RUSH Clockwork Angels Tour in Austin,Texas – 2013. Photo RollingStone.com

I stayed up late last night watching a Netflix documentary on one of my favorite bands: RUSH! The documentary was “Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage”. If you have never given RUSH a serious listen, you should! You can start with my Top Ten RUSH songs:

1. Red Barchetta 

2. Working Man

3. Tom Sawyer

4. 2112 Overture / The Temples of Syrinx

5. Trees

6. Fly By Night

7. Freewill

8. Subdivisions

9. The Spirit of Radio

10. Limelight

RUSH hit the Canadian music scene back in 1968. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and John Rutsey formed the original trio. In 1974, their debut album, RUSH, was released to limited fanfare in the United States until a rock radio station in Cleveland, Ohio began playing the song “Working Man”. Soon after that, RUSH was taking America by storm! Not long after the success of “Working Man”, Rutsey left the group due to health reasons and Neil Peart joined the band. Lee, Lifeson, and Peart have been the heart and soul of RUSH for the last forty years. The fact that they have stayed friends and produced high caliber music for forty years is amazing! Their talent as musicians is unsurpassed by any group now or then. I experienced my first RUSH concert on The Signals Tour in 1982 and was blown away musically. I witnessed Geddy Lee play bass guitar, bass pedals, keyboards, and sing…ALL AT THE SAME TIME! Amazing! It is one the best concerts I have ever experienced. 

It was hard to narrow such a vast musical catalog down to ten songs. I still ask myself why I did not include the instrumentals “La Villa Strangiato” and “YYZ”. And then there is the classic tune “Closer to the Heart” or “New World Man”. And some of their later stuff such as “Clockwork Angels” and “Vapor Trails”. Maybe I should have made a Top 20 list! My brother-n-law Mike is a big RUSH fan too, so I wonder what his take will be on my top ten…what do you think Mike? Oh well, time to strap on the headphones and crank up “Red Barchetta”…viva la RUSH!

© 2019 Gregory Vessar