Although the name and artwork for this bootleg are not all that inspiring, this bootleg is absolutely incredible! This is the show made famous by "Caught in the Camera Eye". I remember when I got "Caught in the Camera Eye", the very first thing I said was "what a fantastic show, to damn bad about all that frigin tape hiss. Wouldn't it be great if they found the master tapes!?!?!". Well, this is taken from first generation tapes...close enough. This is easily one of my most played, most cherished bootlegs.
First off, for those of you who never got "Caught in the Camera Eye"...the show. This performance is a phenomenal one! Much better than the "Exit...Stage Right" one, though that one was great too! It's odd that ESR is the earliest known boot from this tour and this is the latest known boot, yet this one has more passion and enthusiasm! For the first part of the show they were playing extremely well, but by “The Trees” they were captured by the fiery spirit of rock and roll! The take of “Xanadu” is one of the best ever. Simply incredible, can't get that one up high enough! The version of “Tom Sawyer” is pretty damn amazing! Easily my favorite take on that one, and I've heard far to many! They seamed to be in a great mood on that night and they were really up for the show, they improvised the "Country Ditty" that we would later hear on "Cold Fire", they are joking around the whole night and play with a lot of passion. A curious moment happens when Geddy is introducing "YYZ" he says, "this is where we live, this is ‘YY Zed’". Whatever that means, I like it.
Okay, now for those of you older traders who already had "Caught in the Camera Eye". This does not even compare to the afore mentioned. This is really, really clean and smooth sounding. A lot better than CitCE. Every last nuance comes clear as clear can be. I don't think this is quite as good as ESR, close as it gets though! It's too hard to say which (between ESR and this one) I listen to more, I listen to them both a lot. This is not quite as upfront as ESR and has a little bit of tape hiss; it also has a little bit of talking. Those are all detractors that I think leave it 2nd in sound to ESR, but still leave this as one of my favorite bootlegs.
All in all, and I CANNOT stress this enough, this is MUST HAVE. You cannot be a diehard fan of this band without this bootleg!