Rush! You either love em or hate em

Rush are one of those bands that a lot of people have never heard of. They have however, sold tens of millions of records and have 24 gold and 14 platinum selling records. Impressive! They however are generally more popular with musicians and music aficianados given the extremely high level of competency displayed by each of the members on his instrument. Formed by Alex Lifeson, (guitar) Geddy Lee (bass) and John Rutsey (drums) in Toronto, Canada in 1968, Rush set out as typical garage band, jamming on Cream numbers and the like. After years of practice and honing their talents, it took until 1974 before that they first started to get noticed and soon released their self titled debut album 'Rush'.
A month before they were due to begin their first US tour, Rutsey announced his decison to back out of the band so the race was on to find a new drummer... and what a drummer they found. Enter Neil Peart, aka The Professor. Not only did Peart bring his exceptional skills with a pair of sticks and some skins, he also bought a creative flair that would be the heart of the bands lyrics/songwriting right up to the present day.

Rush are a band that have had several facelifts, starting out as a hard rock/blues band, and currently a straight rock band, with a few guises inbetween. When Peart joined, the band began to take on a more conceptual feel. With epic album tracks, lyrics dripping in Sci-Fi and Fantasy lore, they began to have a more creative take on their original hard rock theme, and were being classed as a Progressive Rock band. When the mid eighties hit, the band reached to what some consider a low, as many older fans did not agree with their new Synth based sound, which to me just sounds very dated these days. My opinion is that only a few of the albums released since 1981/82 have got the odd one or two decent tracks on. Anyway, they just lost such a huge cool factor that existed in their first few albums and became the band of the muso, not cool enough for mainstream, but still impressing many with their skills.

I'll probably flesh this post out with a few other tracks later on, but I had to share this song with you as its such a rarity. Recorded 1 month after Peart joined, at a venue in Cleveland, Ohio. This is taken from a bootleg recording of this gig and it is an absolutely brilliant representation of their early formative years. Never mind the odd mistake here and there, what do you expect after only a month of practice? I think it adds to the overal feel of the performance, plus, its the only time you will ever mistakes such as these from a Rush concert, such is their musicianship.

Anway, enjoy 'What You're Doing' released on their debut, but taken here from the bootleg album 'The Fifth Order of Angels'. I think it really captures what a power trio these guys are/were!