Trio’s virtuosity delivers it hard, easy

The air drum: It's an invisible, but all-powerful instrument.

When played in unison, it results in grand feats of rhythmic gnarliness, awesome displays of synchronicity and a crapload of high fives.

And when Rush is in town, the masses gather, make-believe drum sticks in hand, to whack at the percussion of the mind's eye with the relish of a hungry toddler raiding the cookie jar.

Seriously, even Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson got in on the action at one point, swatting at an imagined snare during a heated "Entre Nous."

Rush's ceaselessly dexterous catalog lends itself well to this kind of hard rock role-playing, as most of their tunes are wild-eyed flights of fancy to begin with.

They sing of geometry and angels, symmetry and circumstance, and their songs occasionally come with three chins and a beer gut.

In a land of buffets, Rush embodies the all-you-can-eat impulse: The band thrills at attempting to bite off more than it can chew, and in their realm, more is always more.

It's some gloriously indulgent stuff, like eating birthday cake for breakfast, but their catalog is filled with enough metaphysical chin-scratching and class consciousness to make them more than a prog-rock confection for those with a sweet tooth for the 10-minute drum solo, which Rush drummer Neil Peart delivered with aplomb on a rotating kit.

Rush might have started out as a comic book come to life, a sci-fi obsessed power trio that crafted heady Spock rock tempered with Ayn Rand-inspired libertarian musings, but the band members have steadily become a more introspective, reflective bunch, highly attentive to the world around them.

At the MGM Grand on Saturday, the band delved heavily into their latest disc, the searching, disconsolate "Snakes and Arrows," which offers some razor-wire-sharp commentary on matters of conflict and faith.

It's an album that questions destiny, religion and the idea of providence, a searching, tumultuous disc that bristles with uncertainty and thumbs its nose at theological incongruities.

"Now it's come to this," singer/bassist Geddy Lee sang on a hard-charging "The Way the Wind Blows." "Wide-eyed armies of the faithful, from the Middle East to the Middle West. Pray, and pass the ammunition."

"Snakes" is one of the band's more visceral efforts, with a palpable sense of frustration and rancor, and the band's two set, better-than-three-hours-long performance followed suit, fueled by a restless, deviant energy.

Vintage classics -- "Digital Man," "A Passage to Bangkok," "The Spirit of Radio" -- received an infusion of torque, and the band rendered Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" the rock 'n' roll equivalent of a big sweaty flexed biceps.

All three members of the band possess the kind of virtuoso chops that have made them heavyweights of their respective instruments, and it's a kick to watch them run circles around each other without stepping on one another's toes.

During a teeth-rattling "Freewill," Lifeson's solos ricocheted around the arena like gunfire bouncing off of metal sheeting, while Lee plucked out acrobatic bass lines that practically swung from the rafters.

Likewise, the band rendered "Subdivisions" and "Natural Science" a one-two punch of itchy, elaborate arrangements with more peaks and valleys than a mountain range.

Rush's greatest gift is making the progressive palatable -- and populist, even -- rendering instrumental meticulousness and exactitude something that an arena full of stoners, gray-hairs and gray-haired stoners can sing along to.

And they tack on enough fantastical embellishments to their stage show to make it all go down easy -- lots of lasers, fire, stuff blowing up and a wall of rotisserie chickens cooking next to the drum kit.

But on this night, the show was ultimately grounded in the here and now, in global tension and the questionable notion of righteousness.

"No one gets to their heaven without a fight," Lee sang on moody rocker "Armor and Sword," and his message was clear: time to put down those arms, people, and pick up a pair of imaginary drumsticks.