Return of the Kings: Inside Rush’s Fifty Something Tour

O n their long journey towards becoming Rush again, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson pushed past death, illness, age, self-doubt, and for one guy, a weed habit that dated back to 1966. They just didn’t count on the fog.

In early June, the resuscitated band was about to begin its first concert in 11 years , the kick-off of its Fifty Something tour. Backstage at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum that Sunday evening, Lee was feeling tense, Lifeson less so. “I was, surprisingly, not really that nervous,” the guitarist says. At showtime, video screens surrounding the stage began to glide upwards, revealing two familiar silhouettes, complete with dual doublenecks, shrouded by thick clouds of smoke. Lifeson put his foot on his volume pedal, ready to unleash the swelling notes that begin 1977’s “Xanadu.”

As more smoke billowed, he could feel his guitar’s twelve-pound weight on his spine, but couldn’t see a single fret. For a second, at least, “not really that nervous” melted into near-panic. A few feet away, Lee glanced down at a small mirror that was supposed to let him watch drummer Anika Nilles . In the haze, his rearview was gone. “We were drowning in fog,” Lee says, laughing at the Spinal Tap absurdity of it all.

Half-blinded but undaunted, they launched the song. In the opening moments of her very first Rush concert, Nilles whirled through the “Xanadu” intro’s lengthy procession of exclamatory drum fills. A minute in, she was pounding out the tom-tom-heavy accompaniment to a winding riff. Don’t fuck up this fill , she recalls telling herself, just as her left hand lost its grip: “I saw this stick flying over the toms.” She missed a single drum hit, enough to trigger a concerned glance from Lee, before plunging on one-handed. In the same millisecond, she somehow snatched the errant stick out of the air, flipped it over, and kept going. “It happens,” she says, still unfazed. “You drop the stick. As a drummer, you’re used to it.” (“She’s a pro,” Lee adds. “She rose to the occasion on opening night.”)

At age 43, Nilles, a native of Aschaffenburg, Germany, is three decades younger than her new bandmates. When she was born, Rush were about to record their tenth album, Grace Under Pressure . She’s had stage fright in the past, but on the highest-stakes night of her career, was relaxed enough to break into a smile right after that stick recovery. It helped that she meditated for a full 45 minutes before the show, part of a “calming routine.” “In each song part,” she says, “I had to coach myself a little bit through it, especially in the first show, not to fly away.” She tried not to consider the bigger picture. “That all helped not to think too much about how big that seat is and what role I’m filling in it, at the point where I’m sitting on stage. Be in the moment, be present, be focused.” Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

The seat she’s filling will, of course, always belong to Neil Peart, who died of brain cancer in 2020 . That night in L.A. was Rush’s first concert without him since his debut on Aug. 14, 1974.