 | ILikePie (49)
01/26/2008 |  It is exceedingly difficult to review Different Stages. It doesn't have the smoothness of the near-perfect Exit Stage Left and A Show of Hands, but then this isn't what the album is supposed to deliver, as Geddy Lee himself says. The whole point of this album was that it had the smallest amount of studio doctoring possible, and that this would be the definitive raw live Rush experience. A lack of polish could easily be forgiven, and it's not as if Rush ever usually disappoint live, and with a stellar playlist including new gems such as Nobody's Hero, Stick It Out (as well as some old classics, including the entirety of 2112 and Cygnus X-1), you would think we were onto a winner. Sadly, a number of the songs failed to keep me interested and with the exception of the mind-blowing Cygnus X-1 and Nobody's Hero, there seems to be a certain lack of enthusiasm or shine which makes the other live albums prevail over this one. Towards the end of Disc 3, I find myself wanting it to end, whereas at the end of Closer to the Heart on A Show of Hands, I wipe a tear from my eye and curse the fact that such a stellar performance had to end. Of course, this is Rush live, so it's not going to dip lower than four stars, it is merely disappointing that with such an amazing setlist (which was perhaps the weak point of the other live albums - "If only they'd played Subdivisions here... Vital Signs wouldn't have gone amiss...), and such a promise of being the ultimate live album, that the actual quality of the songs themselves disappoint a little.
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