6/5: Drum Solo, Live at the PinkPop Festival, 1979

This early days solo can be found on the 40th anniversary re-release of Hemispheres.

In 1979, Rush played the PinkPop festival, an annual music fest held in Landgraaf, Netherlands. (That year, the festival was held on June 4, which would have made this song ideal for posting yesterday, but alas—no going backwards, only forwards!)

PinkPop was during one of the band’s first overseas tours, and from that gig comes this drum solo, one of the earliest such recordings we have. Even from the earliest days, though, Neil had the nickname “the Professor.”

This solo isn’t so much a song as it is an exercise, akin to playing scales for a pianist. Neil certainly grows as a composer over time!

Still, his frenetic drumming is young and exciting, and I find it endlessly fascinating to hear him experiment with some of the same motifs he uses regularly for decades. Case in point: The cowbell doo-doo-dee-doo. (You’ll know it when you hear it.)