Fly By Night, La Villa Strangiato [Rush Reaction] + Anthem - Couple's first-time reaction

[@MusicforBusyPeople]

Thank you to the following community members who subscribed after this video was published. We wish we could thank you all. _Steve T., Scott T., MrGuyburrell, James S., Peter L, Harden S., Just Me, William M., Anthony A., Brian G., Marv K., slyderrider, Mark M., Jeffery B., David B., Jennifer L., Brian W, RightReverendMatt, JW92_

[@guaporeturns9472]

That’s how Rush played live.. every concert every time. They were absolutely phenomenal… all the time

[@shovelheadroad]

Never ever get tired of watching Rush crush La Villa Strangiato in that live take

[@donalddixoninlou]

Glad I found this channel.............

[@1teamski]

Ahhh, thus why I love this band so much! You simply cannot find another band like RUSH.

[@mermaidmelodies1492]

True enough! But I do believe I have found a current Band that has 'picked up the Mantle' of Rush in musicianship and Great song writing abilities and are currently producing new music with a 10-year catalogue. BAND-MAID is the Band from Japan and Their Bassist reminds Me of Geddy in so many ways, and the drummer, although never matching Neil, can play quick double bass pedals that 'seem' faster than Neil's at times. Check 'em out and see what I mean.

[@mvhoyt61able]

Three guys! Three guys! Oh my god, those three guys could jam.

[@kevinmclaughlin1092]

This is the song where Geddy, Alex, and Neil say "WE ARE RUSH, AND YOU ARE NOT!"

[@djwarlock2873]

Saw them do "La Villa" on their Hemispheres tour. Jaw-dropping. This brought back phenomenal memories. Thanks!

[@bobcarn]

La Villa Strangiato was their first instrumental. They had never done anything like that before, and it just blew us away. Alex's solo in it is still considered one of his best, and the combination of rock and jazzy overtones was unexpected and surprising. It was amazing.

[@MrBedZeppelin]

Watching these three just never gets old. Thanks!

[@richwilliams7787]

Anthem was a dangerous song to play while driving. Fly by night is and always will be instant air drumming, no matter the location. La Villa...thats just a masterpiece. Great job guys

[@markb.2112]

Thank you so much for coming back to Rush! There are so many more great songs to react to. Anthem was the first song with Neil Peart, after John Rutsey said goodbye. He makes quite the statement, don't you think? Keep it up. Please check out Bytor and the Snowdog on this same album as well. It was their first ballad/storyline piece. Bytor is mentioned again on the next album (Caress of Steel), on the Necromancer (a must listen)!!!

[@KenGruver]

Second album I owned by Rush when it came out, Neal was an inspiration during my time in life as a percussionist. Covered many songs by Rush. Man I remember playing along to 2012 from beginning to end! RIP Neal

[@stevendugger3722]

Great reviews!!! You really can't go wrong with RUSH!!

[@MrBedZeppelin]

Yes, you are right, Alex did not play this song "live" very often as they might have liked to. Very complex and Alex went through lots of guitar strings in the making of "La Villa Strangiato". Spot on, love the high-quality vids!

[@kevinjennings238]

Hey Guys!!! What a GREAT Combo of Classics, THANK YOU!!! On "La Villa", it's Amazing how COOL, a Little Vaseline on the Camera Lens can Make an Ominous View!!!!

[@flightnavigator8999]

Neil plays drums with everything he has in his heart soul and mind. Omg they all do. Where have all the musicians gone 🤷🏼‍♂️

[@toddashton9696]

Love that you reacted to Young Rush, these videos are so much fun to see. Great reaction, and great production, I like you have the lyrics, and video and yourselves all incorporated in the video. Fantastic performance and very enjoyable performance. I always find it so amusing that the performance was in a school gym with the props for a play in the background. Love both those songs off the second album. Thanks for a fantastic reaction.

[@97warlock]

Im fkn Speechless. Floored. jawdrop Micdrop. just incredible This would be incredible if it were done by some new talent in 2024 ....imagine back in 75 seeing this

[@derrickparran]

i was a teenager when this came out. They had talent other bands only dreamed of.

[@g-pa-Rok-n-Tok]

Awesome! I saw them on Don Kirshners Rock Concert, and was like wtf! Next day I hitched to Tower Records. This had just come out, got it, went home, and got my mind blown! Nice job guy's 🤘

[@mhlevy]

In 1970s Kansas City, any members of high school Rock & Roll bands would go out Friday and Saturday night, but be home before 11:30pm to watch "The Midnight Special" on Friday night, and "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" on Saturday nights! I really do miss those shows. Thankfully, there is a Midnight Special KZbin channel!

[@g-pa-Rok-n-Tok]

@@mhlevy 70's were a great decade to grow up. I still feel that was the best music, but I'm a jaded old guy, lol.

