Yeah, you big buzzkill, you.
I was holding back on discussing specific albums until Cail introduced them, but to continue to meander:
I was really surprised how hard it was to come up with a ranking for the albums. The first couple were easy, as were the last few. But the middle (from 6-16) was tough.
1- Permanent Waves
2- Moving Pictures
3- Farewell To Kings
4- Roll The Bones
5- Clockwork Angels
6- Hold Your Fire
7- 2112
8- Snakes And Arrows
9- Vapor Trails
10- Grace Under Pressure
11- Counterparts
12- Signals
13- Hemispheres
14- Presto
15- Fly By Night
16- Rush
17 - Caress Of Steel
18 - Feedback
19- Power Windows
20 - Test For Echo
I was watching Live in Rio the other night and was struck again by the crowd response. It really is incredible. And while the crowd vocal in YYZ has been discussed before, I forgot they do a similar thing near the end of Natural Science, too. As the song is leaving the third section (with it's incredible 6/8 to 4/4 shifts, I love that part) the band shifts from one melody to another to end up the song, but the crowd keeps singing the previous melody over it. It sounds fantastic!
And I did read the book for CA. It's certainly the best book of Anderson's I've read, so that was a nice surprise. The writing style is very different from Peart - Peart's prose is more dense, whereas Anderson's is more action driven, but it was still enjoyable. The story didn't proceed in quite the way I thought it would, from listening to the album, but what's life without surprises?
I don't want to get into any spoilers until anyone else reads it but overall, I did enjoy it.