There are few bands as polarizing as Rush. There’s rarely an in-between with this band, you either love them to the point of slavish devotion or hate them so much that you want to stab yourself in the ears with an icepick when you hear them. I was probably in the first group for most of my adolescence. If you grew up playing drums in the late 70s/early 80s, you worshiped Rush – it was the law. And this was when they really were in their prime, I think. Here are some great live clips, mostly from the Exit Stage Left time era, including some of their more obscure and musically brilliant stuff. Like Xanadu:

And The Trees:

This is the medley that ended Exit Stage Left – By Tor the Snow Dog/In the End/In the Mood/2112 Finale:

A live version of Witch Hunt, one of their most underappreciated songs:

This is a fairly obscure song called Distant Early Warning, from Grace Under Pressure. This was a really good album and from a really good period for the band:

A live clip of The Analog Kid:

The Enemy Within:

And while I’m at it, here’s a clip of another drummer playing along with one of my favorite Rush songs, The Weapon. The guy is really good, he absolutely nails it: