How Cleveland helped launch Rush's legendary career

Before "Tom Sawyer," "2112," arena shows and the Rock Hall, Rush was a little-known Canadian band playing a $3 show at the Agora.

Why it matters: Legendary Cleveland radio station WMMS helped launch the band's American career — a relationship immortalized in a remarkable concert broadcast from Aug. 26, 1974.

Rush returns to Cleveland for shows Thursday and Saturday at Rocket Arena as part of the band's "Fifty Something Tour."

Flashback: Few American music fans had heard of Rush by early 1974, but WMMS music director Donna Halper was one of them.

She pushed the band's single "Working Man" into heavy rotation at the station, helping generate the buzz that earned Rush a deal with Mercury Records.

Then came the Agora. Rush opened for ZZ Top at Allen Theatre that June, but would headline WMMS' "Monday Night Concert" series at the Agora that August.

Tickets cost $3 in advance and $3.50 at the door. WMMS broadcast the performance, which still exists in pristine form online.

The sound: Rush — bassist/singer Geddy Lee, drummer Neil Peart and guitarist Alex Lifeson — was far from a polished band, sounding Led Zeppelin-esque as they ripped through material from a self-titled debut.

The setlist also included rarities "Fancy Dancer" and "Garden Road" — songs Rush never put on a studio album — plus a cover of Larry Williams' "Bad Boy."

The lineup: Drummer Neil Peart had joined the band just weeks earlier, replacing John Rutsey, who left due to health concerns.

At the Agora, Peart's roughly three-minute drum solo during "Working Man" foreshadowed the elaborate solos that would define Rush concerts for decades.

The bottom line: The concert is the sound of three musicians still figuring out what Rush would become — in the city that gave them their first major American audience.

They're back decades later to keep that sound going.