It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when Rush stopped taking themselves seriously. There was a clear indication of the Canadian trio's levity in last year's brilliantly myth-busting documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage, which ended with the three of them sitting in a restaurant and ripping the piss out of themselves and the band they've been in for the best part of 40 years. Or it could date back to the video for 1991's Roll The Bones, which featured a mid-song rap performed by a giant animated skeleton - not exactly Monty Python, but hardly Cygnus X-l either. It could even go all the way back to 1974's hilariously paranoid I Think I'm Going Bald, which might suggest that all that subsequent stuff about By-Tor and Ayn Rand was really done for a giggle. On second thoughts, it probably wasn't.
But whatever the reason and whenever the time, it's clear that. these days, Rush have got a sense of humour - and they're determined to use it. Much of the entertainment from tonight's show derives from the films being beamed onto the giant screen at the back of the stage, featuring the band in an assortment of locations (a deli, a studio, for instance) and an assortment of costumes. Whether it's Neil Peart channeling his inner ham as an eye-rolling Irish cop or Alex Lifeson rolling around in the sort of fat suit that last saw action in a Dave lee Roth video from 1985, it's all designed to poke fun at their own po-faced image. It's the equivalent of watching your stuffy old uncle rummaging through the dressing up box and gleefully pulling out a comedy vicar's outfit and a pair of fake breasts. You don't get that with Yes.
This spring in their step has apparently extended to a fondness for travel. This is Rush's third trip to the UK in the last 10 years, a frequency unheard of since the 80s. II's billed as the Time Machine tour, a theme reflected in a retro-fitted stage set kitted out in faux-Victoriana trappings and a general whiff of HG Wells. But the real hook is that this year marks the 30th anniversary of Moving Pictures, the band's most successful album and the one that eased them from the convoluted sci-fi epics of the 70s to the concise, synth-Ied packets of intra-personal intelligence of the 80s. II's a simple enough plan: drop in the album in its entirety mid-way through the show, stand-back, soak in the adulation. Even for a band as cerebrally inclined as Rush, it's a no-brainer.
Broadly, the show is divided up into three sections: Moving Pictures and the bits either side of it. The latter are fairly engaging journeys through their illustrious back catalogue. a handful of marquee tunes (The Spirit Of Radio, Time Stand Still, Closer To The Heart, the first two bits of 2112) sugaring the pill of a few too many tracks from the 90s and OOs - admirable in intention, but ultimately hard to love (as, in truth, are two dense, grungey new-ish songs B2UB and Caravan).
Inevitably, Moving Pictures is the beating heart of the night. It remains the leanest and most modern-sounding album of their career, and 30 years on it wears its age well. The incoming waves of synths that herald Tom Sawyer are electrifying in every sense of the word, and the voyeuristic insights of The Camera Eye have never been more prescient. There's plenty of spectacle too: during Witch Hunt, the enormous lighting rig glides down to perform a slow motion aerial ballet just above the heads of the band, looking for all the world like it's auditioning for a slot in the next Transformers film. In this context, even the poorly-regarded white reggae of Vital Signs sounds, well, vital.
But the real star of the show - or at least the fourth member of the band - is the vast screen behind them. As entertaining as it might be watching Geddy Lee hopping across the stage like an arthritic chicken, or his and Lifeson's vain attempts to make Peart crack up while attempting a tricky triple paradiddle, the band know that they're hardly the most visually engaging proposition. Hence the eye-popping parade of images and films beamed across the screen, from stop-motion fairytales to silent film-era clips of street magicians plying their wares to a properly tongue-in-cheek skit featuring a bunch of chimps playing along to Tom Sawyer. It's utterly relentless in all the right ways, complementing the songs rather than distracting from them. Only Roger Waters has married the audio and the visual more successfully in recent years. and I that's only because he roped in a load of people to build a big. fuck-off wall behind him.
Forty years into their career, and there's more love out there for this trio of geeky Canadians than ever before. They should be saluted for putting in the time and the effort to give it back. Seriously.