Why did the chickens cross the road? Probably to get away from Rush [ tickets ], who slow-roasted 54 fowl in an onstage rotisserie throughout a stellar three-hour set at the Hollywood Bowl Monday night (7/23).

The classic rock-hued and progressively skewed crowd of more than 15,000 fared significantly better than the skewered poultry, as the prog-rock heroes from the Great White North served a two-set smorgasbord spanning their 22-album, 33-year career.

Anchored by nine tracks from "Snakes & Arrows"--the band's 18th studio album was released May 1, debuting at No. 3 on The Billboard 200--the set featured material dating as far back as 1976's breakthrough "2112" and the 1978 masterpiece "Hemispheres," and also included 13 tracks from the '80s.

"Dreamline" may have been the only track from the '90s, but it bridged the trio's expansive body of work just as it bridged the performance, closing the night's more nostalgia-minded first set with a metallic rattle precariously tethered to the bands progressive epicenter. With lasers slicing through the Hollywood Bowl sky, frontman/bassist/keyboardist Geddy Lee, guitarist Alex Lifeson and drummer Neil Peart demonstrated exactly why they've proven such an invaluable inspiration to bands that run the gamut from arthouse heavies Tool and metal goliaths Mastodon, to modern prog-masters Dream Theater and crossover rockers Queensryche. In fact, as early in the set as "The Main Monkey Business"--the first of three "Snakes & Arrows" instrumentals, with "Malignant Narcissism" and "Hope" later bracketing Peart's drum solo--the subtle fusion of hearty sonics and melodic rapture demonstrated a band that, while in their fourth decade, still hasn't lost a musical step. And lest the 27-song set run the risk of getting too heady, a crew member in an apron and chef's hat offered some monkey business of his own, coming out to baste the chicken that was cooking behind Lee, in ovens that took the place of speaker cabinets to the right of the drum kit. It was still daylight when "Limelight" opened the proceedings with a hearty swagger. The first of four tracks from 1981's epic "Moving Pictures," it demonstrated early the spot-on and meticulous musicianship that would mark the evening. The vocals weren't as consistent, but there were no atrocities, Lee seeming to pick his battles wisely. Where he pushed to meet a higher stretch on the opener, he later nailed "Subdivisions" as though it were effortless, wavered a bit on "Freewill," then delivered a vocal performance on "Distant Early Warning" that was as impeccable as the music that carried it more than two-and-a-half hours into the set.

Despite a sound that brilliantly bled from smooth and understated to thunderous and hard-hitting, Peart played with remarkable finesse, barely seeming to break a sweat behind the kit. He ushered in the climactic last quarter of the show with a seven-minute solo that triggered an industrial-dance, tribal explosion into a swinging jazz and a big band, boogie-woogie finale. Lifeson followed with a solo run through "Hope" before the band returned for the second set's closing trio of "Distant Early Warning," "The Spirit of Radio" and "Tom Sawyer."

The encore blitzed at a racing pace through "One Little Victory," Lee again spot-on vocally, then dirged the proceedings down with the night's oldest track, "A Passage To Bangkok," before the flash-furious opening of longtime set-closer "YYZ," where the spotlight darted about as bass lines sizzled, keyboards tickled, drums rolled and guitars glazed to wide-eyed wonder.

It proved a night that saw no shortage of highlights. "Circumstances" blew the first set into the stratosphere, Lee's vocals punching through Lifeson's arena-rock guitar grandeur with Peart providing a slow-building model of power and precision, and fans were still talking about "Natural Science" as they vacated the Bowl at night's end, the understated predecessor to just about every Dream Theater opus marching to a colossal apex of kinetic crunch and rhythmic swagger in the middle of the second set.

For the sake of nit-picking, opening the second set with five tracks from "Snakes & Arrows" may have been a bit overzealous, but when the rest of the night featured no fewer than 18 classic tracks, well, Rush [ tickets ] were more than accommodating.

Couple the comprehensive setlist with the truly awe-inspiring performances, and the results proved to be one of the most memorable Rush sets in a long, long time… Still no word on how that chicken tasted.

Set 1: Video Intro "Limelight" "Digital Man" "Entre Nous" "Mission" "Freewill" "The Main Monkey Business" "The Larger Bowl" "Secret Touch" "Circumstances" "Between the Wheels" "Dreamline"

Set 2: Video Intro "Far Cry" "Workin' Them Angels" "Armor and Sword" "Spindrift" "The Way the Wind Blows" "Subdivisions" "Natural Science" "Witch Hunt" "Malignant Narcissism" Drum Solo "Hope" "Distant Early Warning" "The Spirit of Radio" "Tom Sawyer"

Encore: "One Little Victory" "A Passage to Bangkok" "YYZ"