The Rush appreciation thread

Blacksword wrote: Of all the 70's prog bands Rush were the only one who went into the 80's with any dignity and without loss of integrity IMO. Permanent Waves to GUP was a run of albums which far exceeded anything by Yes, Floyd, Tull, KC or Genesis in terms of quality, for that era, IMO.

 

I agree, with the exception of King Crimson. Robert Fripp wanted to do anything but a retread of the '70s. You may recall that '80s KC was initially a band called Discipline, kind of like Yes calling themselves Cinema before they found out they couldn't.

I love '80s KC. That said, Rush from Permanent Waves through Hold Your Fire certainly enjoyed more spin time. I couldn't begin to tell you how many hours of Rush I've heard in my lifetime.

They are one of the very few bands who get labelled prog who have a big audience outside of prog. There are people into country and rap who like Rush also.

Edit: Ok, I see they were referring to Canada which is kind of strange considering they were from Canada. I wouldn't expect them to have less airplay in their home country than in the US but I guess that's how it was.

Yeah, that's the one. It was written by "the B Man" who apparently later had a falling out with the band unfortunately. 

Actually there was no record flipping involved. No, the story I heard was that Donna Halper who was the dj(and music director) at a rock station in Cleveland caled wmms was looking for a "bathroom song" and came across "working man" which was the longest track on the album. She played it and knew it would go down well in Cleveland which was very working class. This was documented in the Beyond the lighted stage dvd. Historically some djs have been known to flip records and have the b side become a "hit" but that wasn't the case here. While there were two singles released from that first album neither of those singles had "working man" as a b side so I'm not sure what you are referring to. Like I said it was an album track that was chosen as a bathroom break song because of it's length. Then people started calling in asking about the new Led Zeppelin song! Lol. 

I was referring to headline shows as in a larger crowd(say over 200)not counting bars or small clubs and where they would have someone supporting them as opposed to the other way around. 

As for hearing fly by night and anthem did you hear them before or after 2112 was released? Just wondering. I remember reading in a rush biography(the red book if you remember that one)where the guy said they struggled to get on the radio in the early days.

It depends what you mean by "headline shows". There are dates before the release of Rush debut where they played venues as the only act. Sure a lot of them were HS gyms and church basements, but all bands started this way.

I remember hearing Working Man but not knowing who the band was, and later on realizing it was Rush. Anthem and Fly By Night I also remembering hearing on KMET 94.7FM "The Mighty Met", in Los Angeles, KMET was a pioneer of playing progressive rock in LA, that's where I first heard Genesis also....This was around '76 I remember, that's about the time I started getting into Rush.