Disc One -- Original Album
Disc Two -- Live at Pinkpop Festival, June 4, 1979
Disc Three -- Blu-ray of 5:1 mixes and rare material
Rush's classic 1978 album Hemispheres is to be given a lick of paint to mark the album's 40th birthday. The new version will be available in three versions of increasingly complexity, as well as in a number of different bundle forms. It will be released on November 16.
“Hemispheres was one of our most challenging and demanding records to make,” says Alex Lifeson. “From its inception in a Wales farmhouse where it was written over a four-week span to the very difficult mixing sessions in two London recording studios, it stands as a key transitional album in Rush’s long recording history.”
The Super Deluxe Edition includes two CDs, one Blu-ray disc, and three 180-gram black vinyl LPs. The set includes the Abbey Road remastered edition of the album on CD for the first time, along with previously unreleased and newly restored bonus audio from the band’s 1979 Pinkpop Festival performance in the Netherlands. The third bonus disc contains a 5:1 surround sound mix of the album on Blu-ray disc, plus four bonus videos: three shot in 1978 as promo videos, and one for La Villa Strangiato, originally shot at Pinkpop.
The Super Deluxe Edition will also include several exclusive items, including a 40-page hardcover book with unreleased photos and new artwork by original album designer Hugh Syme; an 11,000+-word essay by Rob Bowman; The Words & The Pictures, a replica of the band’s 1979 UK tour programme; a 24x24-inch wall poster of the new album art; a Pinkpop Festival replica ticket; a Pinkpop Festival replica cloth VIP sticky pass; and a replica 1978 Rush Hemispheres iron-on patch.
The regular Deluxe Edition features a shorter version of the essay and the replica programme, while the vinyl edition comes with the shorter essay, the programme, and a 5x5-inch digital download card sticker of Syme’s new artwork.
There are also bundle packages available which include a Rush water bottle, a notebook, a t-shirt, and a phial of Neil Peart's sweat. That last one isn't true.
The bundles are available to pre-order from the Rush store.
The band have previously released anniversary editions of A Farewell To Kings and 2112.
