresse.ca), July 15, 2010
"'I don't think we would ever have played...'Camera Eye' if we hadn't decided to play the whole record,' admits Lee. 'We would never had rediscovered the enjoyment of playing a song like that, while we thought we'd never be able to pull off again!  I was really gritting my teeth before we set out to learn that song.  Alex and I were sitting in my studio at home and we were listening to it, saying "Oh my god, it goes on forever! What the hell were we thinking?" So we very judiciously eliminated a minute and a half of its 12 minutes.  But little did we know how difficult it would be to learn a 12-minute song that suddenly became a 10-and-a-half minute song, because the edits were so subtle that they were harder for us to learn.  It really would have been easier to just play the whole dame thing!  Ha ha!'" - Geddy Lee, Classic Rock Presents Prog #16, May 2011
"'The Camera Eye' was the last really epic song we wrote. It's 11 minutes long. At the time, we really didn't appreciate it. Back then we though it was too long and repetitive. We didn't understand the mood it generated...it was a song we never thought worked. But the way we revamped it made this come alive. One thing the tour did for us was to make us aware of how good 'The Camera Eye' always was. I'm so glad we've become friends with it again." - Geddy Lee, Classic Rock, December 2010
"We thought about resurrecting Camera Eye on the previous tour but in the end we just didn't feel it was exciting enough in that particular set. It took up a big chunk of time - two songs worth - that we have to be aware of when playing a three-hour set. But when we put it all together for this tour there was something about the song that gave it this new life that made it one of our favourites to play on a nightly basis." - Alex Lifeson, Musicradar.com, Janurary 10, 2011
"I wondered, 'what about Presto?' Our album from 1989 that for all of us should have been so much better than it was. That's the one that I know that if we could do one again, it would be that one, because we still love the songs from it, but you can never make magic happen. But I said 'we've got to do a song from that' so we brought back the song 'Presto' and we love playing it live. And it's so much better than the record." - Neil Peart with Jeff Woods, April 19, 2011
"We were trying to think of all of the different, perhaps unlikely possibilities we could resurrect. Another example of that was 'Presto'. We wanted to do a song from that album 'just because'. I wrote to the other guys about that 'so let's just represent that album with just one song', and that was the one we decided on. 'Jacob's Ladder' was a similar 'let's try it'. Then when I started listening to it and learning it, I wrote back to the other guys. Something we've learned from time to time is it works or it doesn't work. 'Presto' was a beautiful surprise to us, we wanted to try it, we love playing it still after many, many performances. It turned out to be a good bet, that song, but 'Jacob's Ladder' just didn't. Sometimes you can't go back". - Neil Peart, Taking Center Stage: A Lifetime of Live Performance
"My solo is built on three rhythmic foundations, which I think of as 'The Steampunk Waltz' (freeform melodies and rhythms in 3/4 time), 'The Steampunk Stomp' (polyrhythms in 4/4 with upbeats against downbeats), and 'The Steampunk Mambo' (a Latin ostinato, or repeating rhythm-regular readers will recall its root in the Italian word for 'obstinate,' or 'stubborn'). Through a couple of different variations, including the electronic drums at the back, I continue to explore and stretch my limits in all of those frameworks, and all of them converge toward the end-the big-band climax of 'Love For Sale.'" - Neil Peart, "Theme And Variations", August 2010
"The set design was quirky and faithful to the Steampunk theme - epitomized, perhaps, by a whimsically-elaborate sausage-making contraption on stage. Ungerleider used recent innovations in lighting technology to create what some have called his punchiest and most emotive looks to date...'Once the band revealed that they wanted to do something in a Steampunk genre, I had to come up with a design for the system based on that concept. The more I researched the genre, the more possibilities I found to explore,' Ungerleider says..." - Howard Ungerleider, PLSN.com, October 2010
"This summer of 2010, and the seasons leading up to it, have been a cruel time for many people, economically, and as we planned our tour, we couldn't fail to be aware that there had been other concert tours that had been suddenly 'rescheduled' (canceled, in fact, due to low ticket sales). So as always, we remain grateful and delighted that after so many years, people still come to see us in such numbers-and with such enthusiasm. While we are the ones supposed to be doing the entertaining, I have written before that we are always entertained by our audiences, too. And inspired by them-when other people care so much about what you do, you can hardly do less than care about it more." - Neil Peart, "Cruel Summer", September 2010
"It was kind of important that we continue the set just as it is - particularly in Europe and the U.K., 'cause they're kind of expecting what Time Machine was over here. So we've been tempted to change out a few songs, but we decided that we would keep everything intact. And we're really not hitting a lot of the markets that we've already played on the last tour. We're really picking up a lot of other places and certainly that whole month that we're spending in Europe is new." - Alex Lifeson, Gibson.com, February 18, 2011
"The tour has hit new parts of the world. There have always been requests for us to go to South America. We're a lot more popular than we think or we've always been more popular than we thought. When we went in 2002 it was exciting for us, we had no idea we would play to crowds that big in Brazil. But I feel the same way about the rest of the world really. I wouldn't mind taking our tour everywhere, it would be a lot of fun, provided we had audiences obviously."- Alex Lifeson, Sheffield Telegraph, May 12, 2011
"...we played that first-ever show in Ireland, in Dublin, and that was a thrill. (In the comic movie that opens our Time Machine shows, I have a minor role as an Irish cop named O'Malley, and I was delighted when the audience cheered when O'Malley said, 'Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-sounds like the damned howling in Hades,' and they cheered again when Alex's 'Slobovich' mentioned the name 'O'Malley.')" - Neil Peart, "News Weather and Sports", June 2011
"At the end of forty-four shows for me, my bandmates, and our incredible crew, and at the end of 23,132 motorcycle miles for me and my riding partners, Michael and Brutus, Alex and Geddy and I stood (or sat, in my case) on that stage and looked out at that cheering, heaving, chanting crowd, and saw, heard, and felt...the power of magical thinking." - Neil Peart, "The Power Of Magical Thinking", November 2010

