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99man
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Where did I first hear Rush?

Was it the Rush self titled album? No no, that's not it.

Oh, it must had been Fly By Night? Nope.

 

1975 K-tel "Canada Gold" Album. Yup. Eleven years old, purchased to hear my favorite song - Last Song by Edward Bear.

But soon tired of that and started listening to other songs on the record.

"In The Mood" by Rush. Rush? They named themselves using a verb?

Suffice to say - I was hooked.

 

Love to hear some members introduction into the word of Rush.

 

Bonus - Favorite album - All the World's a Stage.

 

Regards

Edited by 99man
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Because of their radio hits, I have always known who they were for as long back as I can remember. I became a fan around the time Counterparts was released. I was 14 years old and I finally got to the age where they clicked with me. I remember hearing Limelight on the radio around that time and everything all of a sudden got my attention. Even though I had heard the song many times before that, this was the first time I was actually really listening to it. It was the lyrics that stood out for me. I remember thinking "wow, these lyrics are great! They're so different from what most other bands write". Musically, they were obviously on another level from most as well. I started collecting their albums not too long after that and they have been my favorite band ever since. Edited by J2112YYZ
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I first heard Working Man on WMMS in 1974. I was 14. Instantly became my favorite band. Saw them the first time in December of 1974 at the Cleveland Agora for $3.00 ($3.50 day of show) that I bowered from my mom. I was underage but still got in. Saw them for the 2nd time in Akron in November of 1975 opening for Ted Nugent on the Down The Tubes tour. They played The Necromancer at that show. That ticket was $5.50 that I also borrowed from my mom. Been my favorite band ever since.
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My sister was a big fan so I heard some of 2112 in the 80's. I can't remember seeing them on MTV but that may be that it just didn't register. I would hear Tom Sawyer all the time (sadly most rock radio stations in my neck of the woods don't seem to know they are not one hit wonders) and know who they were.

Fast forward to 2004, I took my sister to R30 for her birthday and was impressed. Yet I did not become obsessed with them until I saw Beyond the Lighted Stage on VH1 over New Year's 2011. I had a new friend who was a long time rabid fan and she began to lend me her CD's so I could listen. Have completely enjoyed learning all about their music and they are my second most favorite band (after the Beatles) and I listen to them all the time, watch concert videos on YouTube whenever I can. Amazing guys, so glad I did get to see them in concert 3 times but wish I had gone to more. :rush: :haz:

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Was recommended I give them a listen by a friend probably 2006/7. Bought Chronicles, didn`t like it, returned it.

 

I have no idea what prompted it, but thought I`d give them another go in mid-2018 and picked up The Spirit of Radio collection. Everything fell into place, and quite predictably it was Limelight and The Trees that hooked me at first, before the deeper stuff. So I bought the entire back catalog over the following six months.

 

So weird that I had to be nearly 43 before I understood what Rush were about, because in theory they are the band I`d always been searching for :crazy:

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Also got started with one of those K-Tel collections, but this one had "New World Man" on it, and shortly thereafter I saw the video for "Distant Early Warning" on MTV. I got Grace Under Pressure at K-Mart the next time my mom took me grocery shopping.

 

I think, but wouldn't swear to it, since I couldn't drive yet, that I had all the other albums (cassettes) by the time I got Power Windows on the day it came out, but if I hadn't yet, it was close.

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I knew Tom Sawyer was theirs, it was played constantly when I was 11 and it was the coolest thing on the radio. It was a few more years before I realized that every Rush song on the radio was a song I loved. Limelight, New World Man, Freewill, Closer to the Heart, Working Man, Distant Early Warning. It was a commercial for a concert in Omaha that connected those dots. So when Power Windows came out I realized this was a favorite band.
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I first heard Rush in the summer of '76 when a friend and I were walking though the town square. A friend of my older brother's pulled up next to us in his car to ask where my brother was, and he was playing 2112 on his car 8-track player (the song was just starting).

 

It didn't do a thing for me.

 

About a year later I was only way home from school when my brother was playing By-Tor and the Snowdog on the home stereo. I walked into the house right at the section where Neil does his big drum fills, and I was mesmerized.

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1974 / 75 - Toronto radio. In the Mood and Working Man. My band in high school did a Working Man cover - I am sure that it rocked! :D By the time FBN came out I was a rabid fan.
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The first time I distinctly remember hearing Rush was in 2007 when Snakes & Arrows came out in the car with my dad. I was 6 years old and had a blast jamming out to Far Cry. I'm sure I heard Rush before then, but that is the first time I'm cognizant of.
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Back in 1975 we started a band as bright eyed 16/17 yr olds who thought we would make it big (sadly totally deluded lol!)

Another local band who were a bit older than us and had better gear played Anthem and Bastille Day.

