In front of the pile Animated pictures – 40th anniversary album collection release, Rush shared live performance audio of “Vital Signs (Live in YYZ 1981)” recorded at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario on March 25, 1981. The unreleased concert sold out will be featured on the Super Deluxe Edition of Animated picturesout April 15 via UMe/Mercury and Anthem Records.
The Super Deluxe Edition is one of six variants in which Moving Pictures – 40th Anniversary will be available, in addition to the Three-CD Deluxe Edition, Five-LP Deluxe Edition, One-LP Edition, Digital Deluxe Edition and Dolby Atmos Digital Edition.
As the first tier of releases, the edition containing the 1981 concert at Maple Leaf Gardens will also include the band’s eighth studio album on three CDs, a Blu-ray audio disc and five high-quality 180-gram black vinyl records encompassing all the 2015 remastered edition of the disc from Abbey Road Mastering Studios.
The previously unreleased and newly restored live material featured on the disc was mixed from the original live analog multitracks by Terry Brown, Rush’s original producer.
The Blu-ray disc will contain four bonus videos, one of which is a remastered vintage promotional video for “Vital Signs”. It appears alongside videos for “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight” as well as a new music video for “YYZ”.
“Vital Signs” served as the closing track to Animated pictures. The album, released on February 12, 1981, encapsulated the progressive rock band’s infatuation with the urgency and fresh presence of pop and new wave, contextualized through their own genre.
“It’s a very upbeat album,” Alex Lifeson told MusicRadar in 2011. “There’s a luminosity about it, which I think is why people react to it so much. Playing it live every night is interesting – The Camera Eye, which we haven’t played for a long time because it’s quite difficult, has now become one of our favorite songs. In the end, we are very proud of Moving Pictures. Thirty years on late, it’s always magic.
Pre-order the 40th Anniversary Extended Editions of Animated pictures.
