{"id":700297,"date":"2026-06-12T19:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T19:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700297\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T19:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T19:38:10","slug":"rush-fifty-something-night-three-review-all-of-moving-pictures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700297\/","title":{"rendered":"Rush Fifty Something Night Three Review: All of ‘Moving Pictures’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTowards of the end of the third show of Rush<\/a>\u2018s Fifty Something Tour<\/a>, the band experienced something nearly unimaginable for one of the most technically proficient and perfectionist acts of the rock era \u2014 a full musical train wreck that stopped the overture to \u201c2112\u201d right in its progged-out tracks. But no one actually made an instrumental mistake. Instead, two minutes in, Geddy Lee<\/a>\u2018s bass went dead, and he whipped it off his shoulder, heading backstage for a replacement that failed to immediately arrive.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIt took his bandmates a while to notice, leading to a brief, fascinating guitar-and-drums-only rendition of the track from Alex Lifeson<\/a> and new touring drummer Anika Nilles<\/a>. Finally, Lifeson became aware of the silence of the Geddy and signalled Nilles to stop, which felt a bit like trying to halt a Terminator mid-kill. \u201cWe\u2019re going to take a break,\u201d he said, looking genuinely nonplussed. Within seconds, Lee had a new instrument, and the band started again, hitting even harder.<\/p>\n

\n\tA few hiccups for Rush in their first tour in 52 years without the late Neil Peart would be understandable, but the band\u2019s 70-something co-founders and their new touring drummer are apparently more indefatigable than their own equipment. Here\u2019s a look at a few key moments from Thursday night\u2019s show at Los Angeles\u2019 Kia Forum:<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter playing the entirety of the first side of 2112 the night before, Rush brought out all of their most beloved album, 1981\u2019s Moving Pictures<\/a>, in order, at the beginning of set two. Since they had already played all but one track from Moving Pictures over the first two shows, this meant only one tour debut, an extraordinary rendition of the most sprawling and underrated track on the album, \u201cThe Camera Eye.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a rare and welcome moment of rearrangement for the band, keyboardist Loren Gold added some lyrical piano to the beginning, before the pulsing synths arrived.\u00a0Lee once described some of the band\u2019s early work as \u201csoundtracks for movies that don\u2019t exist,\u201d and this performance was a reminder of how well \u201cThe Camera Eye\u201d fits into the category. The instrumental passages, with their almost Neu!-like feel, viscerally evoked a sense of movement. Nilles was astonishing on her first-ever live performance of the song, somehow mastering its serpentine intricacies on top of the other 40 or so epics she\u2019s absorbed. Throughout the rest of the album, meanwhile, you could hear her making subtle refinements, including laying back deeper into the groove of \u201cTom Sawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\n\tAimee Mann came back for a third performance of \u201cTime Stand Still.\u201d Mann only spent a couple days with the band back in 1987 when she sang on the studio version and popped up in the (very Eighties) music video<\/a>, and then somehow never sang it with them again until this week<\/a>. With each performance, she seems more and more excited to be onstage with the band, exchanging smiles with Lee and relishing her harmonies with him. The performance of one of Peart\u2019s most personal songs is paired with video from throughout his life, and under the circumstances, hearing his lyrical plea to \u201cfreeze this moment a little bit stronger\u201d is unbearably poignant every time.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe band debuted a killer \u201cNew World Man\u201d for the first time since 2002. Eighties Rush is a beast of its own, with walls of synths and an evolving approach from Peart, who began to embrace polyrhythms and reggae \u00e0 la his friend Stewart Copeland. If anything (not to be greedy), this tour could use even more of that sometimes unfairly derided era \u2014\u00a0\u201cForce Ten\u201d and \u201cThe Big Money\u201d would be particularly welcome. But it was a kick to hear Nilles show off her ability to take on every step in Peart\u2019s evolution, seamlessly taking on the track\u2019s radically different feel, without feeling the need to match every hi-hat pattern.<\/p>\n

\n\tLee\u2019s voice is holding up. After 11 years off the road, the frontman changed his vocal approach via coaching, somehow shaving decades of wear off his voice. But even Lee himself must have wondered if he could keep it going under actual touring conditions.\u00a0So far, the answer is yes, and if anything, he\u2019s getting stronger from night to night. On the evening\u2019s second song, \u201cDreamline,\u201d he went as far as to take the chorus up an octave, just for fun, an unmistakable sign of renewed vocal swagger.<\/p>\n

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

\n\tLifeson is having fun. From the beginning of the run, Lee\u2019s joy was palpable \u2014 he keeps literally jumping for joy, getting some serious air for a 72-year-old, which has got to be making the tour\u2019s insurers slightly nervous. Other than his nightly stand-up routine at the mic (he\u2019s claimed he got into a fight with Paul McCartney and talked about a clip of a dog and a goat on Instagram), Lifeson seemed a bit more reserved the first two nights, focusing on nailing his parts. But he loosened up on night three, moving more around the stage, mugging for the cameras with his old friend, and stepping out even harder on his solos.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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

\n\tRush Setlist: June 11, 2026
Set One:
\u201cXanadu\u201d
\u201cDreamline\u201d
\u201cSubdivisions\u201d
\u201cHeadlong Flight\u201d
\u201cBravado\u201d
\u201cRed Sector A\u201d
\u201cLa Villa Strangiato\u201d
\u201cAnthem\u201d
\u201cNew World Man\u201d
\u201cThe Spirit of Radio\u201d<\/p>\n

Set two:
\u201cTom Sawyer\u201d
\u201cRed Barchetta\u201d
\u201cYYZ\u201d
\u201cLimelight\u201d
\u201cThe Camera Eye\u201d
\u201cWitch Hunt\u201d
\u201cVital Signs\u201d
\u201cTime Stand Still\u201d
\u201cCloser to the Heart\u201d
\u201c2112 Part I: Overture\u201d
\u201c2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx\u201d
\u201c2112 Part VII: Grand Finale\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEncore:
\u201cBy-Tor & The Snow Dog\u201d
\u201cWorking Man\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Towards of the end of the third show of Rush\u2018s Fifty Something Tour, the band experienced something nearly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":700298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[117965,118234,88,117966,302917,72063],"class_list":["post-700297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alex-lifeson","tag-anika-nilles","tag-entertainment","tag-geddy-lee","tag-moving-pictures","tag-rush"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/700298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}