Rush: Why the Band's First US Gig Was a Disaster

Rush: Their disastrous first US Concert

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I cite my sources and they may differ than other people's accounts, so I don't guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

Rush would play their first show in America in May of 1974 and from start to finish it was an absolute disaster. Following the show, new laws had to be passed to better control concerts and the promoter would lose his shirt declaring bankruptcy. On top of that several fans would end up in the hospital due to drug overdose . Today, let’s explore what happened in today’s video

The Northside Drive-In near Lansing, Michigan would host the state’s version of Woodstock. Advertised as a 12-hour festival It would be headlined by Dr. John who would appear alongside an up and coming Canadian band named Rush. It would be Rush’s first American show & also on the bill was a Beatles Cover band and a group called the Cosmic Beam Experience, which as the name suggested was a light show
Organizers expected upwards of 30,000 people to attend the festival and it was going to be so grandiose that a documentary would made chronicling the event.
Ahead of the festival though, residents voiced their concern to both festival organizers and the municipal government with almost 100 members of the public inquiring about issues such as traffic safety, noise and other logistics. The concerned citizens even attempted to get an injunction against the event, but it failed.. Bruce Angell, a former police chief who was the head of security for the event was quoted by the Clinton County News as telling the concerned citizens. "I don't think this is going to be like the Huns coming in,"
While 6,000 tickets were sold, estimates varied about how many people actually attended. I’ve seen estimates range from 1300 to 2,000 people & the low attendance could be mostly blamed on Inclement weather
To make matters worse the headliner Dr. John failed to show up after concert organizers couldn’t meet his demands. The Lansing State Journal in 2010 interviewed promoter Tom Demeter who stated &I quote "He had all these ridiculous rules in place. He requested to be flown in by helicopter and stuff like that. We obviously couldn't meet those demands, and it became apparent he wasn't coming." In the same interview Demeter would also admit that back in those days if musicians wanted to get out of a concert they would simply make ridiculous demands that couldn’t be met and that’s exactly what happened in this case.
The New York Dolls would end up replacing Dr. John as the headliner and the audience weren’t fans of every group on the bill with Demeter revealing in the same paper how the crowd turned on cosmic beam experience saying “ i remember looking up at the sky & seeing beer bottles being thrown towards the stage. The crowd that night were not ones of peace loving hippies.” The same article interviewed a student who was hired by a non-profit group to film the festival for Detroit public access TV who claimed he couldn’t film the new york dolls because at that point in time they were under a recording contract. Turning now to Rush.
At this point in time the band hadn’t signed to mercury records and Neil Peart hadn’t yet joined teh band. John Rutsey was the drummer and there wasn’t actually much written about the actual Rush performance with the exception of one attendee saying and i quote “all i remember is there was a lot of hair.” with another attendee simply remembering and i quote “it was loud.” No setlist exists from that concert and for years it was debated online exactly what Rush’s first American concert was. News reports following the failed festival focused little on the musical acts and more on the 4 drug overdoses that happened with one victim being a 16 year old boy. Thankfully no deaths would be reported at the festival
Approximately 3 months after Rush’s first US concert John Rutsey would be fired from the band with guitarist Alex Lifeson telling Loudersound in 2016
. "We knew early on that John had problems with his health," "He had diabetes, and he was very concerned about whether it would be manageable for him on the road. We used another drummer, Jerry Fielding, and then John came back for a month of club shows. But that was it for John. We had to fire him." He would end up being replaced by Neil Peart & Peart would play his first show with Rush almost four months after the Lansing show in August of 1974 in Pittsburgh
Following the failed festival Dewitt and