There wasn’t much room in my friend’s tiny Pinto, but somehow we all squeezed in. We were teenagers, high, laughing, and on our way to see RUSH at the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about on the way there. I mostly remember the feel of it: being young and free, surrounded by friends, the anticipation of the concert ahead. For a few hours, nothing but laughter and silliness. We were just a group of kids who loved music.

RUSH was the first band I ever saw in concert. I was in high school at the time, an unlikely fan of a band whose music was probably more complicated than any other band I followed at the time. But something about RUSH drew me in. I’m certain it was more than just the music itself that resonated.

My friends and I were in marching band together. We were a raucous group of kids, and our band director had a difficult time getting the entire class to settle down, yet we were a top marching band. I loved music, but hated marching band. For one thing, girls weren’t permitted to wear makeup, which was nothing short of a tragedy to my teenage self.

My adoptive mom forced me to be in marching band after I casually told her that the band director invited me. I wanted to be a cheerleader. That, of course, was not to be. Band, despite being geeky, was where I eventually found my tribe.

Most of my friends, growing up in Bossier City, Louisiana, were white. I was not. In Junior High, I desperately wanted to be part of a popular group of girls, most of whom were white. For a while, they seemed to accept me. Then one day, I was told to find another group to hang out with. That stung. At the time, I didn’t understand why I had been pushed out, or consider that race may have had anything to do with it. The girl who seemed to lead the group was half Japanese and very popular, which made the racial exclusion even harder for my younger self to understand.

My band friends were white. I knew that. Race was never something we ever talked about, nor did anyone else. Growing up as a Taiwanese adoptee (although I was told I was Japanese and Vietnamese at the time) meant that I was often aware of difference in ways that I could not articulate. But with these friends, something happened that I didn’t fully understand then. They seemed to look beyond the obvious differences between us. We were simply kids in band together who shared a love of music and partying, and that felt safe.

Then there was 2112.

Exit Stage Left was the first RUSH album I owned. Of course, Tom Sawyer and Limelight were my favorites. My love of RUSH, and one of my band friends, led me to 2112. I must have listened to that album a million times over.

The story of 2112 is about individuality versus conformity. The protagnist discovers a forbidden musical instrument in a society that has eliminated music and individuality. The discovery awakens something in him that doesn’t fit the world in which he exists. I think something around the nonconformity was part of what drew me into the album so deeply.

Though I was in marching band, which was ostensibly about music, I hated being forced into it and the expectations that came with it. I was being told, in small and big ways, who I should be and how I should present myself. Then I found RUSH, a band whose music was expansive, strange, rebellious, and completely unconcerned with fitting into the expected mold.

In the music, I didn’t need to explain myself. My friends could not share my experience of being a Taiwanese adoptee or what it was like growing up racially different from the people around me. And yet, they saw me. We liked the same music. We laughed a lot together. We crammed into a tiny Pinto. For a confused teenage girl who carried an awareness of being different without having much language for it, their friendship was profoundly meaningful.

Sometimes belonging doesn’t come from people who are just like us. Sometimes it comes from finding people with whom we can simply be ourselves, without having to work so hard to fit in.

Belonging is messy and sometimes partial. What I know about RUSH, beyond the fact that they remain one of my favorite bands, is that their music gave me an escape from a messy, racially complicated adolescence. For a spell, I didn’t need to figure it all out. I could listen to the music, share thoughts about it with my friends, and feel like I belonged.

And I’d cram back into that Pinto with that group of friends any day.

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If you haven’t listened to RUSH 2112, it’s a trip. Here’s the opening track, 2112: Overture…