Rush – St. Louis 1980 Pre-FM (Cygnus-038)

St. Louis 1980 Pre-FM (Cygnus-038)

Kiel Auditorium, St. Louis, MO – February 11-13, 1980

(75:58) 2112, The Spirit Of Radio, Natural Science, Beneath, Between, And Behind, By-Tor And The Snow Dog, Xanadu, Working Man / Bastille Day / Anthem / In The Mood, Drum Solo, La Villa Strangiato

The recording of Rush in St. Louis, Missouri during their fabled 1980 tour in support of Permanent Waves is one of legend and for good reason. It is one of two known soundboard recordings of Rush during the tour, both being sadly incomplete, the other is the Allentown Fairgrounds, Allentown, Pa. September 30, 1980 found on Hyperspace (Gypsy Eye 170). While not much is known about the Allentown gig, we know the St. Louis recording was done as part of KSHE-FM’s Third Annual Valentine’s Day Massacre Concert and was recorded for broadcast by NBC Source Radio Broadcast. Rush played three nights in St. Louis, March 11, 12, and 13 and the exact date of the recording is not known and there are no other recordings from these dates to compare. What fans know is that the recording is excellent, perfectly balanced and very well recorded by the Source. The balance between music and audience is perfect, instruments and vocals clear and detailed, enough audience to get the feeling of the audience reaction to the music, wonderful atmosphere and ambiance, one of the best Rush soundboards out there.

Great recording means lots of bootlegs to choose from. There have been many vinyl releases from the past decades, Xanadu (Toasted Records TRW 1947) 2 LP and Temples Of Syrinx (Tower Isle Records / Lee Music Q-9025) being early titles, the past decade and a half has seen Kiel Auditorium St Louis Missouri 14 February 1980 (Rox Vox RV2LP1012), A Passage To Syrinx (CPLVNY087), Spirit Of The Airwaves (Back On Black RCV144LPTD), Timeless Wavelength (Invisible Hands Music-IH 66), and Spirit Of The Airwaves (Killer Kutz-KUTZ004) come available in the sales market. My first taste of this recording came from a title I bought in a Record show in Detroit, I bought two titles that day, La Villa Stangiato (Seagull Records SEA 040) and Black Sabbath War Pigs (Great Dane GDR-CD 9119). I bought the Rush for a live version of Natural Science, the Sabbath for Hand Of Doom, both still in my collection to this day. Seagull was not the only company to release the Rush recording, The Spirit Of St. Louis (RockDreams ROCKS 92017), La Villa Stangiato (Flood Recordings-FLDF1011), Live In St. Louis 1980 (On The Air AIR 1), Kiel Auditorium St Louis Missouri 14 February 1980 (Rox Vox RVCD1012), and my personal favorite being Spirit Of The Airwaves (Smokin’SMCD925).

I admit I was rather surprised to see this title by Cygnus, but always “In The Mood” for a new Rush bootleg it was an instant buy, Cygnus always releases top notch product, although I have to admit I was hoping for the newly discovered March 5, 1976 audience recording as it contains the only known live version of I Think I’m Going Bald plus a very good recording to boot, but alas it was not to be. Back to 1980, Spirit Of The Airwaves (Smokin’SMCD925) is a grey market release of excellent quality, a huge improvement to La Villa Stangiato (Seagull Records SEA 040) and has been my go to for the past several years. When I compare this new Cygnus version with Spirit Of The Airwaves I find little difference. Spirit is just slightly louder and to my ears is equally a bit more vibrant, the Cygnus has a cleaner sound to it, more sterile if you would but not in a negative way, plus it has more time between the songs, no additional music or dialog but certainly fades. Overall based on just the sound I’m really just splitting hairs at this point. This is a recording that really demands to be played on a larger system, turn the volume up and get sucked into the performance, prime Rush.

The intro has to be one of the most exciting to hear, the lights go down and the audience cheer with anticipation as the swirling intro to 2112 is played over the PA system the band arrive onstage and Neil does this great fill checking out his kit, a bit of synth by Geddy and the band break into a furious version of the 2112 suite. The band chose the truncated version of the suite made famous on the All The World’s A Stage album, Overture, Temples Of Syrinx, Discovery, Presentation, Soliloquy, and Grand Finale all played with purpose, incredible opener. A fade leads into Ged introducing The Spirit Of Radio, the song actually comes later in the set, being the main single from Permanents Waves The Source editors put it closer to the beginning. The music and Geddy’s vocals are similar to the studio version, this would grow in latter tours as the song becomes iconic and a favorite part of the show.

“Thank you!…The Spirit of Radio! We’d like to do something else from that same album…it’s a little bit different.This is called Natural Science”, so begins 8 and a half minutes of pure musical perfection. This song would be the closest to the long Prog epics but features a more focused structure. With three sections, The Pools begin gently, a story of microscopic life living in their own galaxy. A quantum leap forward in lyric and music leads into Hyperspace, heavy and complex like all great Progressive music, the complexity of the music finds the band focused and alert to each others playing, we also get to hear Alex play the excellent and melodic solo, all owing to the song. “Wheels Within Wheels in a spiral array” is the return to the chorus before heading into the final third entitled Permanent Waves. While the complexity is still there it has a most cheerful and positive outlook albeit with a warning of technology over nature. This song captured my interest early on when I really began listening deeply to Rush, so much I had to hear it live, this is that version and throwing nostalgia aside, still delivers at its peak potential.

A nice edit removes any trace of Closer To The Heart but makes way for an excellent take on the Fly By Night deep track Beneath, Between, And Behind, this duo would be immortalized on Exit…Stage Left, for here just the latter. One coupling which has been standard for the previous three years is By-Tor and The Snow Dog into Xanadu. By-Tor is the first five minutes plus leading into the dreams-cape, instead of going into Of The Battle section it brilliantly evolves into a gorgeous beginning of Xanadu. Alex and his lyrical guitar, Geddy’s lush synths, and The Professors chimes and bells is the most ambient introduction one can think off, as Alex goes into the opening riff the audience (and listener) cheer loudly. Xanadu is perhaps my favorite Rush song, it captures everything about them as a band, complex arraignments, heavy guitar and bass, intricate drumming, full range of percussion and synthesizers, and meaningful lyrics…Perfection.

We skip forward to the encore section, Working Man has the cool Reggae intro and we get the song through the blistering Alex solo before it goes into Anthem and a quick Bastille Day before going back to the debut for a near complete In The Mood. Thankfully Neil’s drum solo makes the edit. The encore for this tour is the Hemispheres instrumental La Villa Strangiato. Incredible song, complex yet totally engaging, certainly contains one of my favorite Lifeson solo’s, he builds it brilliantly to a near emotional level…immaculate ending to a sadly incomplete recording. Nothing more than this 75 minute fragment has ever surfaced and the full recordings are certainly lost, but what we have is pure gold.

The packaging is nice, Cygnus does a take on the Permanent Waves style graphics and incorporates live shots to fill it in. The numbered sticker features the Waves cover art and there is a a cool picture on the CD to boot. While this boot is not a sonic upgrade to what I already have, it is certainly a different version and it’s a show which should be an essential part of every Rush fans collection. For those seeking out a near complete Permanent Waves concert, there is a fan made compilation using the St. Louis SB and filling in with tracks from the Permanent Waves deluxe edition, the editing is top notch, it’s a download only thing given away for free.