[@dpall38]

I saw them play La Villa dozens of times. In total they played it 854 times. They were on a different level. Three guys in perfect sync.

[@allanperry6507]

Never get tired of 🤘RUSH🤘. 😃s from 🇨🇦

[@Heathcoatman]

La Villa Strangiato is my 'if you were stranded on a desert island and only had one......' song. Alex' masterpiece, and the 2.5 minute solo is the greatest guitar solo ever (imo). Also, I swear I'm looking at your eyes.

[@michaelbriefs9764]

That was a blast!! Thanks for rocking those out! Ah! Early Rush! Incredible!

[@davidvalderrama1816]

Love the top.

[@markdeloria20]

This version of "La Villa Strangiato" is utter perfection.

[@timrodriguez3508]

Love your reactions! Beauty and brains ( and you bring a little more than just your beauty Mike) 😜

[@winstonhewett6679]

Alex is playing some of the synth parts with his foot, while playing guitar! You catch Geddy doing this live, but only occasionally do you see Alex! I saw them 6 times from late 1974 until 1981! Always great live!!! Such a huge catalog of music! One of their many great instrumentals!!!

[@davidvalderrama1816]

Ricky and f holes, incredible sound!

[@DavidNeale-d9y]

Doesnt get better than rush so glad i grew up with these bands playing drums to rush takes you to places most dont get to go

[@derrickparran]

La Villa Strangiato is a beast of a song. If one could pull it off, then you have done something.

[@edriley2703]

Dev is gorgeous. Smokin. ❤

[@ZZ430T56]

La "Vee-Ya" is my favorite song of all time. Ty

[@garysteinert8040]

They were experts of doing their music live.

[@generoberts9151]

Fly by Night was a big radio song when it came out. Really popular across all stations . Kinda put them on the map. Not sure about the first two songs. May have played studio over footage, but La Villa Stangiato here was a one take live track. And is unbelievably good

[@flightnavigator8999]

Rush rocks, but you 2 are the coolest people on I’ve seen and heard!!! I would have never known the lyrics to this are other songs unless you had them there on screen to see.

[@Frankincensedjb123]

Damn, Wilma, all bustin' out.

[@youropionmattersnot]

Eddie Van Halen was asked, "What's it like to be the greatest guitar player in the world?" He replied.. Ask Alex Lifeson.

[@kentgreer1079]

Only three years (but four albums) after Fly By Night, Rush had progressed to this level of writing and musicianship.

[@paulrosenberg4227]

My fav Rush song by far, often left out in the rich Rush catalogue. Then Working Man.

[@MARSHOMEWORLD]

It is fortuitous that they just happened to have their own castle at this time.. I mean most bands spend their early advances on amplifiers and things like that but Rush you know... had to be different. Speaking of gear..... that drum set which became the legendary "Chromy", was the kit Neil used all the way up to 2112. It now resides with a collector who has taken it on some publicity jaunts, where people can donate money to different charities in exchange for being able to play the kit. It's been restored and is absolutely gorgeous.

[@ShaneLarocque]

It was done live in LeStudio ,It had a recording studio and a video studio like TV news room ect .

[@rick5440]

This is my favorite song to sing karaoke. I nail the lyric...

[@lisaharrison1031]

The first 2 videos were filmed while they were on tour. The setting is a college theater that just so happened to be in rehearsals for a play. Hence the backdrop and RUSHs crew found the setting and also filmed both bideos.

[@flightnavigator8999]

😅

[@ZIG4ZAG20]

Rush-making professional musicians look like amateurs since 1974. Ironically, THIS is the album that got me into Rush, but it was 1980-ish when I first heard or discovered it. My older brother had it in his collection and I think I may have heard 2112 or Moving Pictures/Tom Sawyer at a friends house who had older brothers and I was like digging through my brother’s albums and he had this and I was like hmmm is this the same guys or band that I heard and turns out it was and that was🤯🤘🖖✌️🥁🎸🎹🎤🎸

[@MegaIronleg]

WOOOO WEEEEE..!!!! I REMEMBER WHEN THIS FIRST CAME OUT. HAD THIS CRANKED ON MY MARANTZ STEREO N IF THE HOUSE IS A ROCKIN… DONT BOTHER KNOCKIN… JUST COME ON IN..!!!! 👍 AS FOR DRUM SETS, THATS PRETTY MUCH WHAT WAS ON THE MARKET. ROCK ON 👊🖖

[@ZIG4ZAG20]

La Villa video was actually a live take-probably a sound check for a show that night OR final full dress rehearsal take. You know they got some good stuff in the vault somewhere lol ❤

[@grandwazoodebris1015]

I think you've got it right wrt Strangiato. They said in the documentary they couldn't record Strangiato on the original album in one take, though they wanted to, too hard. It does seem like this video is saying "yeah, we got it now, no problem." They played it live often, and great. I only saw them once live, on the Hemispheres tour, and they played it then, would've been fresh in the live show then. I always loved Lifeson's first solo in this song, superb.

