A SHOW OF HANDS
Released 1989 by Polygram Music Video
Went Gold (500,000 copies) on June 9, 1989
Went Platinum (1,000,000 copies) on June 9, 1989
Purchase this VHS
Laserdisc Discontinued - No Longer Available
Purchase this DVD
Available on the Replay X3 DVD Set.

PolyGram MusicVideo VHS (041 760-3) - 90 min.
Laserdisc (CDV 080 575-1) - 95 min.
DVD.

Geddy Lee - bass guitar, synthesizers, vocals
Alex Lifeson - guitars, synthesizers, backing vocals
Neil Peart - acoustic and electronic percussion

1. The Big Money
2. Marathon
3. Turn the Page
4. Prime Mover
5. Manhattan Project
6. Closer to the Heart
7. Red Sector A
8. Force Ten
9. Lock and Key (Laserdisc Only)
10. Mission
11. Territories
12. YYZ / The Rhythm Method - Drum Solo
13. The Spirit of Radio
14. Tom Sawyer
15. 2112: I. Overture, II. The Temples Of Syrinx / La Villa Strangiato / In the Mood

Director: Larry Jordan
Produced by Len Espand for PolyGram Music Video and John Diaz for Calhoun Productions
Director of Photography: Crescenzo G.P. Notarile
Lighting Director: Howard Ungerleider
Audio Production: Geddy Lee
Engineered by Paul Northfield
Executive Producer: Val Azzoli for Anthem Entertainment
Management by Ray Danniels for S.R.O.
Line Producer: T'Boo Dalton
Stage Manager: Liam Birt
Production Manager: Nick Kotos
Concert Sound Engineer: Jon Erickson
Stage Left Technician: Skip Gildersleeve
Centre Stage Technician: Larry Allen
Stage Right Technician: Jim Johnson
Stage Right Assistant: George Steinert
Synthesizer Engineer: Tony Geranios
Stage Monitor Engineer: Steve Byron
Concert Projectionist: Lee Tenner
Personal Shreve: Kevin Flewitt
Assistant Director: Iain Patrick
Production Manager: Allen Newman
Production Accountant: Jill McKenna
Camera Operators: Billy Braggs, Bill Deboorman, Joe Dyer, Duncan Humphries, John Metcalfe, Steve Tickner, Adrian Wilde
Louma Operator: Peter Robinson
Louma Technician: Adam Samuelson
Camera Assistants: George Binnersley, Jeremy Brigden, Tim Morris Jones, Steve Lee, Richard Pilpott, Simon Reeves, Peter Seleznick
Clapper Loaders: Ben Davis, Sam Garwood, John Foster, Dominick Kersley.
Time Code: Tim Fraser
Time Code Assistants: Buddy Blackwell, Nigel Jackson
Graffer: Graham Miller
Grips: Bob Howland, Martin McCullagh, Andy Edridge, Gary Romaine.
Make Up: Prudence Oliver
Production Assistants: Cleo Hodgekinson, Jake Lloyd, Sue Mathews, Daniel Murdoch.
Concert Sound by Audio Analysts; Michael Caron, Paul Parker, Dan Schriber and Mike Mule
Lighting and See Factor Inc; Frank Scilingo, Jack Funk, Conrad Coriz, Roy Niendorf, Ethan Weber, Russell Sladek
Varilites: Matthew Druzbik, Daniel Koniar, Bill Snawder
Animation and Rear Screen Projection by Keen; Norman Stangl
Concert Rigging by Myriad/One: Billy Collins, Don Collins, Tim Wendt, Bill Spoon
Lasers by Laser Media: Craig Spredeman
Laserlite Effects by Steve Magyar
Drivers: Tom Whittaker, Mac MacLear, John Davis, Daniel Harmer, Tom Hartman, Leonard Southwick, Bill Barlow, Rande Wolters, and Russell Fleming
Booking Agencies: International Creative Management, The Academy Group, London/Toronto
Mixed at the McClear Place Studios, Toronto; Rick Anderson
Masterd by Masterdisk, New York; Bob Ludwig
Film Processing by Technicolor, London
Telecine by Image Mix, New York; Vincent Violandi
Edited by Teletronics, New York; by Judy Minot
Additional Editing at Telstar Editing, New York; Unitel Video, New York
Filmed at the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, England (April 21, 23, 24, 1988)

©1988 Polygram Records, Inc.

It is time. Through the sudden darkness we run to the stage, the intro tape drowned in a roaring wave of welcome. Our tension is fed by the audience's anticipation for this long-overdue return to Britain, and by the presence of another, silent audience -- the microphone ears and camera eyes which will focus on our performance.

For a band with high standards, a perfect show is impossible, and an excellent show is rare. You hope that the norm is "good." To deliver a really exceptional, comfortable performance before a recording truck or film crew has been our unfulfilled dream for many years. Always it seemed that as soon as the machines started rolling, we forgot how to play and our equipment forgot how to work. Any tiny inaccuracy seemed magnified to staggering immensity by an internal vision of spinning tape-reels, malevolent machinery capturing tha damned millisecond forever.

But for these nights, the gods smile. The ears and eyes of technology open to capture the responses of the audience and the players to the music, to the atmosphere, to each other. The panorama of faces alone mirrors a novel's worth of expression and emotion; intense, playful, concentrated, abandoned, pained, laughing, serious, and downright silly. Shifting beams of colored light animate the stage and follow the player's every move, while the audience is picked out in tinted pools, a sea of shining faces. Cartoon backdrops spring to life behind the band, then leap out to fill the screen. Lasers slash and stab at the darkness. A filament of shared tension and release connects the musicians, the audience, the music.

And the film becomes not just a concert, but a symbol -- for the band a scrapbook, an autobiography, and era of frozen in glacial clarity. For the audience, it can be an enduring souvenir, and if it can't quite capture what it was like to be there, it is a way of seeing through many pairs of eyes, of shiftig one's vantage-point around and above the players in a way no mortal could.

Hands perform, and hands respond. Hands gesture, and hands respond. A show of ears and eyes, a show of hearts and minds. A Show Of Hands.

Neil Peart