They put me on to Caress Of Steel which had just been released here.

After that, I bought the first two albums, and from then on I purchased everything up until Signals on week of release.

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In The Mood on the radio in '74. :codger: Likely heard Working Man around that time too. WM grabbed me but it wasn't til 2112 that I dove in deeper. Edited by driventotheedge
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I heard them play at the Cough In (or whatever it was called) and was hooked from then. :drool:

 

Actually, I first heard them on a friend's record player (before they became "turntables") and things bloomed from there. I believe it was either A Farewell To Kings or Hemispheres as they were both in heavy rotation.

Edited by Fordgalaxy
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My older cousin is a professional pianist -- mostly classical and jazz. He also cut many solo albums. He's one of those brilliant ones. He was playing turn-of-the-century Scott Joplin ragtime pieces when he was 13.

Anyways, when I turned 15, in 1990, he was already established in music. He gave me three CDs for my birthday.

 

"Best classical in the world -- here's Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto."

"Best jazz in the world -- here's Oscar Peterson."

"Best rock in the world -- here's Moving Pictures."

 

I liked it a lot. I bought 2112 and Presto (the newest one) in the following months. Loved both of them.

The next year, I saw the RTB tour twice.

 

I would say that they were in my top three bands at that time, along with U2 and Floyd.

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My first newly released Rush album was Presto. I remember seeing the video for "Show Don't Tell" when it was first aired on MTV. After that, I started buying their previous releases and the rest is history.
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Was listening to my Sears knock off Walkman while at school and my friend Louis ( thanks man ! ) asked me if I ever heard of RUSH. I said no and he gave me his Moving Pictures Cassette. As I walked home from school I was instantly hooked. I wanted to know all about this band . I even opened the case and read the liner notes. Alex Lifeson Guitar , Geddy Lee Bass ( Geddy????) and Neil Peart Percussion. I went from listening exclusively to Jazz artist like Maynard Ferguson ( I was in school band ) to being a certified RUSH fan. This was about 1982 and I think right before Signals was released. I immediately went to Hot Records and Tapes and bought used copies of all the RUSH I could find . And man was my mind blown. That Synthesizer solo in Circumstances man ....wow ! And Permanent Waves ... I didn't stand a chance.
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Lot's of great stories here. Always a fun topic.

 

I was just getting into classic rock around 2010 and 2011 in 7th and 8th grade. I already knew about the hits of The Beatles, The Stones, and Queen pretty well, and a smattering of hits from other bands that would play on the radio. I'm sure I must've heard Tom Sawyer or something in there a few times, though it didn't immediately stand out (I was learning most everything all at once, Foghat seemed just as important as Led Zeppelin). I probably read about "progressive rock" on wikipedia somewhere as an explanation for some songs that seemed abnormal (like Bohemian Rhapsody, Carry On Wayward Son, or Stairway To Heaven) because I think I had an idea that it existed before I was formally introduced to Rush. Anyway one day my Dad got a new ringtone (he'd actually recorded off of the radio) on his cell phone of Geddy singing the first verse of Closer To The Heart. After a few days or weeks of hearing it every once in a while, I asked him "Dad, who's that girl singing on your phone?" Well of course he laughed and discovered I hadn't yet discovered Rush, which was a band he'd always respected and loved though he'd never quite been a super fan the way he was for Kiss (and the way we both are for Rush now). So he told me about them, then told me I needed to listen to this 20 minute song called 2112. I made a new Pandora radio station based on 2112 that night so I could hear it while doing homework, and right from the get go it blew my mind. All 20 glorious minutes were unlike anything I'd ever heard. I had to know about the story, I had to know about the band, and you can bet I let that 2112 station (and probably eventually a general Rush station) play all the time going forward. Then sometime in the summer between junior high and high school I got money to buy my first albums with (on iTunes of course, it was 2012 by this time), and my first purchases were Queen, Queen II, and 2112. Only a couple weeks later I went back to buy this brand new Rush album the critics were raving about, Clockwork Angels, and now I had two Rush albums I could listen to whenever I wanted. I was quickly becoming a super fan. But I still don't think it was all cemented until that fall, after I'd started high school, when my dad and I agreed we needed to get the one that had Closer To The Heart on it, A Farewell To Kings. He bought it one day on CD and came and picked me up from school listening to it. He started it over for me when I got in the car and I read through the lyrics while hearing all this incredible music. It was at that point I knew Rush would forever be one of my absolute favorite bands. Over the Beatles and the Stones and nearly everything (except Queen, who's third album Sheer Heart Attack I'd also recently purchased).

