There's only the sound of the rain."
- Rush, "Bravado"
As he expressed in the lyrics to "Limelight," Rush's Neil Peart was a man uncomfortable with fame. Sharing his introverted nature, I saw the fortress of percussion he built around himself as a space that allowed him to pursue excellence in isolation from the crowd.
Given his nature, it made sense that Neil's post"'show routine was to leave the safety of his giant kit and slip quietly offstage while Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee said "goodbye" to the crowd. That is why it was such a shock when he snuck up on them as the final notes of their 2015 farewell show faded. Geddy even gasped mid"'sentence: "This is a surprise."
On that stage at the Forum in Los Angeles, the power trio took their final bow together. They knew they were saying "goodbye," and they did so with smiles on their faces. It was a moment the three of them had earned over their forty-year career together.
It was probably no coincidence that the band's surviving members chose that same arena as the starting point for a tour introducing a new version of the band to fans. Eleven years after that emotional goodbye, Geddy and Alex were ready to play again under the name "Rush," and with 24 dates already sold out, the fans also seemed eager. And so on June 7, 2026, they hit the Forum stage for the first of four concerts in Los Angeles.
Two hours before showtime, the parking lots were already filling up. As fans filtered into the arena, they traded stories from past tours and compared how many shows they'd seen. All fifty years of the band's career were represented in the shirts they proudly wore. Strangers quickly bonded over their shared love of Rush, and the excitement in the crowd was palpable, as was the emotional weight of the moment.
As has been the case in their later years, the concert began with a prerecorded video featuring the bandmates in various comedic roles, serving as an informal introduction to drummer Anika Nilles and keyboardist Loren Gold. The sketch reflected the band's usual offbeat humor.
As the sketch built to its final moment, Rush made their entrance: Geddy and Alex in makeup that made them seem comically old, and Neil represented by a music box playing the Morse code introduction to YYZ. In the final gag, the characters opened a wardrobe that spilled out iconic imagery from the band's history, ending with a photo of their last bow, captured from behind with the fans in the background.
The video images then parted to reveal Geddy and Alex on stage. They were in full 1970s progressive mode, each holding a double-necked guitar. The opening song was "Xanadu," an unexpected selection from 1977's A Farewell to Kings. It will be interesting to see whether this choice is repeated in other tour stops, or was a nod to the die-hard fans expected at this performance.
With the band displayed on the large video screen above the stage, the audience witnessed Anika's mix of nervous confidence. On her second appearance, she dropped a drumstick. Quickly recovering without missing a beat, she flashed her first smile of the evening. Mostly focused and intense, she let the smile slip back in after key transitions, difficult passages, and the solos in "YYZ" and "Tom Sawyer."
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