Sunday, June 7. The Kia Forum in Inglewood, California. Eleven years since the last time Rush played a show.
That’s where Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson walked back onto a stage together for the first time since August 1, 2015 — fittingly, the same venue where they played their final show with Neil Peart. The “Fifty Something” tour is underway, and for Rush fans who spent years wondering whether this day would ever come, it’s a lot to take in.
This isn’t a reunion in the typical rock band sense — two guys patching up a fight, deciding the money was too good to pass up. Peart died in January 2020 after a private battle with brain cancer, a fact the band kept from the public until after his death. What Lee and Lifeson are doing here is something harder: performing the music of Rush without the man who defined so much of what Rush was — both as a drummer and as the lyricist behind most of the band’s catalog.
It took them six years to figure out how to do it. And by all accounts, they’ve done it right.
Why Now
After Peart died, Lee essentially went quiet. No touring, no Rush news. He released a bass instructional book and did some low-key guest appearances, but the idea of going back out as Rush without Neil seemed like something neither he nor Lifeson were ready to face.
The shift came gradually. Lee has talked about the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in 2022 as a turning point — getting on stage with old friends, playing music again, remembering what it felt like. A 2024 tribute event for Gordon Lightfoot did something similar. “After all that has gone down since that last show, Alex and I have done some serious soul searching,” Lee said when the tour was announced last October. “We came to the decision that we fucking miss it, and that it’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of Rush music.”
Lifeson, who had largely withdrawn from public life following a difficult stretch with health issues, echoed the sentiment. The announcement came out of nowhere — a video of the two of them jamming in Lee’s home studio, posted on a Monday morning, that promptly broke the internet.
The Drummer Nobody Expected
The obvious question when any legacy band tours without their original drummer is: who’s playing the kit?
For Rush, that question was more loaded than almost anyone else in rock. Peart isn’t just considered one of the greatest rock drummers ever — he’s the reference point for an entire generation of technically ambitious players. The idea of someone stepping into that role for an official Rush tour felt, to a lot of fans, somewhere between impossible and inappropriate.
Then Anika Nilles showed up.
Lee discovered her almost by accident. In a 2023 interview, he mentioned hearing “this drummer, I think her name is Anika,” and being immediately captivated. Nilles is a German composer and producer who spent years touring as Jeff Beck’s drummer — over 60 shows — and has released four solo albums of her own. She’s not a Peart clone, and she’s not trying to be.
Neil Peart’s widow Carrie Nuttall-Peart and daughter Olivia Peart have publicly voiced their support for the tour, which means something. This wasn’t Lee and Lifeson forcing a reunion over objections from the Peart family — it had the people who knew Neil best behind it from the start.
The band debuted the new lineup at the Juno Awards in Hamilton on March 29. They opened with “Finding My Way” — the first track from their 1974 debut, and a song that predates Peart’s time in the band — and the crowd went sideways. Behind the musicians, vintage Rush footage that included Peart flickered onscreen, a reminder that the evening was as much a tribute as a comeback. Nilles played a massive kit with the Rush logo on the bass drum, nailed the fills, and left everyone who doubted the choice feeling at least a little differently about it.
Keyboardist Loren Gold rounds out the touring lineup, giving Lee more room to focus on bass and vocals rather than managing keys himself all night.
How They’re Honoring Neil Every Night
This is the part of the tour that goes beyond the music. Lee and Lifeson aren’t just playing Rush songs and hoping the Neil-shaped gap in the room goes unacknowledged.
In an interview with Brazilian TV show Fantástico, Lee laid out what’s planned: “Well, we’ve been talking about certain songs that we feel really, really give us the vision of Neil. Twice a night we will pick a song to play sort of for him. We’ll present a visual tribute behind us, to Neil, whether it be to his lyrics or just to his playing or whatever.” He added they’ll “take a moment, you know, play these songs with him in mind, so the whole audience and us can remember him.”
Lifeson put it differently — and maybe more perfectly: “A celebration of who he was as a person and a drummer. Not so sad anymore.”
Not so sad anymore. Six years on from losing his best friend and bandmate, that’s where Lifeson has landed. That alone makes this tour worth paying attention to.
The Format: Two Full Sets, No Opener, Rotating Songs
Rush are doing this the right way. No support act, no 75-minute run-through. Each night is an “Evening With Rush” — two full sets, drawing from a pool of around 35 songs that rotates across shows. That means fans attending multiple nights in the same city (and plenty are) will hear different setlists. It’s the same approach they took on the R40 tour in 2015, and it worked.
The catalog they’re pulling from spans 52 years of music. Expect the obvious touchstones — “Tom Sawyer,” “Limelight,” “Subdivisions,” “The Spirit of Radio” — alongside deeper cuts and at least a few surprises each night. The two dedicated Peart tribute moments per show will vary as well, which makes the setlist question even more interesting as the tour progresses.
What Started as 12 Dates Is Now 88 Shows
When the tour was announced in October 2025, it was a modest 12-date run across seven cities. Then every North American date sold out almost instantly. More dates were added. Those sold out. More were added again.
After selling more than half a million tickets across North America, Lee and Lifeson confirmed the celebration will continue into 2027 with newly announced dates across Europe and South America — Rush’s first European performances since 2013 and their first visit to South America in 17 years.
The full run now sits at 88 shows, ending in Helsinki on April 10, 2027. What began as a few sentimental nights in familiar cities has turned into something closer to a global farewell celebration — one that’s still technically open-ended, since nobody’s called it a “farewell” tour.
The North American leg alone covers four nights at the Kia Forum in LA, four at Madison Square Garden in New York, four at Chicago’s United Center, and four at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. Toronto, Rush’s home city, in August. That’s going to be something.
The Full 2026 North American Schedule
The tour works through the following cities in 2026, with multiple shows in each:
- Los Angeles (June 7, 9, 11, 13)
- Mexico City (June 18, 20)
- Fort Worth (June 24, 26, 28, 30)
- Chicago (July 16, 18, 20, 22)
- New York City (July 28, 30, Aug 1, 3)
- Toronto (Aug 7, 9, 11, 13)
- Philadelphia
- Detroit
- Montreal
- Boston
- San Antonio
- Denver
- Seattle
- San Jose
- Washington D.C.
- Hartford
- Fort Lauderdale
- Tampa
- Charlotte
- Atlanta
- Phoenix
- Edmonton
- Vancouver
European and South American dates follow in 2027, wrapping in Helsinki in April.
Eleven years is a long time. Most people assumed Rush was simply done — that after Peart’s death there was no version of this that made sense. Lee and Lifeson proved otherwise. They found a drummer who commands the instrument on her own terms, got the blessing of the people who mattered most, and built a show that keeps Neil front and center without pretending he’s replaceable.
The “Fifty Something” tour started June 7 at the same venue where it all ended a decade ago. That’s the kind of full-circle moment you can’t manufacture.
Sources: Rush.com