 

For that Christmas I asked for the next two in each bands discography on CD, A Night At The Opera for Queen (soon to become my favorite album of all time) and Hemispheres for Rush (an unimpeachable classic I love more with every passing year). In spring I got Permanent Waves and A Day At The Races, in summer I got Moving Pictures (ripped from the library, then I rebought it a couple years later), next fall was Signals and News Of The World (and I discovered this little website called The Rush Forum and made an account), Christmas brought me Jazz (digital still) and my first turntable, so after getting Grace Under Pressure from the library (like Moving Pictures before it), I picked up Power Windows and Hold Your Fire a few months apart from each other on vinyl record! I kept getting the digital Queen albums in order (with the exception of The Game, which I found in a flea market on vinyl around the same time I was looking to get it digitally, so I never bought the digital version), but after HYF I went backwards with Rush, listening to what I already had mostly, finding All The World's A Stage on vinyl at Goodwill, and eventually buying Caress Of Steel digitally and checking out the debut from the library. Next winter my dad found Presto, Roll The Bones, Counterparts, Test For Echo, and Fly By Night all for super cheap at Half Price Books, so I took my time going through those one at a time (he also found a copy of Grace Under Pressure to replace the digital files I had ripped from the library copy then gotten rid of after feeling guilty about stealing music from the library). I listened to Vapor Trails and Snakes And Arrows in there from the library somewhere, but didn't buy the CD's of them till much later when I was in college. At some point I also bought Exit... Stage Left digitally, and when Neil passed away last year I made my most recent Rush purchase, A Show Of Hands, also digitally. Sorry for rambling about collecting all the albums, but the collecting is a big part of how I became more and more of a fan. Along with sharing Rush with friends, posting a lot here, and especially my dad and I sharing our first (and sadly last) Rush concert in 2015. They played both of our favorite songs, both from that A Farewell To Kings CD he bought and we listened to on the way home from school: Xanadu and Cygnus X-1. :) :rush:

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Where did I first hear Rush?

Was it the Rush self titled album? No no, that's not it.

Oh, it must had been Fly By Night? Nope.

 

1975 K-tel "Canada Gold" Album. Yup. Eleven years old, purchased to hear my favorite song - Last Song by Edward Bear.

But soon tired of that and started listening to other songs on the record.

"In The Mood" by Rush. Rush? They named themselves using a verb?

Suffice to say - I was hooked.

 

 

A sample of Canada Gold below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2nsI524ulU

 

Edward Bear founding member Paul Weldon designed the 1974 RUSH debut album cover.

 

On a side note, Edward Bear was the opening act for Led Zeppelin at The Rock Pile venue in Toronto on August 18, 1969.

 

Geddy and Alex were both in the audience at the above mentioned Led Zeppelin concert.

Edited by RushFanForever
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Where did I first hear Rush?

Was it the Rush self titled album? No no, that's not it.

Oh, it must had been Fly By Night? Nope.

 

1975 K-tel "Canada Gold" Album. Yup. Eleven years old, purchased to hear my favorite song - Last Song by Edward Bear.

But soon tired of that and started listening to other songs on the record.

"In The Mood" by Rush. Rush? They named themselves using a verb?

Suffice to say - I was hooked.

 

 

A sample of Canada Gold below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2nsI524ulU

 

Edward Bear founding member Paul Weldon designed the 1974 RUSH debut album cover.

 

On a side note, Edward Bear was the opening act for Led Zeppelin at The Rock Pile venue in Toronto on August 18, 1969.

 

Geddy and Alex were both in the audience at the above mentioned Led Zeppelin concert.

Now that's some damned good trivia.

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Listening to 2112 on my Walkman delivering newspapers every morning, probably 1979/80.

I knew of the band from my older brothers. That album (cassette) was so very different from anything I had ever heard and I almost wore it out!

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Where did I first hear Rush?

Was it the Rush self titled album? No no, that's not it.

Oh, it must had been Fly By Night? Nope.

 

1975 K-tel "Canada Gold" Album. Yup. Eleven years old, purchased to hear my favorite song - Last Song by Edward Bear.

But soon tired of that and started listening to other songs on the record.

"In The Mood" by Rush. Rush? They named themselves using a verb?

Suffice to say - I was hooked.

 

 

A sample of Canada Gold below.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2nsI524ulU

 

Edward Bear founding member Paul Weldon designed the 1974 RUSH debut album cover.

 

On a side note, Edward Bear was the opening act for Led Zeppelin at The Rock Pile venue in Toronto on August 18, 1969.

 

Geddy and Alex were both in the audience at the above mentioned Led Zeppelin concert.

 

Mind is blown.

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Sadly, late for me. Aside from hearing TSOR or TS on local radio, didn't have a real interest until '87 or so. I asked one of my friends from MI, with whom we exchanged albums copied to cassette, if he had any Rush, and he sent me a taped copy of the original CD of ESL. That tape got me hooked, and I later returned the favor by sending him the Rush Reissue CD.
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