For fans

With great personality, Rush feeds us back by saying 'Hey, we wanna have fun...if you also like it, that's great.'

First Rush CD purchase? Skip it to another one.

Fun, fun, fun!

What a hoot to hear Rush cover these 60s hits. You just know they can play this stuff with one hand tied behind their back (ok, slight exaggeration). Yet, they're not bored by it and put together some really good renditions.



Lifeson's work on Crossroads is outstanding - certainly the equal of Clapton's. Geddy adds his usual excellent bass work and Peart's drumming is... well, he is Neil Peart after all.



My only regret is that they didn't cover My Generation. I can only imagine Geddy's bass riffs. Oh well...



This is great stuff. No it's not *standard* Rush fare. Of course with all the musical turns they've taken over the years, standard Rush fair is an oxymoron isn't it?

This is really a blast!

Rush have fun on record? For a band that's typically thought of as being really serious, that's precisely what this is, and the criticism it receives pretty much proves that yeah, the fans have got to remember that nobody would stick at a job and have any love for it without enjoying it, and let's face it-- this is their job, and while they're creating things serious, they have fun too. And this was a chance for the band to have fun.



So this record is the songs that Geddy Lee (bass, vocals), Alex Lifeson (guitars), and Neil Peart (drums) grew up playing. Not surprisingly, the music and performance sounds more like early Rush than it does like the last couple albums.



You can argue the merits of the Rush versions against the originals, you can argue that Lee's voice was wrong for the material, that Lifeson's style doesn't work well for this kind of guitar playing, the choice of songs, etc. but you're not taking this for what it is.



Do all the covers hit? No, not really-- some of them are great-- "Summertime Blues" wails, "For What Its Worth" has a unique passion to it, and really I like Lee's vocal take on "Crossroads".



But this is a lot of fun, a way for the band to pay tribute to their heroes from when they were kids, and a way for them to give something to the fans for the 30th anniversary when an album was well out of reach. I took it for something fun, and I loved it, if you're a Rush fan and you don't take it too seriously, you will too.