Alex Lifeson is bringing the sound of Rush‘s entire catalog to the stage on the band’s reunion tour, and he’s doing it without a single tube amp. The legendary guitarist has revealed that digital modeling tech is at the heart of his live rig for the “Fifty Something” tour, letting him dial in the exact tones behind classics like “Tom Sawyer” and “Limelight“.
For most of his career, Lifeson stuck firmly to traditional tube amps, skeptical of modeling gear. That changed when he got his hands on IK Multimedia‘s TONEX system, which captured his personal collection of amplifiers.
“I did the thing for the TONEX, where they did my whole catalog of amps. Oh, it’s incredible,” Lifeson said (as transcribed by Ultimate Guitar).
In a new interview with Rick Beato, the guitarist explained that his signature TONEX pedal, paired with a Fractal unit, will anchor his setup on the road. He recalled how skeptical he was when the technology first landed in his hands.
“When they sent it to me, and I listened to it, I really wasn’t sure what to expect, because quite often this sort of technology, prior to this generation, always felt two-dimensional. It was just pasted on a window; there was no depth, and everything sounded tight and compressed,” he explained.
What he heard changed his mind completely.
“Now, I guess with the advent of AI helping, they sound like the greatest amps ever. There’s depth in the bottom end. There’s real character. It’s not just the fuzziness and the noise that you get from an amp; it responds beautifully.”
The big appeal for Lifeson is the ability to revisit specific sounds from across Rush‘s decades of records, all within a single setup: “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if I could go back and emulate all those guitar sounds that I had from those records?’ I thought, ‘If I could make the guitar sound from ‘Tom Sawyer’ and ‘Limelight,’ and go through the whole gamut of guitar sounds… wouldn’t that be cool?'”
That approach means the guitar tones shift from song to song over the course of a show, rather than sticking to one or two channels all night.
“It’s really interesting to listen to and fresh as it changes through the course of the night. It’s not just the same thing for an hour and a half,” he concluded.
It’s a major departure from his old live setup, which relied on physical tube heads, cabs and a much smaller palette of sounds. To build the digital versions, IK Multimedia reportedly held onto several of his prized amps for nearly two years to capture them properly — recreations now available both as a standalone plugin and built into his signature pedal.
Lifeson and bandmate Geddy Lee launched the “Fifty Something” tour to celebrate 50-plus years of Rush and to honor late drummer Neil Peart, who died in 2020. The pair are joined behind the kit by German drummer Anika Nilles, known for her work with Jeff Beck. Demand was massive — the initial 22 dates sold out instantly, pushing the 2026 run to 58 shows across 24 cities, with a further set of European and South American dates booked for early 2027.
