Rush - Fifty Something Tour - August 3 & 7, 2026
Shows: Madison Square Garden, New York, August 3, 2026 - Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, August 7, 2026
Standing just a few rows from the stage at Madison Square Garden with my three nephews, I could barely believe this was happening. "Rush" were back onstage. Beside me were the people I had wanted to share this moment with, and elsewhere in the same arena was my cousin, who had flown in from Florida with his daughter. The same cousin who had introduced me to the band more than four decades earlier. In one room, the kid I used to be, the music I grew up with, and the next generation of our family had all come together.
I have written plenty here about "Rush", their albums, and the people behind them. But to explain what this concert meant to me, I have to go back to a battered cassette of "All the World's a Stage", an AKAI tape deck, and the drum solo in "Working Man / Finding My Way". That was where my cousin opened the door. That was where I first heard Neil Peart and knew there was something in this music I had to explore. What began with a drum solo became part of my life: albums, lyrics, concerts, admiration, friendship, and a love that stopped being measurable in years a long time ago.
I had been lucky enough to see them before, including at Madison Square Garden on the "Counterparts" tour. I also saw their final tour with Neil, documented on "R40 Live". I made that trip with my eldest nephew, my sister's son, and my cousin came up from Florida to join us then, too. The stories from that journey became family mythology. So the moment we heard they were returning to the stage, the other nephews knew they were coming this time. They wanted to be there and come home with stories of their own.
Getting tickets was an ordeal. Another presale, another coordinated operation with everyone trying from different locations, another refresh of the screen and the dream slipping further away. But with three nephews working in tech, there was no way we were letting the algorithm win. On our third chance, it finally happened: we got our hands on VIP tickets in the first few rows. At last, we could breathe and picture the stage up close.
New York: Three Hours Inside the Music
In the days before the show, it was easy to spot who had come to New York for "Rush". At our hotel and around the Garden, there were shirts from different eras, album-cover prints, jackets covered in pins, and all kinds of accessories. You could walk past a stranger and already know you had something to talk about. Older fans and younger ones, families and groups of friends, all making the same pilgrimage. There was even a special pop-up shop selling band memorabilia to mark the four-show New York run. We were there for its fourth and final night, and the excitement was everywhere.
Before we had even entered the arena, it felt like a reunion of a community that had missed the same people and the same sounds. Walking through it with my three nephews was part of the experience. Suddenly, the love they knew so well from home and from my stories had streets, faces, and voices.
The VIP lounge at the Garden was an experience of its own. Before entering the arena, we found ourselves surrounded by devoted "Rush" fans, people for whom every album cover, every tour, and every item on display carried a story. The rare memorabilia made us stop, look closely, and remember, while the conversations around us revealed just how many years of devotion had gathered in that room. We received our generous merch packages and even took part in a "Rush" quiz and prize drawing. All of it was only the warm-up.
Moving from the VIP lounge to the first few rows took the excitement up another level. Suddenly, the stage was right in front of us, so close, and all that waiting came down to these final minutes. My heart was pounding. We exchanged excited looks, as if to make sure we all understood where we were standing. In a moment, "Rush" would walk onstage, and we would experience this together, right here.
Set One
The funny opening film starring Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson ends, the screen rises, and smoke fills the stage. Through the haze come the first, achingly familiar sounds of "Xanadu". My pulse is still racing, and suddenly my heart skips a beat. Geddy and Alex are right in front of us with their double-neck guitars. After Neil's death, it had seemed we would never see them like this again. Now they are just a few metres away.
Opening with "Xanadu" set the bar incredibly high from the first few minutes. For me, it is one of the band's creative peaks. The slow opening, the effects, the percussion, and the space around the guitar build the anticipation perfectly, until the riff, bass, and drums come in and send shivers through us. From the first few rows, we could follow every shift from stillness to eruption and watch this long piece come to life before us.