[@ZIG4ZAG20]

What’s really interesting about this is that always ahead of their time, they were doing “videos” of performance clips, even if lip syncing, WAY BEFORE MTV was even a thought and FF five short years later, videos were basically the norm.😳🤯😁🖖✌️🤘🎸🎹🎤🥁

[@stewpot6998]

Neil Peart, professor, PhD in mullet and Hi-hat. I love the rhythm change on the accents at the beginning of La Villa Strangiato and the alternating accent during the middle guitar solo. It takes patience to keep that going and add to it along the way. Dev, you and Mike are going to star in my tv series. It could happen. 😉

[@jed70]

This is a most uplifting video!

[@jeremywespi7759]

Fun fact: in the early days of Mtv, before they were all digital, they had to get the tapes set up to play again (not enough videos). During this time, they would play La Villa Strangiato and Moby Dick by the mighty Zepp as a musical break.

[@Buds1own]

Remember Dick Albert??? Channel 5 weatherman! BOSTON !! My Uncle! ♥

[@steviesellers]

Van Halen was once asked "whats it like being the best guitarist in the world " he replied ask Alex Lifeson . This is based on a dream that Alex had

[@adrianchavez6193]

Love your reactions! I do find myself looking at the left half of the screen more so (sorry Mike 🙂), but keep up the good work!

[@jackteppo9633]

Love to have been their live😊😊

[@MJS-ON]

One thing I don’t think I have seen any reactor pick up on is that while Alex is performing his magic in the guitar on La Villa, he is also playing bass synth pedals with his right foot in several sections of the song. In this video, we see his foot on the pedals directly just once, across the floor with Geddy in the foreground but, the other times, you can see him moving his body to hit the “foot notes” (sorry, couldn’t resist the corny joke!) Just another example of how amazing and multi-tasking all 3 of them are and how 3 men can make all this sound!

[@patrickmcevoy5080]

A lot of people mention Geddy's use of the pedals, but completely overlook how Alex was playing them too. It's good to acknowledge that!

[@johntrickey7182]

Dare I say, to quote The Who "..... Rock is dead....rock is dead" there are no more rock stars, hopefully in the future it will full circle.

[@joebarrera9741]

I LOVE HEMISPHERES LA VILLA STRANGIATA BABY

[@dougr4796]

if you notice Neil is holding the smaller end of the drumstick cause he used to break so many sticks from hitting the drums so hard. he had to adjust the drums some since the sound was slightly different.

[@erikpedersen7977]

"the professor on the drum kit"

[@mhlevy]

If I remember correctly from an interview, that performance of La Villa was live, shot in a rehearsal hall, before the start of the Hemisphere's tour. I believe it was Geddy who said that recording that song "nearly broke us." It was difficult to record, and in fact, was recorded in parts and then spliced together, but over time, they were able to play it flawlessly. I remember Mike Portnoy (legendary drummer for "Dream Theater") saying in an interview that "when you can play La Villa perfectly, you've really done something special." Eventually, Rush was able to perform that song flawlessly, but it took quite a bit of practice. My very first rock concert was seeing Rush play live in 1977 (I was 15 at the time) on their "Farewell to Kings" tour, and my second concert was seeing them on their "Hemispheres" tour. I've lost count over the years, but I saw Rush play live between 20 and 25 times, the last time on their R-40 tour.

[@RushfanUK]

You can hear Alex's playing is just a little bit mechanical in some parts which as they bedded it in became far more fluid, I spent quite some time working this out on guitar, it is a monster to try and play, sadly due to an accident to my left hand and a stroke it's beyond me now to do this justice.

[@jamesdamiano8894]

By-Tor And The Snowdog is epic.

[@paulschirf9259]

This recording has my favorite version of Danforth and Pape & The Waltz of the Shreves.

[@pudder68]

"I'll have two......milks" bahahahah

[@ChrisDuplisea]

You are correct, they were not able to play the song in one take at the studio. I believe Geddy said they broke the song up into several sections during the recording.

[@jerrypilarz3076]

The Fly By Night videos were recorded between January 20-25, 1975 in Atlanta, GA Geddy: "It wasn't a church. It was a school in Georgia, actually. We were doing a gig that night, and we loaded in, and there was this castle set up in another auditorium. We just happened to have a guy who was with us who was a camera guy, I think he was working for the record company...and so we just did the songs, and he just quickly shot it just for our own use." Source: Rush - Wandering The Face of the Earth - The Official Tour History, pg 65

[@m.b-ee8815]

Fly by night was inspired by Neil going over to the UK before he joined Rush, hoping to get somewhere in the music biz. It didn't work out for him obviously.

