Rush is the real article. What you see (and hear) is what you get. In this era of “alternative facts,” religious and political hypocrites, and legions of performative actors and rage-baiters (“blankers and boasters / all the bluffers and posers”), this band remains a breath of fresh, very real air.
Eleven years ago was Rush’s last tour, and we fans all thought that was it—even Rush thought so. Drummer and lyricist Neil Peart was heading into retirement for very good reasons. They even made a mini documentary, Time Stand Still, that sort of explained why they seemed to be wrapping things up.
You could really feel how Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson weren’t entirely happy about letting Rush wind down, even though they were resigned. It made sense, especially for Neil’s sake. He had a new family now, and a young daughter, and he deserved time with them.
Then, in a flash, he gone. Rush was truly finished.
Until they weren’t. Time doesn’t necessarily heal all wounds, but it does makes them easier to bear.
It is what it is and whatever
Time is still the infinite jest
Back in October of 2025, out of nowhere and surprising everyone, Geddy and Alex announced they’d be going on tour again. Without Neil Peart, they of course had bis shoes to fill. But they’d already found someone to take the kit: Anika Nilles. There’s been no solid talk of the actual “reformation” or of any new albums to come. That remains to be seen, and it might be nothing at all. Right now we’re just lucky to have Geddy and Alex back, and with drummer Anika and keyboardist Loren Gold in tow.
The Fifty Something tour is well underway. And though tickets are outrageous (not really Rush’s fault so much as the system’s; they’re all awful now), I still managed to get some for my wife, my son, and myself, and we saw them on their final show in NYC at Madison Square Garden.
Prior to this show, I’d seen Rush live only about five or six times—starting with the Roll the Bones Tour in 1992, which was also my first concert ever. It turns out that seeing Rush in 2026 with my own kid was a dream I didn’t know I had . . . until this year. From the look of the audience, there were a few other parents getting the same wish granted. I saw a whole family wearing the same 2112 T-shirts. So fun.
Thousands of differing Rush shirts all on the same city block in Manhattan. So cool. Oh yeah, and I saw this one, which is amusing.
And yep, Rush was fantastic. These days, we’re used to seeing older rockers coming out of retirement, well, showing their age. Some of them probably ought to have stayed retired. (While others, like Alice Cooper, still put on a good show!) Most just seem like they’re doing it for the fast money, but they’re phoning the performance in. The effort isn’t there; they’re shells of their former glory.
Not Rush! They don’t do anything half-assed. Never have. They’ve come roaring back with age-defying energy and enthusiasm. On screen and through my binoculars, I could see they were having fun, and that’s a gift to us all. I say again, they’re the real article. Somehow Rush sounded better than they did on the Time Machine tour 15 years ago in 2011. Particularly Geddy. His live vocals are having a kind of second life right now.
And Anika kicked ass. She fit in so well, like she was Neil’s protégé or apprentice. Anika ist eine ausgezeichnete Schlagzeugerin, to be sure. I’ve read some funny comments on YouTube like, “It’s so great that she let Alex and Geddy come on her tour.” All in good fun. She deserves this limelight.
The set list for the Fifty Something tour isn’t fixed; it shifts around a little bit. This is what we got on August 4th at the Garden:
Xanadu • Limelight • Subdivisions • The Pass • Free Will • Bravado • The Camera Eye • The Trees • The Anarchist • The Spirit of Radio
2112 (the whole danged thing!) • Far Cry • New World Man • A Farewell to Kings • Time Stand Still • Vital Signs • YYZ • The Garden • Tom Sawyer • Finding My Way • Working Man
I can’t properly articulate how thrilling it was to hear some of those songs live, in 2026, and not from a tribute band. (I have nothing against tribute bands; they’re great, and there are a bunch now. I even saw Lotus Land right before Covid, and I’ve been enjoying videos of YYNot.)
Still, it’s beyond surreal to my ears to hear a song like “A Farewell to Kings” out loud, in Manhattan, in Madison Square Garden, with a bunch of other people present.
We turned our gaze
From the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down
On the path of least resistance
I still can’t wrap my brain around that entirely, because that was a song, among many others, that I would blast in my room in the early 90s when I was teaching myself how to play Dungeons & Dragons and dragging my friends into it—forming my own Stranger Things crew, if you will, thirty years before Will Byers and “the Demogorgon” did. Hearing Geddy’s voice in “A Farewell to Kings,” or Alex’s six-string, or Neil’s tubular bells sinks my mind into the delightful nostalgia of leafing through “pages of history” that have “passed long ago” that looked like this . . .
. . . or this . . .
. . . and imagining worlds of my own.
Castles in the distance, indeed!
Hearing such songs out loud in one of the largest cities in the world, with tons of other people around, and not just in my room when I was 13? Still amazing. That wonder hasn’t gone away, all these years later.
Until I went to that Roll the Bones concert in 1992 my brother, I could scarcely imagine that other Rush fans even existed. Literally no one I talked to in my high school had even heard of the band. Up until college introduced me to some variety, if I mentioned that I liked Rush to a stranger, I had to clarify that, no, I didn’t mean Rush Limbaugh (ugh) or the recruitment process for fraternities (RUSH signs and shirts were everywhere). As a teenager, it was I who got my friends into Rush. We were the only ones.