Joining Geddy and Alex this time are drummer Anika Nilles, whom I will come back to, and keyboardist Loren Gold. For anyone who had spent years watching Geddy move between bass, keyboards, and pedals, this was a significant change. Adding Loren was no small decision. For years, Geddy and Alex had insisted on handling all those parts themselves: bass, keyboards, guitars, and effects, without extra touring musicians to help. I had always marvelled at how just three players could sustain the rich layers of the albums. More than once, I had found myself trying to follow the switches between keyboards and bass, pedals and strings, wondering how they could keep everything so tightly coordinated without losing the studio sound. After almost fifty years onstage, bringing Loren in was a deliberate choice that gave Geddy more room. He could move more freely, connect with the audience, and especially interact with Alex. The smiles, little jokes, and exchanges within the songs were there throughout the concert, and Gold helped make them an integral part of the show.
From there, the first set moved through different sides of the band. In "Limelight", it was Alex's solo, those hanging notes that let the melody breathe. The keyboards of "Subdivisions" brought back the alienation of adolescence, and I could not help thinking about what connects so much of this band's audience: people who once felt like outsiders, nerds, shy kids, or simply distant from those around them. "Freewill" raised the stakes again with an extraordinary performance from Geddy. I stood open-mouthed as he tore into the final verse, reaching some of the highest and most demanding notes of his career without changing the original key.
Then, before "Bravado", Neil's voice filled the arena in the first tribute dedicated to him. I thought of the farewell I had written after his death. Hearing this music live without him left an unmistakable absence, yet his memory was there in every song whose words he had written, and in every drum part that had become part of how we hear this band.
Loren's piano introduction opened the way into "The Camera Eye", that immense piece whose long opening builds into the sweeping riff and thunderous drums. New York is one of the two cities at its heart, and hearing and seeing it performed here felt especially meaningful. From there, we moved into the acoustic guitar of "The Trees", then the muscular weight of "The Anarchist". The familiar opening of "The Spirit of Radio" swept the arena into a rousing, loudly applauded close to the first set.
The second set opened with one of the evening's undeniable highlights: "2112" in full, all seven parts of the suite that opens the album. The visuals and pyrotechnics amplified the drama, but hearing the complete sequence was what made it special. From the fury of "The Temples of Syrinx" to the inquisitive guitar of "Discovery", from the confrontation in "Presentation" to the pain of "Soliloquy" and the eruption of "Grand Finale", the story carried its full weight. For someone who has lived with this piece for decades, hearing and seeing all of it just a few metres from the stage was a moment of complete surrender.
"2112" in full, Madison Square Garden, New York, August 3, 2026.
After "Far Cry" and "New World Man" came another peak, "A Farewell to Kings". It is a song the band have rarely performed live, and choosing to bring it back on this tour struck me as a particularly brave choice. In Brian Hiatt's "Rolling Stone" interview, published after the show, Geddy and Alex described it as the hardest song on the tour for both of them. Watching two musicians in their seventies take on the ambitious music they had written in their youth was simply inspiring.
"A Farewell to Kings", New York, August 3, 2026.
The second tribute to Neil led into "Time Stand Still". The projected images of an empty drum kit on the water and a motorcyclist riding between the trees connected that plea to stop time with the man who had written it. The music kept moving with "Vital Signs", which benefited from a heavier, darker performance than the original recording, and the iconic "YYZ", where bass, guitar, and drums filled the stage without a word. "The Garden", with its lyrics about time and what a person leaves behind, was especially moving. Then came an abrupt change of mood as the humour of South Park introduced "Tom Sawyer". The encore of "Finding My Way" and "Working Man" brought this extraordinary journey home to the simplicity, weight, and rough edges of the debut album.
The Crowd Wanted Anika to Succeed
You cannot write about this extraordinary comeback without giving Anika Nilles the place she deserves.
