Customer Rating:  
Summary: Rush's weakest sounding live album of the seven available
Comment: Rush's A Show of Hands was first released in January of 1989.
The album was recorded during various stops on the band's Power Windows and Hold Your Fire tours in 1986/87/88.
The sound of this live album was worse than 1981's Exit...Stage Left. If you watched the live DVD and compare to this, the mix on the video (and the re-released DVD) was better than on the album and the mix of the album is why it is four stars.
The album does have some highlights like "Marathon", "Turn the Page", "Manhattan Project", "Mission" and "Time Stand Still".
Some of the others like "The Big Money", "Distant Early Warning" and "Red Sector A" were way better on 2003's Rush in Rio (why fans detest this album is beyond me). "Subdivisions" and "Mystic Rhythms" are way better on R30. "Witch Hunt" was better on the Grace Under Pressure Live CD (which was released with the Rush Replay X 3 CD/DVD set).
I didn't like the cheesy Simmons drums on the "Closer to the Heart" performances from 1984-93, thankfully Neil went back to the acoustic drums on this track for the Test For Echo tour forwards and the best versions of Closer are on Different Stages and Rush in Rio IMHO.
"Force Ten" was better on the Japanese version of Different Stages and the 2005 released R30 CD/DVD set and "The Rhythm Method" was edited on A Show of Hands, if you watch the video they play YYZ as a lead in into the solo, it is missing on the album.
This live album did modest peaking at #21 and went Gold (just like every Rush album before it).
Recommended but buy Different Stages, Rush in Rio, R30 and Rush Replay X 3 instead!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rush's "Dark Period" of the 80's...Live
Comment: This is part three of a comprehensive four part series of Music Reviews of the Progressive Rock band Rush. When a band has been around as long as RUSH has (30 years), their musical styles will change and evolve, just not always for the best. I group the bands third set of releases into what is known as Rush's "Synthesizer Period". All of these albums came out during the 1980's and represent the band's post-Moving Pictures era. The albums are Signals (1982), Grace Under Pressure (1984), Power Windows (1985), Hold Your Fire (1987) and A Show of Hands "Live" (1988).
A Show of Hands is a snapshot of the Hold Your Fire tour. Only two songs on the record, Mystic Rhythms and Witch Hunt were from the preceding Power Windows tour. I'm only giving Show of Hands 3 stars. But this is compared to all of Rush's other Live offerings, which I consider better. Production is good, even better than Exit Stage Left, but I just don't like a lot of these selections, which are predominantly from Power Windows and Hold Your Fire, my two least favorite Rush albums. Personally, I would just like to forget that the 80's even happened and that one of my favorite progressive hard rock bands had to travel down this dark path of synthesizer laden "new wave" crap.
On the bright side, for a fully loaded single disc that used to cost about $14, you can now pick up this '97 re-master for around $8 brand new. Now that's a bargain.
Not recommended. For completists only.
Customer Rating:
Summary: I just like this live cd !
Comment: I have read many reviews on this cd, many are two or three stars rating.
For me, this live cd is just great. The choice of songs is not perfect but is there a live cd or a best of containing every songs you would have chosen ? Again, I like this cd very much and it is an easy five stars rating for me. Good job Neil, Alex and Geddy !
Customer Rating:
Summary: A worthy addition to the live canon...
Comment: Rush's tradition of releasing a live album after every fourth studio release continues with "A Show of Hands". Unlike the wretched "Exit Stage Left" which was plauged by terrible recording problems, this albums avoids the problems which make "Exit" nearly unlistenable. Unlike "Exit" and the masterful "All the World's A Stage" which present one live show, "A Show of Hands" presents cuts from different concerts and tours.
As an attempt to show case different tours, it lacks the cohesion and sustained energy that make a "Rush in Rio" and "R30" such triumphs. As an anthology of different shows, the shifts between the different concerts is often jarring.
It's absurd to label this as the "worst" Rush live album--since its clearly far superior to "Exit, Stage Left." (And "Exit's" problems are not performance-related, but as I note above, technical.)
As a matter of personal preference, I like a live album to be of one show, a snapshot, so to speak, of a band's work and spirit at a single moment in time.
For the new Rush fan I would not recommend it. "Different Stages" would be a much better intro to their live work. It showcases their more recent work as well as the pre-"Hemispheres" albums on that fantastic third concert disc.
All of that having been said, "A Show of Hands" should be in every serious Rush fan's collection. It is really completely inaccurate to describe Rush's 80's oeuvre as "the synth period" since the use of synths began with 1976's "2112". The shift is gradual and doesn't support the label the period is too often given.
As a sampling of their live shows in the 80s, it does a good job. To repeat, I would have preferred one show but the anthology approach does provide a more global perspective on one of the most successful concert acts of the last thirty years.
Rush also has has more consecutive gold and platinum albums than any other band--excepting only the Beatles and Rolling Stones (in the that order).
Customer Rating:
Summary: One star for Witch Hunt
Comment: This is easily the worst Rush album ever made. The versions aren't that bad, the songs just aren't that good. Still I could elevate a rating to 3 1/2 stars if they just had a more even representation of the 4 albums it's supposed to represent.
As others have already suggested, the biggest problem is the whole album seems to be Power Windows and Hold Your Fire. Only three songs from Signals and Grace Under Pressure is deplorable. The album is short enough they could've added a couple more songs easily.
Signals should have included:
1. Subdivisions
2. The Weapon (as the fear trilogy)
3. New World Man
Grace Under Pressure:
1. Distant Early Warning
2. The Enemy Within (as the fear trilogy)
3. Red Sector A
4. last half of Red Lenses (with YYZ and Rhythm Method drum solo in the middle)
Power Windows:
1. Big Money
2. Manhatten Project
3. Marathon
4. Territories
Hold Your Fire:
1. Force 10
2. Time Stands Still (only because it was a single, shudder)
3. Turn the Page
4. Mission
And as out of cycle songs:
1. Witch Hunt (only so they can do the whole Fear trilogy)
2. 1/2 of YYZ (only so they can include it in the drum solo going into the last half of Red Lenses)
Leave out Closer to the Heart, swap out Mystic Rhythms for Territories; add Analog Kid, New World Man, The Enemy Within, and YYZ/Red Lenses. I haven't timed that, but if that's too long for an 80-minute CD, I would say Marathon, Mission and Red Sector A, in that order are expendable. Now you've got a fair representation of the four albums. It's still PW and HYF heavy, but it's at least respectable.
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