[@joesixpack8305]

Not there anyway. I'll bet there is a lot of regret in the UK. 😊

[@funkster007]

Neil probably missed the boat by a couple years. Most of the well known bands were already established by the time he arrived in the UK. Imagine a young unkown Canadian drummer in Yes or King Crimson though. That could've been interesting.

[@crucify40]

Circumstances is about that same topic. Hope they do that one. It was the first song that got me into Rush back in 1978.

[@carminelombardi9575]

There's only one Rush!

[@RossanoMacchioni-gm4mg]

RUSH In Olympus of hard rock /prog rock band the power Trio like Emerson Lake e Palmer...

[@vincenttayelrand]

La Villa Strangiato is said to have been a nightmare to record (as was the rest of the album). They weren't able to put it down in one take. The video you see here is actually the very first time that they were able to play that entire song in one take.

[@totallifecrazy5837]

Good video brother

[@johncampbell756]

It's funny seeing Alex with the black Gibson 335 and Geddy with the white Rickenbacker 4001 when they are famous for playing a white 335 and black 4001 as I. La Villa Strangiato. Between 2112 and A Farewell to King's, Geddy added synths, Neil doubled the size of his kit and Alex added the double-neck guitar. There is an extended video where Alex shows off his badly injured finger (black fingernail) before playing this. If you watch carefully, you can tell that Alex is triggering the opening synth parts with his foot.

[@m.b-ee8815]

Wish he had stuck with the Ricky bass, great biting tone.

[@johncampbell756]

@m.b-ee8815 His complaint was that Ricks fall out of tune on the higher notes.

[@m.b-ee8815]

@@johncampbell756 You would think that a modern guitar tech could sort it out. Pity.

[@johncampbell756]

@m.b-ee8815 Apparently, it goes out of tune, only in the Hugh notes, while playing. I had the same bass without the problem, but I didn't play it for as long each night as he (and nowhere near as well).

[@punker-gamer-trucker-guy]

Anthem and fly by night are great tracks, but the best song on that album is Bytor and the Snowdog

[@alexandremaireno-ni4ec]

Music For Busty People

[@nodrush80]

There is more modern versions of this and they play it effortlessly, no dread. Maybe someday this band will be recognized as one of the all-time greats, I'm not sure outside of Rush fans that they are.

[@joesixpack8305]

After weeks of failing to record La Villa in one take they finally had to admit they couldn't do it. So they recorded it in three separate sections. Later, they went to make a video for the song but Neil refused to do one of those fake videos where they lip sync and drum sync. So they decided to do it live (no audience). Wouldn't you know it, they pulled it off in one take and it became a tour mainstay. Couldn't tell you which video it was...maybe this one. Not sure.

[@flightnavigator8999]

I really want to take y’all out for dinner

[@m.b-ee8815]

It was filmed in a school hall I think.

[@highendservicesbarrieont8347]

Hmmm.I loved Rush with long hair....might be an age thing.

[@flightnavigator8999]

You can perform here we’re doing Hammlot so please exit stage to the left 😅

[@gregblunier5813]

Athens .. Neil beats the hell out of it

[@David-l7l4x]

If you want to hear a great live version of it a true live version exit stage left the best version of it.

[@bruceg9519]

Natural Science next.... please 😊

[@edzeljereza8234]

Yes, you can play YYZ.......but can you play La Villa Strangiatto? - Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater)

[@stevehutnikoff5964]

Totally distracted by how hot Dev looks 😂

[@RustyB453]

... ditto.

[@ZIG4ZAG20]

Don’t mean to spam the comments but think about this:the growth in musicianship in roughly 3-4 years is remarkable.

[@dalemoore435]

Busy people don't care about this. Time is money

[@DavidNeale-d9y]

Most bands cant even stay together for 5 years

[@WillyAffentranger-jb1oi]

Rush looked sooooooo strange 1975. I was 14 years, but to that time school was more importent than music and rush, zz top, santana, tool, that's a willy joke Bye.

[@jondeur2686]

Great musicians, no doubt. But Rush is a band playing intros hoping for a song to emerge. Geddy Lee’s voice is irritating. They are pretentious and overrated and don’t seem to understand the concept of a song with a beginning, middle and end.

[@markmarsh27]

The most remarkable thing about this video is how TINY Neil Peart's drumkit was back then!

[@kevinjennings238]

THIS SONG took Longer to "Perfect" than the Rest of the Entire Album!!!! Here's some FYI on ALL of their "Instrumentals"!!! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Rush_instrumentals#La_Villa_Strangiato