Listening to the audio from the Rush Grace Under Pressure Tour video today has had me in the mood to listen to bootlegs of complete shows from that tour.

Here’s a good one:

1984 was memorable for my Rush fandom. I first started listening in 1981, but they slipped the Signals album and tour past me without me being aware. I was 11 years old, so that’s not too surprising. By the time we got to ‘84 I was a complete fanatic and I had run out of records to buy. The Grace Under Pressure album was the first one I had to wait for, and the first one I had my first listens to at the same time as the rest of the cult.

It was also the first time I had knowledge of a tour. They played the Worcester Centrum. I didn’t go, of course, but after the show one local radio station played every song on the set list and I heard a tape of that. As lame as it was, it was still pretty exciting.

So when bootlegs became a thing I could dip my ears into (thank you, internets) I was always kinda drawn to shows from 1984.

Yes. Nerd. Obviously.