Rush break out “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” and much more in their first full show with new touring drummer Anika Nilles
Powerhouse new touring drummer Anika Nilles wasn’t the only woman onstage with Rush in Los Angeles Sunday night. During the band’s Fifty Something Tour opener at Kia Forum, singer-songwriter Aimee Mann emerged from the wings in a long white dress as Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson slammed into “Time Stand Still.” Mann sang her ethereal part on the choruses, marking their first-ever live performance of the song together, 40 years after she sang on the studio version.
As they played, with new touring keyboardist Loren Gold handling the synths and Nilles nailing the twisty drum part, the video screens above them showed one of the night’s multiple tributes to drummer Neil Peart, who died in 2020. As Lee sang some of Peart’s most personal lyrics — “Summer’s going fast/ Nights growing colder/Children growing up/Old friends growing older/ Experience slips away” — the crowd saw images of his beloved motorcycle moving through a landscape without its rider. The montage concluded in outer space, with a constellation of stars forming into an image of Peart at his drum kit.
The evening’s first Peart tribute, earlier in the set, was 1991’s “Bravado.” Prefaced by audio of Peart talking about his life philosophy — holding onto his inner 16-year-old — the song was backed by wall-to-wall video of the drummer throughout his life By the time Lee got to the line “And if the music stops/ There’s only the sound of the rain,” the arena was full of fans discreetly wiping their eyes.
The show, divided into two sets with an intermission, was full of surprises, from a note-perfect “Xanadu” opener to the first version of “By-Tor and the Snow Dog” since 2004. The crowd embraced Nilles throughout, and by the time she perfectly recreated the monster fills on “Tom Sawyer,” she was beaming. (Look for Rolling Stone’s full review of the evening soon.)
Rush Setlist
Set 1
“Xanadu”
“Limelight”
“Far Cry”
“Subdivisions”
“Freewill”
“Bravado”
“Caravan”
“La Villa Strangiato”
“Vital Signs”
“The Spirit of Radio”
Set 2
“2112 Part I: Overture”
“2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx”
“2112 Part VII: Grand Finale”
“Distant Early Warning”
“Red Barchetta”
“Dreamline”
“Natural Science”
“Time Stand Still”
“Red Sector A”
“YYZ”
“The Garden”
“Tom Sawyer”
Encore
“By-Tor & The Snow Dog”
“Working Man”
