Living In The Limelight: The Best Rush Live Shows

The late Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart once described playing live as being akin to “living in a fisheye lens, caught in the camera eye,” but while it’s true the pioneering Canadian trio rarely courted publicity, they nonetheless came alive when they stepped onstage – and they performed some truly monumental shows during their time together.

Of course, with so many live shows to choose from, selecting a definitive list of Rush’s best live performances is a tough ask. Indeed, you could easily make a case for the inclusion of other landmark concerts such as the band’s sold-out five-night run at New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 1983; Madison Square Garden in May 1981 (a personal highlight of Geddy Lee’s) or a unique July 2003 event when Rush performed for nearly half a million people at the SARS benefit concert in Toronto. However, most of the shows we’ve highlighted for this bespoke list represent important milestones in Rush’s illustrious career and – with the new R50 boxset just about to land – this is surely the perfect time to re-join Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart living on a lighted stage.

Order the career-spanning Rush 50 anthology now.

WORKING MEN: LEGEND-BUILDING EARLY SHOWS

Laura Secord Secondary School, St. Catharine’s, Ontario, Canada, May 15, 1974

Rush’s first-ever live show in St. Catherine’s, Ontario on May 15, 1974 is significant for a variety of reasons. It’s widely believed to represent the earliest live recording of the band (both audio and video) and it’s also the only known live recording of the group’s first lineup (prior to Neil Peart’s arrival) with John Rutsey on drums. In addition, it features the only known live recording of “Before And After,” (from Rush) and two early non-album songs “I’ve Been Runnin’” and “The Loser.”

In retrospect, the idea of the future prog-rock pioneers performing to an audience of students might seem bizarre, but in its original incarnation, Rush often performed in similar situations, with other dates around this time including Don Mills Collegiate Institute in Toronto and Gravenhurst High School in Ontario.

With the band’s self-titled debut released in March 1974, the Laura Secord show was part of a yearlong support tour and it was filmed for the local Canadian TV show Canadian Bandstand. Long thought lost, the audio and video recording actually sat in the basement of Rush’s Toronto management company for years, but it was mislabelled as ‘Pinkpop’ (from the Dutch festival of the same name) and its existence was only discovered when the videotape was sent to Los Angeles to be transferred to digital video. As Geddy Lee says in his memoir My Effin’ Life, “it’s a curiosity I urge you to look up on YouTube if you haven’t already seen it.”

Agora Ballroom, Cleveland, Ohio, August 26, 1974

Rush’s original drummer John Rutsey suffered from diabetes and his illness forced him to step down from the band several months after the release of Rush in March 1974. He was replaced by Neil Peart just two weeks before the band’s first U.S. tour in the summer of 1974, with this Stateside jaunt including their first show at the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, Ohio – a venue which would become a regular stopover on Rush tours over the next few years.

Local radio station WMMS FM was on hand to tape Rush’s first U.S. show, and the recording reveals the band had already gained in confidence since Peart’s arrival. Indeed, Lee, Alex Lifeson and Peart perform tracks from Rush with gusto, in addition to debuting a couple of tracks from 1975’s Fly By Night and launching into a supercharged cover of Larry Williams’ 50s rocker “Bad Boy” and two super-rare tracks (“Fancy Dancer,” and “Garden Road”) that have never been included on any official Rush release.

Massey Hall, Toronto, Canada, June 25, 1975

Dating back to 1894, Toronto’s Massey Hall is Canada’s oldest (and arguably grandest) concert hall, so headlining a show there remains an important milestone for any Canadian act in the ascendant. Certainly, headlining at this 3,000 capacity venue was a big deal for Rush. Geddy Lee had wanted to do so ever since he attended Cream’s concert at the venue in 1968 and the bassist/vocalist got his chance when Rush set out on the Canadian jaunt to support its second album, 1975’s Fly By Night.

The Massey Hall concert showcased the heavier and more complex sound the band worked up following Peart’s arrival. As Geddy Lee said in one contemporary interview: “When Neil joined, we became a very different band than we were on our first album. We felt like we could do anything.” Indeed, Rush’s first Massey Hall headliner proved that the sky was now the limit for the band – and Lee, Lifeson and Peart would return to the venue for a triumphant three-night stand in June 1976 on the “2112” tour which would be recorded for Rush’s first live album, the acclaimed All The World’s A Stage.

