This doesn't share the key features of a 'movie' - there's no umbrella of narrative, no plot...it happens to be filmed, and it's more of a collection of 'episodes'. Note the opening montage of 'construction' is through 'The Camera Eye.'
Rather curious, considering the album supported by this 1981 tour was named "Moving Pictures" specifically because each song had a cinematic 'size' and story arc befitting what you'd find on a soundtrack.
'Limelight' is Peart's reflection on his discomfort with the band's first brush with fame -- a reaction to the unseemly idea that a complete stranger knows 'you' through your art -- even then, 'he couldn't pretend'...
'Tom Sawyer' functions as a tongue in check comment on self-assuredness and independence from needing to fit into any musical, philosophical or political paradigm.
'The Trees' is the quintessential libertarian counterattack on social planning, equality of outcome, and other leftist dogma -- it tends back into Rand territory, but as Peart reminded us in interviews, "he's nobody's disciple".
'Xanadu' is the concert's performance and thematic centerpiece. Based on Coleridge's incomplete 'Kubla Khan' (which Peart has repeatedly mined for inspiration), it is reinterpreted, or 'refinished' if you will, to lay the irony on thick. Musically, it is an exposition of the outer limit of what three musicians can perform live. Note the jokey 'battle' between Lifeson with his Gibson EDS-1275 vs. Lee with his beastly Rickenbacker 4080.
'Red Barchetta' is a reinterpretation of a car magazine essay, sort of a 'syllogism-mobile' that explores the (il)logical end condition of the socialist nanny-state. The car is a classic Ferrari 166 MM.
'Freewill' plainly runs the gamut of existential questions - as a song, it's an early indication of the trend the band would take into the future -- tight, compact, dynamic.
'Closer to the Heart' was already a concert chestnut; again, tight and dynamic.
The end medley is simply a period exposition of musical interplay and 'battles' - 'By-tor' for example, is a joke on a pair of overeager pet dogs.
So, what we end up with is a short firecracker 'snapshot' of Rush's earliest encounter with 'mainstream' success. Notable also because it was about the end of the era of having to plug in onstage -- radio transmitters were just around the corner. It's never enough for us fans, and we hope DVD producer Lamoureaux can track down more footage from this show.