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Promos

Time Machine: The Future As It Ought To Have Been

By Neil Peart

Time Machine Tourbook

Past, present, and future all come together on this stage-sometimes in the most unlikely ways.

The story began last December, when the three of us met in Los Angeles with our Snakes and Arrows coproducer, Nick ("Booujzhe") Raskulinecz, to talk about the coming year. We had deliberately not discussed any plans before that meeting, only agreeing that we wanted to do something together. We had several possible choices ahead, and we would outline them together and decide.

In late 2006 and early '07 we had recorded Snakes and Arrows, then toured in the summers of '07 and '08, and taken some time off in 2009. So far, so normal. Now the typical thing to do would be to start writing songs toward making an album, then launch a tour behind that in 2011 or so. However, these days an "album" is an abstraction dearer to artists than to audiences, and it didn't seem necessary to follow that timeworn pattern anymore. "Crisis is both danger and opportunity," goes the old Chinese saying, and we were kind of excited about doing things a different way.

We definitely wanted to work on something new, and talked about just writing and recording a couple of songs. We could follow the wishes of our manager, Ray, and do a little touring in 2010 as well. Geddy brought up a project that has long appealed to him-collecting all of our instrumentals into one album, and perhaps writing a new one to go with them.

"Maybe something a little more extended," he said, and my ears pricked up. Years back, we had clone our share of long works, lyrical concepts and instrumentals (always remembering the subtitle of "La Villa Strangiato" from 1978, "An Exercise in Self Indulgence"), but lately we had tended to make our songs, if not concise, at least more compressed. So that, for example, an instrumental like "The Main Monkey Business" on Snakes and Arrows was enormously complex, but worked through its movements in six minutes, instead of nine or ten.

At that suggestion, wheels started turning in my head. Now that we were talking about doing something a little more ambitious musically, I wondered if it wasn't time to think that way in terms of lyrics and concepts, too. The chorus line in "Caravan" seems apt: "I can't stop thinking big."

