{"id":737249,"date":"2026-06-15T00:56:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/737249\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T00:56:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T00:56:11","slug":"rush-night-four-review-rush-break-out-a-farewell-to-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/737249\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush Night Four Review: Rush Break Out ‘A Farewell to Kings’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\t\u201cI never thought I\u2019d see this again,\u201d Rush<\/a>\u2018s Geddy Lee<\/a> said early in night four of Rush\u2019s first tour in 11 years, looking out at the crowd at Los Angeles\u2019 Kia Forum. As they completed their triumphant<\/a> run in Los Angeles, playing a different set of songs each night, they laid out the blueprint for the rest of the tour \u2014 going forward, it appears that the band\u2019s current plan is to choose from one of those four setlists each evening. As with night two, Saturday night\u2019s show featured all seven sections of \u201c2112,\u201d and also debuted three songs previously unplayed on the tour: \u201cThe Pass\u201d from 1989\u2019s Presto, \u201cThe Anarchist\u201d from 2012\u2019s Clockwork Angels, and, most shockingly, the first performance of the title track of A Farewell to Kings since 1979. A few thoughts on the evening\u2019s show:<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter a mere 47-year absence from the stage, \u201cA Farewell to Kings\u201d sounded like it never left. Near the end of the second set, following an ecstatic \u201cYYZ,\u201d Rush debuted the deepest cut of the whole tour without warning. As with the studio version, the track began with Lifeson plucking out a delicate intro on a nylon-string guitar before blasting into monster electric riffs. The band presumably avoided the track for many years largely because the vocal melody starts at the top of Lee\u2019s range and then stays there, but Lee has become perhaps the only rock singer of his generation to actually reverse vocal aging. For this tour, he\u2019s regained some of his old banshee range, apparently thanks to some remarkably effective coaching. So he sounded quite comfortable with the song, which he and Lifeson must have had to re-learn from scratch nearly to the extent that new touring drummer Anika Nilles<\/a> did. The instrumental break before the final chorus, with Nilles let loose on Neil Peart\u2019s parts and Lifeson soloing like his Seventies self, was one of the many moments of uncanny resurrection on the tour so far \u2014 the essence of Rush, in full, despite the tragic absence of a key third of the band.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tA deeply felt version of \u201cThe Pass\u201d was another reminder of how deep Rush\u2019s music\u00a0 \u2014 and Peart\u2019s lyrics \u2014 can cut. Among non-fans, the band somehow gained a reputation as cerebral and chilly, but that\u2019s far from the truth. \u201cThis is one of those songs that goes straight to your heart,\u201d Lee said, introducing \u201cThe Pass,\u201d after noting the evolution of Peart\u2019s writing over the years, and he wasn\u2019t kidding. A not-insignificant number of fans have confessed online that its achingly compassionate portrait of a suicidal teen \u201cstanding on a rocky ledge\/ staring down into a heartless sea\u201d literally saved their lives. Lifeson somehow summed up the song\u2019s entire message in his simple, emotive solo.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnika Nilles has become a Rush fan. The German drum virtuoso wasn\u2019t deeply familiar with the band\u2019s repertoire when Lee and Lifeson first brought her to Toronto to jam. But over the course of a year or so, she took on the seemingly impossible task of not just learning hours worth of Neil Peart\u2019s parts, but attempting to absorb his overall approach. Somewhere along the way, in addition to achieving those goals, she also clearly learned to love the music she\u2019s playing as much as the audience does. She smiles when she recreates a particularly gnarly Peart fill on \u201cTom Sawyer\u201d or \u201cXanadu,\u201d but it\u2019s not just pride and relief: She\u2019s having fun up there. Peart had many phases as a drummer, and his polyrhythmic Eighties stuff can sound like another player altogether \u2014 but judging from Nilles\u2019 prior work, that version of him is closest to her own natural style, so her playing on \u201cNew World Man\u201d and \u201cDistant Early Warning\u201d sounded particularly effortless Saturday night.<\/p>\n

\n\tRush playing \u201cThe Spirit of Radio\u201d remains the absolute definition of arena rock. When the last vestiges of the classic-rock era finally fade, many of the moments that made up its truest essence will be impossible to explain to those who missed it. The way Lifeson kicks back into the song\u2019s intro riff as Lee howls about invisible airwaves crackling with life, or the moment the lights blaze when Lee shouts \u201cconcert halls\u201d \u2014 you had to be there.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tThe encore\u2019s double-pack of songs from Rush\u2019s debut was a reminder of a path not taken. With original drummer John Rutsey, the earliest, pre-prog, heavily Zeppelin-influenced incarnation of Rush was already great, albeit in a more primal manner.\u00a0 Lee\u2019s gleeful, life-affirming \u201cyeah, oh yeah\u201d at the beginning of \u201cFinding My Way\u201d Saturday night over Lifeson\u2019s power chords and galloping riffs was somehow nearly as profound as many of the evening\u2019s most philosophical lyrics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tSetlist:
Set One
\u201cXanadu\u201d
\u201cLimelight\u201d
\u201cSubdivisions\u201d
\u201cThe Pass\u201d
\u201cFreewill\u201d
\u201cBravado\u201d
\u201cThe Camera Eye\u201d
\u201cThe Trees\u201d
\u201cThe Anarchist\u201d
\u201cThe Spirit of Radio\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSet two
\u201c2112 Part I: Overture\u201d
\u201c2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx\u201d
\u201c2112 Part III: Discovery\u201d
\u201c2112 Part IV: Presentation\u201d
\u201c2112 Part V: Oracle: The Dream\u201d
\u201c2112 Part VI: Soliloquy\u201d
\u201c2112 Part VII: Grand Finale\u201d
\u201cFar Cry\u201d
\u201cDistant Early Warning\u201d
\u201cNew World Man\u201d
\u201cVital Signs\u201d
\u201cTime Stand Still\u201d
\u201cYYZ\u201d
\u201cA Farewell to Kings\u201d
\u201cThe Garden\u201d
\u201cTom Sawyer\u201d
Encore
\u201cFinding My Way\u201d
\u201cWorking Man\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI never thought I\u2019d see this again,\u201d Rush\u2018s Geddy Lee said early in night four of Rush\u2019s first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[108831,108832,49,48,75,108833,56410],"class_list":["post-737249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alex-lifeson","tag-anika-nilles","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-geddy-lee","tag-rush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}