Audio 15 May 1974 - Laura Secord Secondary School, St. Catharines, Ontario [Video Feed]

[Rush Archives]

Downloads:​

• 1974-05-15 - St. Catharines, Ontario

Track Listing:​

01 - Need Some Love​

02 - Before And After​

03 - Best I Can​

04 - I've Been Runnin'​

05 - Bad Boy​

06 - The Loser​

07 - Working Man​

08 - In The Mood​

Notes:​

• This is the earliest known live recording of Rush, coincidentally for both audio and video.
• This is the only known live recording to feature John Rutsey on drums.
• This is the only known live recording of Before And After, and the only known recordings of non-album Rush songs I've Been Runnin' and The Loser.
• This is the only available live recording of Working Man to have the same ending as the studio version, whereas later versions with Neil would transition into his drum solo, then end with a more basic instrumental crescendo by the band.
• This is also the earliest known performance of Best I Can, stated to be a song they wrote "a few weeks ago", proving just how early the near-finalized song predates Neil's arrival.
• It is likely that this recording is missing a few songs from the entire setlist performed. This is easy to conclude, based on the announcer stating "once again... a big hand for Rush" at the beginning, as well as Need Some Love being an unusual opener. I would suspect Finding My Way opened the set, then perhaps one other song that followed. There could've also been another song after In The Mood. A newspaper review tells us that Rush's performance took place within one hour, while another band "Abraham's Children" performed during the second hour.
• This concert was videotaped by CKCO-TV for the "Canadian Bandstand" program, and televised on June 1st 1974.
• This concert sometimes circulates with the erroneous date of April 1st 1974. However that date is incorrect, something someone had picked as a placeholder. For a long time the date couldn't ever be properly determined, due to poor documentation of early gigs. Most touring history sources had instead settled with "Spring 1974" for the closest possible accuracy, however as of 2024 he have finally discovered the true date thanks to a contemporary newspaper.
• A download for the video will not be uploaded here due to it only being available via an official release.

Preview:​

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[Cygnus X1]

I loved watching this show. It is weird to see John Rutsey preform. When I was looking on the Rush website and the tour dates for this tour, I found it says January 1st 1970 for this show. I know that it is wrong since almost everywhere else says Spring 1974. Who knows, even though the year might be wrong, the date could be the right one.

 

[By-Tor X-1]

It’s definitely sometime in early 1974, no documentation was able to be found that pinpointed the exact date. A lot of information from the early years are very loosely documented. The Rush website just uses Jan 1st of 1970 as a placeholder, I’m pretty sure they have a few other shows with that date too. I also recommend the official book “Wandering the Face of the Earth: The Official Touring History”, as it is a much more updated, researched, and accurate upgrade over the old information on Rush’s website. Their website tends to have a lot of errors that are corrected with the book.

 

[Dave]

What’s kinda weird about this footage is seeing the O.G. Rush font (that’s since been appropriated for the sake of merchandising) on John’s bass drum head.

If it wasn’t for these three young Canucks we might never have had the three young Canucks we celebrate today, and on this forum.

 

[Cygnus X1]

The best way to find the date is look for someone who went to St. Catharines in 1974 and see if they have their yearbook. Something as big as having a TV show or band play at a school should be documented.

 

[By-Tor X-1]

Thanks to a fellow researcher and archivist, we've found an old newspaper dated for "Friday, May 17, 1974" which talks about Rush's performance at Laura Secord Secondary School having been filmed on Wednesday of that week by CKCO-TV, and would be televised on Saturday June 1st. With this information, we can now verify the date of the performance being May 15, 1974.

View attachment St__Catherines_Standard_Fri__May_17__1974_.jpg