I told the guys about an idea for a fictional world that had interested me lately, thinking it would make a great setting, maybe for a suite of songs that told a story. A genre of science fiction pioneered by certain authors (including my friend Kevin J. Anderson) had come to be called "steampunk," seen as a reaction against the "cyberpunk" futurists, with their scenarios of dehumanized, alienated, dystopian societies. Our own previous excursions into the future, 2112 and "Red Barchetta," had been set in that darker kind of imagining, for dramatic and allegorical effect, but I was thinking of steampunk's definition as "The future as it ought to have been," or "The future as seen from the past"-as imagined by Jules Verne, for example, in 1866, when he was writing 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

When I was nine or ten, my dad took my brother and sister and me to see that movie at a Saturday matinee, and images from it had always stuck with me. The fearsome destructiveness of the Nautilus had a kind of monstrous beauty, contrasted with the cultured opulence of Captain Nemo's quarters, and the massive pipe organ on which, he played with mad rapture. The captain may have been insane, but it was a romantic, idealistic bind of madness-his mission was only to destroy ships of war, because his beloved family had been killed in wartime.

The guys seemed intrigued by the concept, and at home in Southern California, I started working on a story and some lyrics along those lines, set in a world driven by steam, intricate clockworks, and alchemy-"a world lit only by fire" (title of a history of medieval times by William Manchester). Early in January, 2010, I was able to send a bunch of pages of lyrics to Alex and Geddy in Toronto, and they got together in Geddy's home studio, "messing around," jamming and seeing what came out. Their individual temperaments are perfect for that approach-Alex the consummate improviser (you will hear him noodling on the guitar and play something great, then ask him, "Wait-what was that?," and he'll look up and say, "Um, I don't know"), and Geddy the patient editor and organizer, sifting through their recorded rambles for the best parts, then stitching them together into an arrangement. He would also look through my pages of lyrics for things that seemed to go together, then tweak the music to suit, and send me requests for lyrical alterations to fit the growing song.

In early March we met in Toronto at Geddy's house, and listened to the five songs they had completed. Booujzhe also came back into the picture at that point, delivering his opinions and suggestions for the work in progress, and together we decided to focus on two of the songs, "Caravan" and "BU2B" (the guys thought my original title of "Brought Up to Believe" was too unwieldy, so I found it musing to render it in modern social-networking textese). Those songs also happened to be the first two pieces of the projected story, now titled Clockwork Angels.

In April I returned to Toronto for two weeks, when we finalized the arrangements, and I started working out drum parts. With reference to the "compressed complexity" mentioned earlier, it is noteworthy that "Caravan" alone took me three days to learn just as "The Main Monkey Business" had. Playing through it time and again, gradually "absorbing" its bumps and wrinkles and smoothing them out, I was grumbling to my drum tech, Gump, about my bandmates' tendency to add and drop random beats here and there in the arrangement, whenever it suited them. "I do wish they could learn to count to four three times in a row!"

Then came Booujzhe. I have explained before that his nickname came from his habit of airdrumming outrageous fills, "Blappada-blappada, dubba-dubba-dubba, rat-a-ta-tat, booujzhe." (Onomatopoeia, like.)

He was soon at it again. In the middle of "Caravan" there was a linking section where Geddy and Alex did a climb down, then up again, and I had laid out of that part, just accentuating the downbeats between. In those spaces, Booujzhe started miming an absurd fill, tumbling all the way down the toms in triplet-feel flurries, then rising all the way back up again, to follow the guitar and bass. I just looked at him, incredulous. He gave me his usual comment, "Hey-I wouldn't ask if I didn't think you could do it."

Geddy looked up over his glasses and said drily, "He wants to make you famous."

I worked it out and played it, and Booujzhe got all excited. All I could say was, "I'm so ashamed."

Like the end section of "Far Cry," which Booujzhe had likewise encouraged me to solo over, it was not something I would ever have suggested myself, but it's one of the reasons we like having a guy like Booujzhe around-to push us, encourage us, make us do crazy stuff.

So now we needed a studio where we could properly record this new music. Part of the collateral damage in the decline of the established music industry has been that many recording studios have closed, and the only good room for recording drums we could get at short notice was in Nashville-Blackbird. However, as we put down the drum and bass tracks in the first two days, then moved on to overdubs and mixing for another ten days, it proved to be a great studio, and we loved the results.

During all this time, going back to January, we had also been planning the Time Machine tour-trading suggestions for old songs to resurrect, as well as dreaming up a whole new stage presentation. Inspired by artists like Steely Dan and Todd Rundgren who had recently been performing some of their older albums in their entirety, I suggested that it might be cool to do that with Moving Pictures-one of our most popular albums, we had never performed the whole thing before-had never played "The Camera Eye" live. [Webmaster note: "The Camera Eye" was in fact performed on both the Moving Pictures and Signals tours...]

