Time Machine 2011: Live In Cleveland

Over the last few years, the classic-album tour has taken off to such an extent that it seems like artists might soon run out of classic albums to perform in their entirety for nostalgia-hungry fans. With their back catalog, Rush could conceivably kick up at least three or four such outings, but their first foray into the field was the 2011 Time Machine tour based around 1981's classic Moving Pictures. Many of the album's songs -- "Tom Sawyer," "Limelight," "YYZ" - are so deeply ingrained in our collective consciousness that it's tough to be objective about them, but 30 years after the fact, Rush is still capable of investing them with as much energy as ever. The inclusion of older songs, such as "Closer to the Heart" and "The Spirit of Radio," contextualizes the Moving Pictures tunes nicely, and the encore of the fret-melting "La Villa Strangiato" serves as a reminder of the prog-tinged past from which the band emerged as a sleeker machine on this album. Unfortunately, many of the tracks taken from later albums can only suffer in comparison, but that's just one of the risks you run when stack the rest of your repertoire up against your finest hour.