Rush Returns: Tears, Doublenecks, Monster New Drummer

“I can get back home,” Geddy Lee yelped early in Rush‘s first show in 11 years, amidst an apocalyptic flurry of drum fills from new touring member Anika Nilles on 2007’s “Far Cry.” As the rest of Rush’s Fifty Something Tour kickoff Sunday at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum demonstrated, that particular Neil Peart lyric — along with many others — was prophetic. After traversing a long, dark, grief-laden path to get there, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and their fans somehow made it all the way back to a spectacular Rush concert, in an arena they’d played 20 times before.

On that same stage nearly 11 years ago, Lee, Lifeson, and Peart performed what turned out to be their final show together, at the end of their R40 tour. “I do hope we meet again sometime,” Lee told the crowd then, after Peart uncharacteristically stepped to the front of the stage with his bandmates for a final bow. Not long after, Peart was diagnosed with glioblastoma, and he died on Jan. 7, 2020, leaving behind his wife, Carrie Nuttall, and daughter, Olivia. For a while after his passing, Lee and Lifeson weren’t even interested in picking up their instruments.

Sunday’s show was filled with overt, oft-tear-inducing tributes to Peart, but the most important salute to him lasted the entire concert, via the performance and courage of a woman he never got to meet. At 43, Nilles is three decades younger than Lifeson and Lee, with a jazz-fusion background and a gig with Jeff Beck on her resumé. On Sunday night, she took on an impossible, no-doubt terrifying assignment — standing in for one of the greatest drummers of all time, in front of one of the most persnickety fanbases of all time — with a mix of precision and snare-snapping brutality that felt more reminiscent of Peart’s All the World’s a Stage era than his later, jazz-tempered approach.

She didn’t always choose to replicate Peart’s parts to a microscopic level, subtly reinventing “Subdivisions” with her own feel, for instance, but evoked his essence throughout. And for the most indelible percussive moments in the catalog — the intro to show opener “Xanadu,” the climactic fills in “Tom Sawyer,” every tricky little ultra-syncopated bit of “La Villa Strangiato” and “YYZ” — she simply nailed everything, down to the last 32nd note. At times, the musical likeness was so uncanny that it evoked Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, the spirit of the departed animating her limbs. If Nilles was possessed, however, it was clearly an enjoyable experience: She was downright gleeful by the end of “Tom Sawyer,” and even seemed to enjoy the challenges of three parts of “2112.”

It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the most emotional Rush concerts ever. One of the many gifts that Peart left behind was a catalog sturdy enough to hold the weight of grief. For all of Rush’s onstage humor — present Sunday night with pre-filmed sketches including South Park bits and new appearances by Paul Rudd and Jason Segel as their Rush-loving I Love You, Man characters — their songs are filled with Peart’s attempts to grapple with life’s biggest questions. One of those tracks, “Bravado,” was the night’s first Peart tribute, prefaced with interview audio from the drummer. “If the dream is won, though everything is lost,” Lee sang, as footage of the drummer drove an arena full of grown men (and more women than many prior Rush tours) to tears. “We will pay the price/ But we will not count the cost.” At points, Lee sounded like he was close to tears himself. Lifeson’s closing guitar solo, looping through arpeggios, managed to take in all of that emotion and quadruple it.

In keeping with the show’s defiance of mortality, Lee and Lifeson seemed to have almost aged in reverse since 2015, with Lifeson notably trimmer and musically nimble, and Lee pummeling his bass while skipping around the stage faster than any 71-year-old should be able to manage. They made a point of starting out with “Xanadu,” demonstrating that their spines could still handle double-neck instruments and their fingers can still handle 1977 prog riffs.

“When we started thinking about this tour, we thought, well, we can’t play so many songs like we used to,” Lee said. “We’re no spring chickens. But guess what? We’re gonna play a lot of songs.” With that, they kicked into “Freewill,” unplayed since 2011, with Lee daring to take on its stratospheric final verse, and Lifeson splaying the song open with a cosmic-shred take on its solo. Lee’s recent vocal coaching hasn’t taken him all the way back to the glorious peaks of his Seventies screeching, but it’s undeniably left his voice stronger than it was 11 years ago, with its top octave once again available to him. Leaving some of the keyboard parts to new touring player Loren Gold (who played with the Who) was clearly liberating for Lee, who still couldn’t resist playing some key synth riffs himself.

When the band played a ferocious “Red Barchetta,” it was hard not to think of Rush itself as the titular car, a hotrodded remnant of a “better, vanished time,” somehow still roaring down the road long after it should be possible. During another song, 1991’s “Dreamline,” Lee sang one of Peart’s best, most accurate lines: “We’re only immortal for a limited time.” But as proven by the rest of the show, and by the life and work of Neil Peart, limits are made to be broken.

Rush Fifty Something Tour Setlist

Set 1
“Xanadu”
“Limelight”
“Far Cry”
“Subdivisions”
“Freewill”
“Bravado”
“Caravan”
“La Villa Strangiato”
“Vital Signs”
“The Spirit of Radio”

Set 2
“2112 Part I: Overture”
“2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx”
“2112 Part VII: Grand Finale”
“Distant Early Warning”
“Red Barchetta”
“Dreamline”
“Natural Science”
“Time Stand Still”
“Red Sector A”
“YYZ”
“The Garden”
“Tom Sawyer”

Encore

“By-Tor & The Snow Dog”
“Working Man”