CLOSER TO THE HEART: PEAK RUSH

Pinkpop Festival, The Netherlands, June 4, 1979

Though Rush’s fourth album 2112 went Top 5 in the U.S. their late 70s masterpieces A Farewell To Kings and Hemispheres attracted even more international recognition. Both records featured lengthy prog-rock epics (“Xanadu,” “La Villa Strangiato”) but also shorter pop/rock tracks (“Closer To The Heart,” “Circumstances,” “The Trees”) which were accessible enough to appeal to rock fans of all persuasions.

As a live act, Rush were also firing on all cylinders and performing some of their most memorable concerts during this period. Having established themselves as a major draw on the European festival circuit, Lee, Lifeson and Peart put on a truly stunning show at Holland’s long-running Pinkpop Festival in June 1979. The final show on the band’s yearlong “Hemispheres” world tour, it was destined to be spectacular and it didn’t disappoint, with Rush performing awesome renditions of classic songs ranging from “A Passage To Bangkok” and “By-Tor And The Snow Dog” through to “Xanadu,” “Closer To The Heart” and “La Villa Strangiato,” with most of it later enjoying official release as the bonus disc with the 2018 edition of Hemispheres.

The Forum, Montreal, Canada, March 27, 1981

Whether on record or onstage, Rush was nigh on invincible during the late 1970s and early 80s. The success of A Farewell To Kings and Hemispheres led to further multi-million-selling classics Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures at the start of the 80s, with the Canadian trio seemingly able to knock out both radio-friendly rock/pop songs (“The Spirit Of Radio”, “Tom Sawyer”) and complex epics (“Natural Science,” “The Camera Eye”) with an ease bordering on nonchalance.

Incredibly, Rush were also touring virtually non-stop, with their live shows again hitting a fresh peak. Indeed, the band’s fall tour of 1980 gave them barely four months break before the “Moving Pictures” tour kicked off in February 1981. The staggering, 95-date itinerary saw Rush performing to almost 1 million fans and resulted in the superb souvenir live album, Exit…Stage Left, much of which was culled from a spectacular show at Montreal’s 20,000 capacity Forum featuring back-projected films, pyrotechnics and dry ice – not to mention a killer, career-spanning set taking in everything from early staples (“In The Mood,” “Working Man”) through to freshly-minted classics “Freewill,” “Limelight,” and “Red Barchetta.”

Seto-Shi Bunka Center, Seto, Aicho, Japan, November 16, 1984

Remarkably, while Rush cultivated a sizable following in Japan during the mid-to-late 1970s, they only ever played one tour of the country – and that only consisted of four shows tacked on at the end of the “Grace Under Pressure” tour in November 1984.

Nonetheless, the wait was worth it for the band’s loyal Japanese supporters, with Lee, Lifeson and Peart performing powerful, career-spanning sets with precision to spare at each of this quartet of shows. They also concluded each soiree with multiple encores including Moving Pictures classic “Vital Signs” and early favorites “Finding My Way” and “In The Mood.”

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE: THE ARENA YEARS

NEC Arena, Birmingham, U.K. April 23, 1988

While it’s generally accepted that Rush’s peak period was around the turn of the 1980s, the band’s appeal remained steady thereafter and they ended the decade pretty much as they began it – by packing out arenas around the world.

The iconic Canadians set out on another huge tour of North America, the UK, and Europe in support of 1988’s Hold Your Fire: a gruelling, 78-date affair running from the fall of 1987 through the summer of 1988. It spawned the spin-off live album A Show Of Hands (1989) but it differed in the sense that – “Closer To The Heart” aside – the setlist consisted entirely of tracks from the 1980s. Nonetheless, that still offered Rush enough scope to play classics such as “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight” and “The Spirit Of Radio” in addition to introducing newer tracks like “Prime Mover” and “Turn The Page” into the live set. Culled primarily from two excellent U.K. shows at Birmingham’s cavernous NEC Arena in April 1988, Show Of Hands again revealed that Rush was among the best live bands on the planet.

World Music Theatre, Tinley Park, Illinois, June 14, 1997

On a personal level, the late 1990s were turbulent for Rush – and especially for Neil Peart, whose daughter, Selena, died in a car accident in 1997, only for his wife Jacqueline to pass away from cancer just 10 months later.

Prior to the first of these tragedies, Rush had performed some superb live shows on the tour in support of 1997’s Test For Echo, with an impressive show at the 28,000-capacity World Music Theater in Tinley, Illinois providing the bulk of the material for the subsequent live album, Different Stages. As that record’s tracklist reveals, much of the tour’s setlist showcases tracks from Rush’s most recent albums, Roll The Bones, Counterpoints and Test For Echo, though the final track, “2112” (captured at a separate show in Mansfield, Massachussetts) provided a boon for long-term fans as it marked the first (and to date, only) time the 20-minute “2112” suite was recorded in its entirety for inclusion on an official Rush live album.