Choosing Anika brought a musician from a different background into the band. A drummer, composer, and producer from Germany, she arrived with experience in fusion, groove, and jazz-rock, her own music, and performances alongside Jeff Beck. Geddy's longtime bass tech recommended her after seeing her play with Beck. She took on the role without a lifelong "Rush" fan's familiarity, and had to learn an entire musical language that the musicians and their audience knew inside out.
The challenge was enormous. Neil's drum parts are part of the composition itself, from the accents and wild rhythmic shifts to the astonishing dialogue with the bass and the thought behind every detail. Stepping into "The Professor's" shoes, learning those rhythmic complexities, asymmetrical metres, and iconic parts from scratch across more than forty songs prepared for the tour, was a punishing assignment.
For me, this was a particularly sensitive part of all the joy surrounding the return of the band that has meant so much to me, especially because my love for them had begun with Neil's solo. I know those fills by heart, wait for them, and hear them in my head before they arrive. The fear of disappointment was real.
I have to admit it: Neil's absence was felt in every second and every note. So was the immense responsibility and the daunting challenge Anika had accepted. In my view, she did herself proud. She played the iconic passages with precision and deep respect for Neil and his legacy, while elsewhere allowing her own groove and style to come through. You could see how much it meant to her, and the occasional little slips showed the strain of the occasion. But her personality remained present throughout her commitment to the original music.
And the crowd was with her. What amazed me was how the very fans who know every note and every drum fill, the people who might have made the inevitable comparison that would give Anika no chance, chose instead to cheer her on. Their desire to see her succeed was unmistakable. There was something deeply generous about fans who had arrived missing Neil so intensely embracing the musician who had helped his music fill the arena again.
Toronto: Seeing Them at Home
After the night at the Garden, we headed towards Toronto, where we had arranged to meet my cousin for a tour of places connected to the band. He had grown up in Geddy and Alex's neighbourhood before moving to Florida, and was the natural person to take us to the houses, the church basement where they rehearsed, and the places we knew from stories, album covers, and videos.
The closer we got to the city where it had all begun, the more we wanted another show. By the time we reached Niagara Falls, about an hour and a half from the venue, we knew we had to see them again. Luckily, an additional section had opened for sale at the last minute for the first of Toronto's four shows. We bought tickets just two hours before showtime and immediately hit the road for Scotiabank Arena. This time, we were far from the stage. After the VIP experience and first few rows in New York, it was a dramatic change of perspective, and a chance to experience the band on home ground.
In New York, being close to the stage drew our eyes to the musicians and the smallest details. In Toronto, from our distant seats, we saw the production as a whole. The screens, pyrotechnics, and lighting came together in a wider picture, with the audience around us becoming a bigger part of it. Before a hometown crowd, in the city that had shaped the band, that picture meant something more.
The setlist also promised a different evening. More than forty songs had been prepared for four rotating sets, with familiar anchors and different combinations, including "Far Cry" and "Headlong Flight".
One of Toronto's defining moments was undoubtedly "La Villa Strangiato". Alex's guitar gradually opens out, then riffs, stops, and shifting metres change the picture again. An entire piece that says so much without a word. Within all that movement, you could hear Anika holding the transitions together and responding to Geddy's bass, while the band combined precision, melody, and a sense of play. Like "A Farewell to Kings" at the Garden, it showed how willing they still were to challenge themselves. For me, it was reason enough to see them again.
"La Villa Strangiato", Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, August 7, 2026.
An abridged "2112", just three sections, opened the second set and made room for other choices. We got the much-loved "Distant Early Warning" from the band's synth era, "Red Barchetta", whose playing captured the acceleration and pursuit almost as vividly as the lyrics, and "Dreamline". We were following a different route from the one we had taken at the Garden.
"Natural Science" broadened the canvas again. Its acoustic opening developed into dense riffs and shifting metres, while white light shining through the perforated hanging screen scattered star-like glimmers around the arena. From our distant seats, we could take in the way the music and lighting came together to create a whole world.
