Rush, the Canadian prog rockers whose epic and detailed songcraft continues to attract a large and heartfelt fandom, are to reform for the first time since the death of drummer Neil Peart.
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, both 72, will tour the US, Canada and Mexico, playing seven concerts in summer 2026 beginning in Los Angeles on 7 June.
Lee said in a statement: “It’s been over 10 years since Alex and I have performed the music of Rush alongside our fallen bandmate and friend Neil. A lifetime’s worth of songs that we had put our cumulative hearts and souls into writing, recording and playing together onstage. And so, after all that has gone down since that last show, Alex and I have done some serious soul searching and come to the decision that we fucking miss it, and that it’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of Rush music.”
Lee promises a “vast selection of songs” from the band’s 19 studio albums, and while crediting Peart as “irreplaceable”, announced a “remarkable” new drummer, Anika Nilles. Lee previously praised her in a 2023 Guardian interview, saying: “I heard this drummer the other day, I think her name is Anika [Nilles]. She played on the last Jeff Beck tour and I thought was she was terrific.”
Rush originally formed in 1968 in Toronto, and 11 of those 19 albums eventually went Top 10 in the US, culminating in 2012’s Clockwork Angels, a No 2 hit.
Rush’s last gigs were in a 40th anniversary tour in 2015, with the band members reportedly divided over their future. “I miss playing with Rush. I don’t miss travelling with Rush,” Lee told the Guardian in 2018, and in his 2023 interview he added: “[The 2015 tour] was a lot of fun, but as the tour wound down, the mood started to change and it split into two camps. Neil was getting happier and Alex and I were getting sadder, because we really wanted to bring the tour to fans around the world, but Neil had agreed to do 30 shows. He felt as if he was approaching liberation, so we were quite divided by the end.”
Peart died of brain cancer in 2020, having lived for more than three years with the illness, and Lee had previously scotched the idea that Rush would perform again without Peart. “That’s finished, right? That’s over,” he told Rolling Stone later in 2020. “I would never hesitate to play one of those songs in the right context. But at the same time, you have to give respect to what the three of us with Neil did together.”
But in 2023 he told the Guardian it was “likely” that he and Lifeson would make new music together.
Lee also spoke more about Nilles at a launch event for the tour. “No matter who the drummer is, they all have their own perception of what it’s like to play a Rush song, and they may not line up with the way we play Rush,” he said. “So whoever we were going to choose was going to be difficult, and there was going to be like a translation.
“And so we very secretly brought Anika to Canada, and we did it wasn’t an audition, because at that point we weren’t really sure that we were going to tour. It was all an experiment … I’m very happy to say that she is fantastic to play with … A lot of drummers can play Neil’s drum fills, but to combine that with the feel of those songs so that it feels the way you guys want to hear those songs – that’s work, that requires work. So she’s winning.”
Lee added that the trio would be augmented by other supporting musicians: “Before we hit the stage, we also hope to add another musician or two to expand our sound a wee bit and free up Alex and I, in order to show off some of our new fancy dance steps.”
