Two years after the band’s end due to the tragic death of drummer/lyricist Neil Peart, Rush continues to set the standard for commemorative releases. The Rush 30 and Rush 40 tours and accompanying live sets—R30 in particular—were spectacular, so expectations were set high for any future releases. Last year was the 40th anniversary of the band’s consensus musical high water mark, 1981’s Moving Pictures, and surviving members Geddy Lee (vocals, bass, keys) and Alex Lifeson (guitars) have marked that with a truly special package.

The original Moving Pictures album is of course packed, one of the most consistent efforts of their career, and coming at the hinge point where the band was evolving its sound and fully incorporating synthesizers into their sonic attack. Side one features four of the group’s strongest standard-length tracks (“Tom Sawyer,” “Red Barchetta,” “YYZ,” and “Limelight”), while the perhaps still underappreciated side two brings the terrific extended piece “The Camera Eye,” followed by “Witch Hunt” and “Vital Signs.” (For more, see my full review of the original album.)

For this 40th anniversary package, Rush again deploys the 2015 remaster of the original album, which couldn’t really be improved on sonically. The bonus comes with the rest of this three-CD package—beautifully laid out and presented, with gorgeous color photos from that era, new illustrations by Hugh Syme, and a booklet full of laudatory essays from superfans Kim Thayil, Les Claypool, Taylor Hawkins, Bill Kelliher and Neil Sanderson—and its contents: two full CDs containing the band’s entire March 25, 1981 Moving Pictures Tour homecoming show in Toronto. While the live sound is not as pristine as some of band’s latter-day concert recordings using state-of-the-art sound technology, it’s still excellent, with longtime collaborator Terry Brown delivering a mix full of energy and life.

And then there’s the setlist.

This show is pretty close to a dream set for many longtime Rush fans. Granted, some will miss the presence of highlights from the band’s later output, which has varied from good to excellent, but the songs that made Rush, the ones that won the band a fervent following for four decades to come, are virtually all present on this list.

To wit: opening with the first two segments of the band’s original epic “2112,” they tear through “Freewill,” “Limelight,” “Cygnus X-1 Book II: Hemispheres - Prelude” and “Beneath, Between & Behind” like there’s no tomorrow. “YYZ” is spectacular as always, here featuring a mid-song Peart solo and followed by Lifeson’s solo piece “Broon’s Bane,” which segues directly into “The Trees.” The first half of the show closes with a superb reading of personal favorite early cut “Xanadu.”

The second half commences with the boys blowing through “The Spirit Of Radio,” “Red Barchetta,” “Closer To The Heart,” and “Tom Sawyer” in quick succession, a powerhouse run that’s followed by “Vital Signs” and “Natural Science.” So what do you do for encores? If you’re as fearless as these guys, you stitch together a ridiculously complex medley incorporating pieces of “Working Man,” “Cygnus X-1 Book II,” “By-Tor & The Snow Dog,” “In The End,” and “In The Mood,” and then cap that with the finale of “2112.”

I mean, COME ON.

And then, only then, do you bring out the most insanely complicated and viscerally entertaining magnum opus in your quiver: the extended instrumental “La Villa Strangiato.”

While the musical highlights are many, the most impressive parts for this longtime observer of the band remain moments like those in “The Camera Eye” where you hear Lee singing hard, playing a complex bass line, and triggering synth tones with his feet, all at the same time. It’s a feat that seems impossible on the face of it, especially given the technology they had to work with back in 1981, but Lee pulls it off with panache, again and again.

Rush is one of the most unique bands in rock history, with a four-decade run as a trio whose lineup never changed once Peart joined in 1974, even as their sound evolved with the times, always ready for the next musical challenge and never taking themselves too seriously. All of the above have factored into the band becoming one of the most beloved exports in the history of Canada, a status this commemorative album package only serves to reinforce.

Rating: A

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