Other recent tours have actually given us more freedom in choosing songs. After presenting such a broad retrospective on the R30 tour in 2004, we felt liberated from that "responsibility" on the Snakes and Arrows tour in 2007 and '08, and played more of the newer songs. This time we felt free of those, and along with adding our two new songs, "Caravan" and "BU2B," and the Moving Pictures set, we tried to find some unusual oldies to spark up the song list-for ourselves and for our fans.

The time machine was now set to past, present, and future.

While I put together some ideas for cover art with Hugh Syme, for the song releases and the tour, Geddy was working with his film collaborators Dale and Allan on the rear-screen movies, recruiting Alex and me as comedic "actors"-to pursue our long-term goal in live performance: "More Comedy, Less Music."

While we never seem to get away with "less music," it's true that as the years go by we do have more laughs.


Liam Birt - Tour Manager & Tour Accountant
Craig Blazier - Production Manager
Karin Blazier - Production Assistant
Donovan Lundstrom - Road Manager
Brad Madix - Concert Sound Engineer
Howard Ungerleider - Lighting Director
Tony Geranios - Keyboard Technician
Jim Burgess of Saved by Technology - Programming
Lorne Wheaton - Drum Technician
John McIntosh - Bass Technician
Scott Appleton - Guitar Technician
George Steinert - Stage Manager and Carpenter
Kevin Ripa - Security/ Artist Liaison
Michael Mosbach - Security
Bruce French - Nutritionist

MANAGEMENT
Ray Danniels, SRO Management Inc. Toronto
Pegi Cecconi (QOFE), Sheila Posner, Cynthia Barry, Anna Le Coche,
Mehgan Symsyk, Bob Farmer, Andy Curran, Randy Rolfe

AUDIO COMPANY
Clair Global: Ralph Mastrangelo
Mattbew Stahlhut - Audio System Engineer
Brent Carpenter - Stage Monitor Engineer
Anson Moore - Monitor Systems Engineer

LIGHTING COMPANY
Premier Global Productions: Steven Anderson
Seth Conlin - Lighting Crew Chief
Joey Bradley - Master Electrician
Martin Joos - Lighting Technician
Bill Worsham - Lighting Technician
Matthew Tucker - Lighting Technician

RIGGING COMPANY
Five Points Rigging
John Fletcher - Head Rigger
Chuck Anderson - Rigger
Sebastien Richard - Motion Control

Art Direction, Design, Illustrations, and Horology - Hugh Syme
Band Photograpby - Andrew MacNaughtan
(Thanks to Stephen Alexander of Cumbrae's for Geddy's location.)

VIDEO SCREENS
Screenworks: Danny O'Bryen, Amy Segawa
David Davidian - Video Director
Bob Larkin - Video Engineer
William Duncan - LED engineer
Bruce Ramos - Camera Operator
Lindsey Haney - Camera Operator

FILMMAKERS
Allan Weinrib - Video Production Chief

The "Real" History of Rush Act 1 & 2
Directed by Dale Heslip/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.
Edited by Mark Morton/School
Opening animation by Ghostmilk
Alternate versions of "The Spirit of Radio" and "Closer to the Heart" arranged by Lou Pomanti

Presto
Edited by Jackie Roda/School

Stick It Out
Directed by Samuel Bayer
Re-edited by School

Workin' Them Angels
Directed by Christopher Mills

Faithless
Design and animation by Crankbunny/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.

Leave That Thing Alone
Design and animation by Derivative

BU2B
Concept: by Dale Heslip
Directed by Play Airways/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.

Subdivisions
Original Subdivisions footage directed by Grant Lough
Re-envisioned by Bienvenido Cruz

Moving Pictures
Design and animation by Crankbunny

Red Barchetta
Directed by Greg Russell/Tandem Digital

The Camera Eye
Directed & Photographed by Andrew MacNaughtan
Edited by Jackie Roda

Witch Hunt
Design and animation by Derivative

Caravan
Concept by Dale Heslip
Directed by Ghostmilk/Electric Company Art & Design Inc.

