Rush

“Geddy said from the stage [in 2015], how they’d see us down the road some day. And now, before we even know it, that day will be here again.”

- Words: Philip Wilding Portrait: Richard Sibbald

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.

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 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.

Not that Neil was talking officially. He said hello to me backstage at both gigs and at the final aftershow, polite and warm as always, but he didn't want to do a formal interview; why would he, what was left to say? Earlier, I'd stood by the pool of the London Hotel in LA on that hazy August day as rumours circulated that Neil had asked that his tour drums be shipped home after the last show and not back to storage for the next round of gigs. The circus was leaving town, the big top dismantled one last time.

I've written enough about that last show, not least in this year's gargantuan Rush 50 box set, about how the band travelled back in time during the show, starting with Clockwork Angels and stripping away the layers until two hours later they were playing