Time/Songs:

All The World's a Stage Tour

Tour Dates

On the cover of All The World's a Stage

All The World's A Stage is a pretty straight-forward cover, except that the original pressings of the album came with a triple gatefold jacket.

Hugh Syme (Creem, 1983): "Yes, well, that was during the hiatus of outrageous packaging. As I said, AGI in Chicago did all of Rush's printing then, up until about four years ago. Albums like Ooh La La by the Faces, and Physical Graffiti-all of that was going on then, so we thought we'd go for a six panel jacket."

Why did Rush put out a live album?

Neil Peart (Circus, November 25th 1976): "With 2112, we felt we had reached a first plateau. We had realized the goals we set for ourselves before the second album [when Peart replaced the band's former drummer, John Rutsey]. Musically, it looked like a logical place to do a live album. We had four albums' worth of material honed down to a live show. And the record company was hot for a live album."

Peart feels that the live album will help present a more accurate picture of where the band is currently at.

"When we play a piece live, we add all our little quirks to it. It grows; our older material shows a remarkable progression. Some of the old songs have developed until they're superior to the originals. This gives us a chance to bring them up to date. We always felt there was something happening live that didn't come across on record. Now we have the opportunity to capture that essence of the band.

"Also, All the World's a Stage presents our material to people who may have heard or liked a couple of our songs, but never got into all our albums. Now they can have those songs together on one album without our having to put out a Best of Rush package."