Then came Toronto's surprise. Aimee Mann joined the band for "Time Stand Still", and the voice so closely associated with the original recording was now right there onstage. Her exchange with Geddy brought back a familiar, much-loved colour. At the Garden, the visuals and the longing for Neil had been at the centre of the performance. Here, we had this reunion, too.
"Time Stand Still" with Aimee Mann, Toronto, August 7, 2026.
The encore held another change for us. "By-Tor & the Snow Dog" came before "Working Man", which closed this show, too. No question about it: those last-minute tickets had given us another concert with a character and memories of its own.
Following the Band's Footsteps with the Cousin Who Introduced Me to Them
Around Toronto, we continued encountering that history in the places themselves. The Ontario Legislative Building at Queen's Park, where the cover of "Moving Pictures" was photographed, suddenly stood before us at full size. The locations associated with "Subdivisions" took on a different meaning as we visited them. Anyone who has known an album cover or a video for decades will understand that simple thrill: arriving somewhere that has been part of your music all along.
At Lakeside Park in Port Dalhousie, St. Catharines, we also visited the pavilion named after Neil. The park and "Lakeside Park" had been part of his story long before the pavilion bore his name. After those two huge nights in the arenas, visiting his memorial offered another way to feel close to him.
And so, more than forty years after my cousin introduced me to "Rush", I found myself sharing their music with him again, with his daughter and my three nephews. Amid all that joy, I thought about my eldest daughter and how much I wished I could share this moment with her. Once, I was the kid someone had played a cassette for. Now I could share an incredible concert by my lifelong favourite band with my nephews and be beside them as their own memories took shape. They no longer have to make do with the stories of R40. They have New York and Toronto. We have this trip together, and it is already part of our shared store of memories.
I am grateful to Geddy and Alex for the chance to hear and see this music live again, to Anika for the courage and hard work that brought her to that stage, and to Neil for everything he left us. Some concerts stay with you because of the songs. I will remember these two nights for the people who were with me, too, and for the journey we made to get there.
The Setlists
New York, August 3, 2026
Set One
Opening film: Xanadudes
1. "Xanadu"
2. "Limelight"
3. "Subdivisions"
4. "The Pass"
5. "Freewill"
6. Tribute to Neil Peart / "Bravado"
7. "The Camera Eye" (piano introduction by Loren Gold)
8. "The Trees"
9. "The Anarchist"
10. "The Spirit of Radio"
Set Two
11. "2112" in full:
"Overture"
"The Temples of Syrinx"
"Discovery"
"Presentation"
"Oracle: The Dream"
"Soliloquy"
"Grand Finale"
12. "Far Cry"
13. "New World Man"
14. "A Farewell to Kings"
15. Tribute to Neil Peart / "Time Stand Still"
16. "Vital Signs"
17. "YYZ"
18. "The Garden"
19. "Tom Sawyer"
Encore
20. "Finding My Way"
21. "Working Man"
Toronto, August 7, 2026
Set One
Opening film: Xanadudes
1. "Xanadu"
2. "Limelight"
3. "Far Cry"
4. "Subdivisions"
5. "Freewill"
6. Tribute to Neil Peart / "Bravado"
7. "Headlong Flight"
8. "La Villa Strangiato"
9. "Vital Signs"
10. "The Spirit of Radio"
Set Two
11. "2112" (selected sections): "Overture", "The Temples of Syrinx", "Grand Finale"
12. "Distant Early Warning"
13. "Red Barchetta"
14. "Dreamline"
15. "Natural Science"
16. Tribute to Neil Peart / "Time Stand Still" (with Aimee Mann)
17. "Red Sector A"
18. "YYZ"
19. "The Garden"
20. "Tom Sawyer"
Encore
21. "By-Tor & the Snow Dog"
22. "Working Man"
Closing film: A tribute featuring Paul Rudd and Jason Segel.
Further reading: My farewell to Neil Peart / Our review of "R40 Live" / Our review of "All the World's a Stage".
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