Rush embarked on its first run of performances since 2015 tonight (March 29) with a surprise performance to begin the Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario, which served as the debut onstage appearance of late drummer Neil Peart’s replacement, Anika Nilles. As previously reported, the legendary Canadian trio will return to the road this summer on the extensive Fifty Something tour, which begins in June in Los Angeles.
At the Junos, core members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson were also backed by keyboardist Loren Gold for the first complete airing since 1976 of “Finding My Way” — the very first song on the very first Rush album from 1974 (for completists, the song did occasionally appear in truncated form on the tour in support of 1990’s Roll the Bones). Images of Peart, who died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer, were shown on screens behind the stage.
Lee told media afterwards, “You really can’t ask us what song to play. If we have to choose one song it’s almost impossible. We have so many. So, we just asked management, and they said, first song, first album.” Added Lifeson, “also, it’s the only song we know how to play.”
Lee and Lifeson have performed together on a handful of occasions since Peart’s death, most notably for two 2022 tribute concerts in memory of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. In a recent interview about the upcoming tour, Lee promised a nightly tribute to Peart and said “we’re hard at work designing a show right now. It will be a show along the lines of what we’ve done in the past, and I’m pretty excited about some new technology that we’re using. Anika knows about 25 songs now. We’re going to hope to learn around 40 songs and 40% of the set will be different from night to night.”
Elsewhere at the Junos, Joni Mitchell received a Lifetime Achievement Award and also performed as part of a tribute to her career led by Allison Russell and Sarah McLachlan. Nelly Furtado was enshrined in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and Tate McRae took home four awards.
