Exit Stage Left (DVD), Mercury, Music & Performance

The video complement to Rush's live album Exit...Stage Left is a one-hour concert film shot at the Montreal Forum on the band's Moving Pictures tour. It does not conform exactly to the Exit...Stage Left audio album, presenting a different, shorter set list. The video has something of a documentary feel, with bits of audio commentary by the bandmembers in between the songs, and occasionally overlaying them. No concession has been made to the making of a film; the band appears simply to have invited a film crew in to shoot one of their concerts, with no special lighting, so that, from a video perspective, the footage is occasionally too dark or otherwise less than optimum, as the lighting crew washes the stage with different colors or the camera operators get their shots in a catch-as-catch-can manner. There are also some primitive visual effects and animations that, like the commentaries, the video would be better off without. Nevertheless, the film gets across the powerful impact of this major arena rock band in its home arena at a peak moment in its career. ~ William Ruhlmann, Rovi