Love For Sale
Animation by Greg Russell and Brian Walters/Tandem Digital

Far Cry
Design and Animation by Steven Lewis/Spin Productions

I Still Love You Man
Written and directed by John Hamburg

Backline "amps"
Designed by Dale Heslip
Constructed by Mood Inc.

Time Tunnel Bumpers
Edited by Jackie Roda/School

Additional Steampunk Video Frames
Designed by Bienvenido Cruz

PYROTECHNICS
Pyrotek, Lorenzo Cornacchia
John Arrowsmith - Pyro Technician

BUSES
Hemphill Brothers Coach Company
Mark Larson
David Burnette - Driver
Lashawn Lundstrom - Driver
Marty Beeler - Driver
Joe C. Bush - Driver
John Morgan - Driver

TRUCKING
Ego Trips (Jim Bodenheimer)
Arthur "Mac" McLear - Lead Truck Driver
Jon Cordes - Driver
Tom Hartmann - Driver
Henry McBride - Driver
Julie Mennitti - Driver
Steve Mennitti - Driver
Don Johnson - Merch Driver

MERCHANDISING
Showtech, Pat McLoughlin

TOUR PROMOTER
Live Nation Global Touring
Gerry Barad
Keith Keller - Live Nation Global Tour Rep.

Booking Agencies: Artist Group International, NYC,
The Agency Group, London,
S. L. Feldman & Associates, Toronto


Geddy Lee

Time Machine Tourbook, click to enlarge

Well...my equipment...

As always -
the usual baloney...

Fender Jazz Basses
Kielbasa
Chorizo
Bratwurst-Wurtenberg
Boudin Noir
Sans-Amps
Frankfurter Wurstel
Salami
Salsiccia stagionata
Some keyboards
Podhala n ska
Szynkowa (smoked)
Kulen
Rotosound Strings
Knackwurste
Orange Amplifiers
Cotchino Verde
Toulouse
Merguez
Moogs
Lincolnshire
Polse
Saucisson
Cevapciéi
Lukanec
Avalon DI's
Korv
Thai-Panang
Calabrese
Haggis
Leberwurst
Lap Cheong
Longaniza

No vegetables were harmed in the making of this list...well maybe a few


Alex Lifeson

Time Machine Tourbook, click to enlarge

Tour Equipment List
A bunch of guitars in different colors, most with 6 strings but not always
Spunk Amplifiers
Some electrical stuff with blinking lights that Scott seriously stares at and shakes his head
Delicious steaks
Geddy's wine, mostly
Smelly stage clothes that don't start out that way
A bushel of iApples
A great golf swing
A horrible golf swing
Diet everything


Neil Peart

Time Machine Tourbook, click to enlarge

Obviously the real time machine around here is the drumset.

And what a set of drums. Captain Nemo would have loved them, probably better than that dreary old pipe organ.

Drum Workshop really outdid themselves this time, spearheaded by Don Lombardi, John Good, Shon Smith, Garrison (like Madonna and Cher, he "dares to be known by one name alone"), hardware specialist Rich Sikra, and master painter Louis Garcia.

Barrel-stave redwood, copper leaf and silver alchemy symbols, and the innovation of copper hardware create the main visual statement, but the small, unique details of stand fittings and the little sculpted gears behind the lugs demonstrate DW's imaginative willingness to consider every possibility-and make it real.

Sonically, drum tech Lorne "Gump" Wheaton and I agree that these drums surpass all previous kits, in the richness of their tonality, and in the perfect blend of the individual drums with each other.

The custom stand fittings, drum hardware, and riser panels were designed by Greg Russell and Brian Walters of Tandem Digital. Their elaborate CG renderings of the kit and hardware helped to visualize the final outcome.

For their part, the Sabian cymbal company also got onboard with my wild ideas right away. Chris Stankee and Mark Love directed the development of a special steampunk design on the new "Brilliant" Paragons I've been using. (It took some experimenting with inks to find one that didn't affect the sound.)

Among other noisemakers, Gump and I include Pro-Mark sticks, DW and Remo heads, Roland V-Drums (thanks Darren Shoepp) (with custom DW shells), MalletKAT, KAT trigger pedals, and a Dauz pad, all running through a Roland XV5080 sampler and Project X Glyph hard drives.

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