Rush launched into its first run of performances since 2015 tonight (March 29) with a shock efficiency to start the Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario, which served because the debut onstage look of late drummer Neil Peart’s alternative, Anika Nilles. As beforehand reported, the legendary Canadian trio will return to the highway this summer time on the intensive Fifty One thing tour, which begins in June in Los Angeles.
On the Junos, core members Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson had been additionally backed by keyboardist Loren Gold for the primary full airing since 1976 of “Discovering My Method” — the very first track on the very first Rush album from 1974 (for completists, the track did often seem in truncated kind on the tour in help of 1990’s Roll the Bones). Photographs of Peart, who died in 2020 after an extended battle with most cancers, had been proven on screens behind the stage.
Lee instructed media afterwards, “You actually can’t ask us what track to play. If we now have to decide on one track it’s virtually not possible. Now we have so many. So, we simply requested administration, and so they mentioned, first track, first album.” Added Lifeson, “additionally, it’s the one track we all know find out how to play.”
Lee and Lifeson have carried out collectively on a handful of events since Peart’s dying, most notably for 2 2022 tribute live shows in reminiscence of Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins. In a current interview concerning the upcoming tour, Lee promised a nightly tribute to Peart and mentioned “we’re exhausting at work designing a present proper now. It is going to be a present alongside the traces of what we’ve finished previously, and I’m fairly enthusiastic about some new expertise that we’re utilizing. Anika is aware of about 25 songs now. We’re going to hope to study round 40 songs and 40% of the set shall be totally different from night time to nighttime.”
Elsewhere on the Junos, Joni Mitchell acquired a Lifetime Achievement Award and in addition carried out as a part of a tribute to her profession led by Allison Russell and Sarah McLachlan. Nelly Furtado was enshrined within the Canadian Music Corridor of Fame and Tate McRae took residence 4 awards.
