Geddy Lee has shut down the idea of Rush recording with their current lineup, and in the same interview acknowledged that his own time onstage is finite.
He and Alex Lifeson spoke with Chile’s “Radio Futuro” two months into the “Fifty Something” tour, the band’s first run of shows in 11 years and the first since Neil Peart‘s death in 2020.
The question was whether the four of them might write together. Lee‘s answer was short.
“No. We have enough to do. We’re still trying to remember the old songs and play them,” he said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
He was more expansive about what the tour has taken out of him, and what it has given back.
“I’m just having a ball,” Geddy continued. “I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard in my life. Preparation for this tour was intense and years in the making. People think you can just walk up on stage and play three hours’ worth of those songs. I’ve got news for you — even the guys that wrote those songs have to work really hard to perfect them. And there was no way I was gonna hit the stage unless I knew that we could play at the top of our game. I mean, that’s something Neil used to always say, and that’s the reason he stopped playing, was because he no longer felt he had the energy to play at the top of his game. And it’s very difficult, especially for a drummer — and a singer, I might say. So, yes, I’m ecstatic that we’re playing so well and that the musicians that we’ve chosen to join us on stage have jelled the way they have. And every night out there is — for me, I just can’t wipe the smile off my face. I’m not pretending, when you see me smiling up there. It’s a joyous moment for me, and I know there’re only so many gigs left in my body, so I’m gonna enjoy them while I can.”
The 72-year-old was diagnosed with laryngitis and bronchitis at the end of June, forcing the postponement of two nights at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth. Announcing it, the band wrote that after more than 50 years of touring they had always believed that stepping on stage meant owing the audience the best performance they could give, and that this was not possible at the time. Both shows were rescheduled inside two weeks.
Lifeson said the band had braced for something cooler than what they got.
He said: “I don’t know that we were quite prepared for the reaction. We thought that coming back after 11 years, being away, there were a lot of Rush fans that were maybe unhappy with the way things sort of ended, and never thought they’d see us again. And then we started the tour, and the response has been — you go online and it’s crazy. People are so excited and so happy. And looking out at our audience night to night, everyone is so joyous. Everyone is having such a good time. There’s such happiness in the air, and it’s a beautiful thing to experience. People are crying, and they’re laughing, and they’re high-fiving, and they’re just getting an escape for a few hours from this crazy world. I mean, things are so nuts in the world right now, and this affords them an opportunity just to get away from that and to be together, like a community. It’s really more of a family reunion than it is a concert. And we’re just having a riot. We feel so comfortable and happy, and we feel well-prepared. I think we’re playing as well as we can, and we’re also having a riot on stage and goofing around. And Anika is so open to our craziness and really has become a part of it. And Loren is the same; Loren has a great sense of humor. So the unit is very happy. The four of us are very happy, and I think the audience feels it and really, really appreciates it.”
Lifeson described a rehearsal process that ran on a deadline: “Yeah. There was a countdown, for sure. We had a schedule. We laid out what our rehearsal schedule was going to be, with an end date being in May [of 2026], that we had to get everything done by then. And 14 months, at the beginning we thought, ‘Oh, that’s plenty of time. We’ll get it done.’ The last couple of weeks were, like, ‘Oh my God, we gotta really focus on this and really put it together.’ And we worked hard for that whole period. It’s just a lot of work to prepare.”
Lee put numbers on it.
“Especially for Anika. She had to learn something like 43 songs in the course of a year, and those are not easy drum parts to learn. Those are not easy song arrangements to learn, and she was working as hard, I think, as she’s ever worked on anything. And sometimes I would text her, I’d say, ‘How’s it going?’ She lives in Germany, we’re in Toronto. I’d say, ‘How’s it going?’ And she’s going, ‘Oh, my hard drive is full. I’m worried that it’s going to crash.’ So, she would work really hard on her own. Then she would come to Toronto sporadically and we would work really hard. And I think she found it much easier to work with us in person because there’s a chemistry that we have, and we can reassure her that this part is right, and this part is this long, and no, you have to play this part this way. And so she was like a sponge soaking it all up. She’s a brilliant player technically, but she’s also a brilliant person, and so she understood the gravity of what she was taking on, and she’s able to rise above the difficulties and deliver. So, yeah, I think the last month, as Alex alluded to, we played a full show 24 nights out of 27 days. We’ve never worked that hard in our entire lives. And I’m thankful for it because opening night, we were all a bit of a nervous wreck. And all that rehearsal paid off,” he said.
Lee went into detail on the difficulty of handing Rush arrangements to musicians who did not write them.
He added: “We made as many mistakes as [Anika] made, so that made her happy every time we rehearsed. And we all have these expressions now when we were making a mistake in the studio or whatever, we just look at each other, like, shock, made a mistake. One of the things I said to her and Loren before the tour started, I said, ‘Look, these are complicated songs. You are going to make a mistake.’ I said, ‘It’s not about the mistake. It’s about how you recover from the mistake. So just play. Just keep playing and don’t worry. There might be a bump in the road, but we’ll just work around it and carry on.’ And I think it helped them relax a little bit, because it’s kind of scary arrangements. They’re very complicated, and if you didn’t write them, you have to learn them, and it’s very different. When you write a part, it’s automatically in your DNA. You understand it inside out. But when you’re coming to it to learn it as an outsider, you try to break it down into the laws of music, and our songs don’t adhere to the laws of music strictly. So it can be very intimidating and challenging. And so I think [Anika] appreciated face to face of being able to work out those parts. I remember when we talked about learning A Farewell To Kings, and it was that daunting middle section that’s… And she’s very mathematical, so she’s breaking it down into time signatures and I’m going, ‘Well, I just play the riff over and over again until it’s over.’ So I said, ‘Don’t worry about it. Figure it out, 6/8, 7/8, whatever you think, a bar of four here. You figure it out. When you get together with Alex and I, we’ll bash it around and it will feel second nature to you.’ And that’s how it comes together. And so I think that helped her relax a little bit to know that her two crazy uncles are out there, and we’ve got her back. ‘We’ve got you. Don’t worry. We’ll get you through all the tough parts.'”
Rush announced the tour on October 6, 2025 as a 12-date run across seven cities. Demand pushed it to 22 dates, which sold out immediately, and then to 58 shows in 24 cities across Canada, the United States and Mexico, with more than half a million tickets sold for 2026 alone.
In February the band added a run across 13 countries for early 2027, covering South America, the United Kingdom and Europe, and closing April 10 in Helsinki. It will be their first European shows since 2013 and their first in South America in 17 years.
The tour opened June 7 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, the venue where Rush played their final concert with Peart in August 2015. Each night runs as two sets drawn from a pool of more than 40 songs, with a tribute segment to Peart built into the show.
Peart‘s widow Carrie Nuttall-Peart and daughter Olivia endorsed the tour when it was announced, saying they were glad to support a celebration of his legacy as both drummer and lyricist while describing him as irreplaceable.
Nilles and Gold made their first public appearance with the band at the Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario in late March, playing “Finding My Way“, the opening track from the 1974 debut, and the only Rush album Peart does not appear on.
That was Lee and Lifeson‘s first performance under the Rush name since the R40 tour ended in 2015, though they have played together since under their own names, including tributes to Gordon Lightfoot and Taylor Hawkins.
Peart died in January 2020 at 67 after three years with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. The band announced his death three days later.
