From Turntable to Tulsa: A Lifelong Journey with Rush

In 1976, I was thirteen years old when a friend handed me a Rush record. I placed the vinyl on my turntable, lowered the needle, and waited. What came through the speakers was unlike anything I had heard before—raw guitars, complex rhythms, and a voice that sounded like it came from some other world. At first, it was strange, almost unsettling, but then it opened a door. This wasn’t just music. It was a code, a secret language, written for people like me: the quiet kids, the dreamers, the ones who didn’t quite fit into locker rooms or pep rallies.

Rush became the voice of the voiceless nerds and the soft-spoken outcasts. In their music, we found ideas about individuality, free will, and resilience. Where mainstream rock celebrated rebellion through volume or excess, Rush offered rebellion through thought. They told us it was okay to stand apart, to dream big, to think deeply. For a teenager in the mid-70s searching for identity, those songs were oxygen.

Fast forward nearly four decades to 2015. I was fifty-two, standing in the BOK Center in Tulsa, surrounded by thousands of others who had also grown up with this band. The crowd was older now, like me—gray hair, worn jackets, memories tucked into every lyric. But as the lights dimmed and the first notes rang out, time collapsed. Suddenly I was thirteen again, leaning over that turntable, headphones pressed tight, hearing “2112” ignite my imagination for the first time.

The concert wasn’t just music; it was a lifetime of echoes. Every riff carried me back to late nights in my room, to friendships built on trading tapes, to the sense of belonging Rush had given me when I felt like I had none. And now, here they were, playing in Tulsa—heroes who had grown older with us, who had never abandoned the ones who needed them most.

When the show ended, I realized something profound: Rush wasn’t just the soundtrack of my youth, but the through-line of my life. They were there when I was a lonely kid searching for meaning, and they were there as an adult reflecting on the journey. In their music, I had found courage, identity, and a community.

Hearing Rush for the first time in 1976 changed the way I saw myself. Seeing them in 2015 showed me how deeply they had shaped the person I became. And as I walked out of the arena into the Tulsa night, I felt a quiet gratitude—for the music, for the memories, and for the band that gave a voice to those of us who once felt we had none.