I'm getting so fed up with the supposed made by fans, for fans bs. I just finished another marathon, multi-day bt session to snag a 9 gig, 2-dvd set of the opener for the first “An Evening With Rush” from the T4E tour on 10/19/96. I saw them in Milwaukee a mere 13 days after this show, so I jumped all over downloading it as that's about as close as it'll come to reliving that experience. So I'm checking out bits and pieces right now before bed. The sound is good, and even for a 2 camera job from those days, the video is surprisingly good.

But…. and it's a big but….

That is, when it isn't being fucked with to all hell. It's like some fucker in college took the tapes, smoked a J, got on the Video Toaster and went to town with every damn effect in the library. They are constantly superimposed upon themselves in a 50/50 cross-dissolve for god knows why. Quite often when the view is on something Neil is doing or just a straight on center shot of the stage/close up of the kit, there's a damn mirror effect going right down the middle so he looks like some freak with two right arms flailing around on a spider. I even just saw a chroma key of Alex with some acid wash effect so that through his now overblown head and body in the spotlight, you see the other camera view of him.

good god….. shoot the videographer now!@! It's not just the worthless f/x either. It's absolutely horrible timing in cuts. There are just a handful of certain things that I want to see in every performance and the rest, I don't care what you show me. And I know I can't be the only one that wants to see them, so why aren't they there? gah……

However, when the video isn't being destroyed, it's absolutely great to see yet another view from the past that I thought was lost to blurry memory forever. Well, Leave That Thing Alone is about to end. Time to pay attention…..

…..okay. The Rhythm Method was completely intact and un-messed with. 10/10 from me now.