SWEET MIRACLES: TURNING TRAGEDY TO TRIUMPH

Maracanã Stadium, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, November 23, 2002

The deaths of Neil Peart’s wife and daughter could potentially have finished Rush, with the drummer and lyricist telling his two bandmates they should “consider him retired” in 1998. However, while the band went on extended hiatus, they eventually returned with a new album, Vapor Trails, and a supporting tour: a five-month affair running from June to November 2002, taking in North America and Canada before concluding with three huge shows in Brazil. These Brazil concerts were among the largest Rush ever performed, with the band playing to 60,000 ecstatic fans in Sao Paolo and 40,000 at the final date in Rio De Janeiro – an event that was enshrined in legend by 2003’s self-explanatory Rush In Rio live album and DVD. Lee, Lifeson and Peart played marathon, career-spanning sets during this tour, usually performing around 30 songs (including encores). The subsequent Rush In Rio differed from Rush’s previous live albums by presenting a single night’s show in its entirety, with the exception of the two final tracks, “Between Sun & Moon” and “Vital Signs” which were recorded at shows in Arizona and Quebec City respectively.

Radio City Music Hall, New York, August 18 & 19, 2004

Rush always enjoyed stalwart support in New York, so at least one of their Big Apple shows really must feature in any self-respecting overview of their live history. In fact, the only issue here is which NYC show to include. After all, in his memoir Geddy Lee personally identifies Rush’s first Madison Square Garden gig (in May 1981) as a career highlight, while the band’s five-night stand at the legendary Radio City Music Hall in 1983 surely merits a mention.

Ultimately, though, the band’s triumphant return to Radio City Music Hall gets the nod here, for in August 2004, Rush performed at the venue for the first time since 1983, playing two rapturously-received nights as part of the “R30” tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of its classic lineup. Taking in almost 60 shows in total, the tour launched at the Starwood Amphitheatre in Nashville, Tennessee on May 26, 2004, and ended at the Sportpaleis Ahoy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands on October 1 of that same year. It was slightly more intimate than some previous tours of duty in that Rush played strictly theatres and amphitheatres in North America and indoor arenas in Europe.

In addition, the band delighted fans by presenting a generous, career-spanning set including songs which had long been absent from the setlist – something Alex Lifeson noted when he said, “We felt it was important to touch on all periods of our songwriting…the crowd was smiling the whole time, especially when we did ‘A Passage To Bangkok’ and ‘Bastille Day.’ They haven’t heard those songs in a zillion years.”

IN THE END: A DIGNIFIED EXIT…STAGE LEFT AND RIGHT

Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland, Ohio, April 15, 2011

Rush’s “Time Machine” tour of 2010-11 tapped into the growing trend for bands performing one of their classic albums live, with Lee, Lifeson and Peart choosing to perform Moving Pictures in its entirety to celebrate the album’s 30th anniversary. Inevitably, demand for tickets was high and Rush rewarded fans by playing not just Moving Pictures, but also a selection of classics including “The Spirit Of Radio,” “Freewill,” “Subdivisions” and “Closer To The Heart” and several tracks from their forthcoming album Clockwork Angels. As they had previously done with Rush In Rio, the band chose to film and record one specific night from the tour for the subsequent live album and DVD, but Rush chose a terrific live show, with the concert at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, capturing them on sparkling form and later earning the band a nomination for a Juno award.

The Forum, Los Angeles, California, August 1, 2015

Rush toured its last studio album, Clockwork Angels, from December 2012 through August 2013, but decided to return for a final bow with a final “R40” tour – this time celebrating the band’s classic lineup’s 40th anniversary with a tour of the U.S. and Canada.

Taking in 33 dates, “R40” was shorter than many of Rush’s mammoth global treks, but it was an enormous success, with the band selling out most of the dates and playing to audiences of at least 12,000 each night. The setlist too, delighted the die-hards as it touched on 16 of Rush’s 20 studio albums in reverse chronological order across two complete sets, with the band playing around three hours of music each night. As you might expect, the final show was among the most emotional of the trek. Their storming final show at Los Angeles’ Forum culminated in a performance of their very first hit “Working Man.”

Order the career-spanning Rush 50 anthology now.