But now? Well, I got to have both my son and my wife with me in such a famous arena. I must credit my wife: I didn’t drag her to anything. She went to her first Rush show on the Presto tour years before meeting me.
When we walked out of Madison Square Garden on Monday, a red motorcycle trike was blasting “Red Barchetta,” and a whole slew of pedicabs (bicycle rickshaws) were also booming Rush tunes (though I’m quite sure most of those guys were just catering to prospective customers and had probably never heard of Rush before). This was just a normal Monday night for them. Still, it was all so surreal.
So: A few thoughts about the show itself.
The tributes to Neil were sweet. The acoustics in Madison Square Garden aren’t great, though. When they played Neil’s voiceovers, they echoed so badly it was hard to understand it all. It’s much clearer in the YouTube videos (like this one) posted from various shows. I suspect all venues open to the sky will sound better. For example, I’ve been to a bunch of concerts at Jones Beach in Long Island; they always sound great, with no obscuring echoes.
“Bravado,” “Time Stand Still,” and “The Garden” were the songs mostly associated with Neil during the show. They sounded so good. I wish I had better words to describe the sight and sound. During “Time Stand Still,” the recurring image of an empty drum kit (on a lake) . . .
. . . and the “ghost rider” motorcycle weaving through a forest road while lyric sheets flew in the wind and then up onto the screen were emotionally poignant.
There might have been some dry eyes on the audience. Those people are monsters.
But even outside the tributes, Geddy brought up Neil multiple times. There was no shortage of clips and Neil representations. In the tour book, Geddy wrote:
I truly hope our big, brilliant, goofy pal is watching from the great beyond with his boyish smirk of approval. He used to say, “What’s the most excellent thing I can do today?” Well, Professor, right now, for us, this is it.”
Speaking of the Fifty Something tour book, yikes, it was pricey. But I needed it. Geddy took up the “unenviable” gig of writing the editorial (that was always Neil’s job). He fully explains how they decided to get the band back together, in its fashion, and how they found Anika (and how Geddy already knew Loren). He even explains that it was a deliberate choice to establish a four-piece band instead of three for this tour.
Fresh approach. Fresh look.
The book’s got the usual writeups and equipment lists, plus photos of the band. Loren and Anika, just as much as Geddy and Alex. Then there is all the cool Hugh Syme art like this “Closer to the Heart” image. . .
Speaking of hearts, there are a few glaring typos in the tour book which make me a little sad. They’re so minor but they make it seem like they didn’t really have it proofread. Which kills me because that’s literally part of my day job. How I wish I could have helped.
You know how popular convention says not to meet your heroes? I’ve even heard Geddy say this in an old interview. But I actually met Geddy, on his My Favorite Headache signing tour. Only briefly, of course.
But nothing I’ve learned about any of the guys ever changed my regard for them. All three. Alex’s Victor, Geddy’s solo album and book, not to mention Neil’s many books—it’s all part of the complexity. Geddy, Alex, and Neil have been my heroes since I first listened to “Rivendell” off Fly By Night when my brother bought the cassette tape in the late 80s.
Funny, though: “Rivendell” seems to be one at the bottom of every other Rush fan’s list. Not mine! I was a fantasy and Tolkien fan first, and just seeing a song like that in their discography got my full attention. Discovering the rest then became inevitable—the fantasy flavors of “The Necromancer,” “The Fountain of Lamneth,” “Xanadu,” and even “By-Tor and the Snow” dog were only the beginning. When Neil Peart passed, I wrote this tribute on Tor.com about him, emphasizing his fantasy and sci-fi explorations.
“In Memory of Neil Peart: Fantasy, Science Fiction, and the Mystic Rhythms of Rush“
I could write a whole post about my favorite lyrics. For now, it’s enough that I sprinkled some into my upcoming Silmarillion Primer book and thanked Geddy, Alex, and Neil in my Acknowledgments, knowing full well they’ll never read it.
Anyway, I keep getting off topic.
In the final show at Madison Square Garden, Rush played the full suite of “2112,” which was amazing. I especially love it when they don’t skip out on “The Discovery.” In fact, that’s the only full song I decided to get a video clip of myself. (Deciding mostly to just enjoy and not try to document everything with my phone.) We had “nosebleed” seats, so our view of the main screen was limited, but it all still sounded great.
Here’s how it looked to folks with better seats, who could actually see the big screen, or at least how it’s shown in the tour book. The priests of the Temples of Syrinx have never looked more menacing (or like Nazgûl).
If I had to pick highlights—which is silly because the whole event was wonderful—I guess I’d go with “The Pass” and “Vital Signs,” because they’re top-tier songs to begin with and those weren’t often played live before. Naturally, all us New Yorkers cheered wildly during “The Camera Eye” given its subject matter.
In the “Finding My Way” and “Working Man” encore, they paid tribute to the earliest incarnation of Rush, including original drummer, John Rutsey. Good on them!
I’m satisfied. I know people who are going to multiple shows. I can’t afford that. But I got to bring my family, and got to enjoy the anticipation for months. So I’m good now.
It would be great to see Rush again, but I don’t know what comes next. Time is a funny thing. In the meantime, I’ll keep enjoying the tour videos that keep getting uploaded and I’ll keep playing the songs. There are days that pass when I give it a rest and I listen to bands other than Rush.
Foreshadowed and Foresung 