Review: MOOD LIFTERS - Live in Melbourne
Written by: Rod Whitfield
The Spirit of RUSH at Max Watts with Mood Lifters
Saturday 24th August 2024
As a regular live music attendee, it’s extremely rare for me to give an evening to a cover/tribute band. But in the case of a band playing the music of RUSH, I’m more than happy to make an exception.
Pictured: MOOD LIFTERS playing at Whisky a GoGo - Los Angeles, CA
For those not in the know, the great Canadian trio were together for almost half a century. However, during that time, they did not visit Australian shores a single time. The reasons for this are myriad, and this is neither the time nor place to go into that. But, when a band paying tribute to my equal favourite artist of all time takes the monumental financial risk of flying all the way out to Australia from California, with gear and entourage, to finally give we Aussies a taste of RUSH’s music in a live setting, it’s an absolute no-brainer that I’m going to support that.
And boy oh boy, did they NOT let me down.
The music of RUSH is both extraordinarily complex and intricate. But not only that, it’s also monumentally idiosyncratic. No one else sounds like RUSH (although some have tried.) No one else has done music the way RUSH did it. To the point where certain sections of the fanbase are fussy to the point of toxic elitism.
So to pull off three hours of RUSH’s music, including many of their most revered and illustrious tunes (it’s actually been opined in my presence that MOOD LIFTERS’ song selection for this tour was actually better than anything RUSH ever came up with themselves. I’m not saying I agree or disagree, just putting it out there that it’s been said) in a manner that puts a massive cheesy grin on the faces of a big, heaving, expectant Max Watts crowd to man and woman (although mostly men, which is of course a running RUSH gag), is nothing but a testament to MOOD LIFTERS’ professionalism, ridiculous attention to detail and, most importantly, passion for the music of the great Canadian triumvirate.
There is no losing it here, no echoes of old applause. MOOD LIFTERS play these songs tonight with nothing but passion and precision, with minds, voices and hands undarkened by sickness and indecision. They play like working men (and woman) on a mission, a mission to finally bring the music of RUSH to Australia in a live sense.
Tonight, they move the world and we live our fantasies.
Let’s talk about that magnificent setlist for a moment. One of my overriding thoughts as the night unfolds is that they could barely have made things more difficult for themselves. They have selected some of the most difficult and intense songs RUSH ever came up with, musicially, vocally and as a collective. Natural Science, La Villa Strangiato, eighteen minutes of Cygnus X1 Book 2: Hemispheres, The Camera Eye, these are some of the most musically difficult songs to play in the history of rock music itself, not just in the RUSH canon. Ditto for Temples of Syrinx, The Fountain of Lamneth (which frontwoman Rocky Kuner executes magnificently, drawing a tremendous reaction from the crowd) and Freewill in a vocal sense.
Of course, selecting the songs and actually pulling them off with aplomb are two profoundly different things. And these guys get as close as you possibly can when you’re not Messrs Lee, Lifeson and Peart. Again, it’s absolutely apparent that these three blokes and one lady adore and idolise the music of RUSH as much as we diehards in the crowd do.
A couple of little disappointments must be cited: Xanadu is quite conspicuous in its absence (the Exit Stage Left version of which happens to be this scribe’s all-time favourite RUSH song. Not that it’s all about me of course!) And after they play Overture and Temples of Syrinx, many of us are thinking they’re about to launch into 2112 in its entirety, but it doesn’t arrive.
All that said, with 20+ albums and four decades of recorded history to choose from, they can’t play everything. They could play for 13 hours and someone would still find an absence to complain about.
Throughout the set, the smiles barely leave the faces of the four band members, and ditto for the vast majority of the audience members. It’s clear both band and crowd are having the absolute time of their lives.
The four band members have clearly listened to these songs over and over and over. They have clearly studied them, agonised over them, turned them inside out and upside down, and then practiced and rehearsed them countless times to ensure their rendering of them in a live setting is as close to the originals as possible, while still playing them with flair, personality and passion.
Finally, after three mighty hours, after a blistering old-school encore of Bastille Day and Working Man (of course they finished with the latter, the song opened many possibilities for the band’s career early on, and subsequently closed many a RUSH show for the rest of their time), we all file out as though walking on air, as though at the end of a beautiful dream, fully aware of the fact that we have witnessed something very special indeed tonight.
MOOD LIFTERS, we know we’re a long long way away, we know it costs a hell of a lot to get out here, I have no idea whether you’ve even broken even on this trip, but we appreciate your fleeting presence in our nation more than we can express, and please, please come again some day.
Check out MOOD LIFTERS playing their final show at Rosemount Hotel in Perth
Tickets below
