Rush
The tour hasn’t even happened yet, but if 2025 is remembered for one thing, it most likely will be Rush announcing they were going back out on the road, with German drummer Anika Nilles, for their R50 shows.
Words: Philip Wilding
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson have really missed the road. And we’ve missed seeing them on it.
Portrait: Richard Sibbald
The irony is not lost that one of the best gigs this writer ever saw Rush play was their last. Or their last two, truth be told, both in California, both marking the end of the band’s R40 Tour, and depending on who you talked to, the end of the band.
Geddy Lee said it wasn’t over. He told me that in the back of our car as we drove to the penultimate show at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. A strangely glorious setting for a long goodbye. I remember a roadie wandering past during soundcheck wearing a handmade R50 top, which must have seemed funny or hopeful at the start of the tour. Alex Lifeson said that it might be the end of the band, he doubled hadn’t made it across the Atlantic for that last down on that later, and for Neil Peart, absolutely, he’d promised his friends one final tour, and this was it, you could see the finish line up ahead. His mood got brighter with each show, Ged’s a little darker as the road ahead began to run out.