Rush's Fifty Something tour kicks off in just 1 WEEK from this coming Sunday on June 7th in Los Angeles - right back where they ended the R40 Live tour and performed their final show with the late Neil Peart. The band is currently hunkered down in LA and will likely be doing some full dress rehearsals at the venue in the coming week - The Forum has no other events planned until the Rush shows. From everything we've learned, the band has been rehearsing close to 40 songs for the tour that they will rotate in over a 4-ish night stretch, with each show being around 2.5 hours, and including around 20-25 songs. There will be a portion of each show dedicated to the late Neil Peart, although details of what form that will take have not been revealed. It's also not clear whether they will include an intermission or not, although I believe their original plan was to not include one (although that may have changed). Live Nation is asking fans who are attending one of the LA shows to fill out a questionnaire to gather information on Rush superfans. It's unclear what they'll use the information for, but if you are attending any of the LA shows, you can fill out the questionnaire here. If - like most of us - you won't be able to attend opening night ... No problem! RushCon has you covered. They'll be hosting a Rush Tour Opening Night Watch Party via their YouTube channel featuring Chaz N Schatz from the RushRash podcast (I was a guest on their show back in 2024). From the announcement:
RUSHCON PRESENTS: THE RUSH TOUR OPENING NIGHT FAN WATCH PARTY
Rush is back, and the tour kicks off Sunday, June 7th at The Forum in Los Angeles.
✨ Can't be there in person? GET SPOILED WITH US INSTEAD!✨
RushCon is hosting a live online fan watch party for everyone following opening night from home. Here's what you'll get:
Live updates from the Forum
Real-time fan reactions
The setlist, as it happens
Photos from insideOur on-the-ground correspondents will be feeding us everything as it unfolds, and our hosts will be live the whole night, breaking it all down with you. It's the next best thing to being there: the community, the hype, the FOMO, all in one place.
Featuring Chaz N Schatz from the RushRash podcast. 🤘
Watch live: youtube.com/@RushCon - Sunday, June 7th , 6:30pm PT / 9:30pm ET
📣 At the show? Be our eyes and ears. We'd love your photos, your reviews, your point of view from inside the Forum. Message us here on Facebook or email info@rushcon.org.
Set a reminder, subscribe to the channel, and get spoiled with us!
Also if you weren't aware, just like the band themselves, RushCon is returning for 2026 after a decade-long hiatus. RushCon 2026 will take place in its traditional home of Toronto later this summer over the weekend of August 7-9, coinciding with the band's hometown tour stops. The festivities will begin Friday evening with a welcome party and pre-show hangout at The Loose Moose. The main event will take place on Saturday at The El Mocambo with games, contests, guest speakers, and more, along with a Sunset Boat Cruise in the Toronto Harbor in the evening. Sunday will include a closing party and pre-show hangout at Henderson Brewing. You can get all the details and purchase tickets at RushCon.org. This won't be the only RushCon event on the tour however; they'll also be hosting a Madison Square Garden pre-show party on Saturday August 1st - the day of the 3rd of 4 MSG shows - with tickets available here. The event will take place at The Rutherford with exact timing TBD.
Musician/producer Rick Beato's popular YouTube channel posted an hour-long interview with Rush's Geddy Lee last week, which Beato had teased a month earlier. Alex Lifeson crashed Geddy's interview towards the end, and then Beato interviewed Alex solo. That interview was published earlier this week and is now available for watching. Alex continues on many of the subjects touched on in Geddy's interview, giving his own take on Rush's upcoming Fifty Something tour and Rush's legacy, but most of the interview focused on gear and what Alex has used over the years. From the video description:
In today's episode I travel to Revolution Recording in Toronto to sit down with one of the most inventive and influential guitarists in rock history: Alex Lifeson of Rush. In this interview, Alex and I deconstruct the mechanics behind his monumental guitar tone. We explore his extensive gear evolution, the harmonic ingenuity behind the famous 'Lifeson Chord'-using open strings and suspended voicings to create a massive sonic footprint-and his brilliant philosophy on how to fill the space within a power trio.
We also trace his compositional journey alongside Geddy Lee and Neil Peart. We discuss the band's creative evolution, from their heavy blues-rock roots into sprawling progressive epics, navigating the challenge of carving out a guitar frequency amidst the dense synthesizer arrangements of the 1980s, and ultimately returning to their aggressive, guitar-driven rock roots in the nineties. ...
You can watch the entire interview below or via YouTube.
European fans have a much longer wait to see the Fifty Something tour, having to wait until next February before Rush hits their shores, where they'll be playing 21 shows to close out the tour. The band and their tour are the subject of a cover feature in the latest edition of the German music magazine RockHard, as seen in this Instagram post (thanks Rinus):
Back in late 2021, Modern Drummer magazine in partnership with the family of Neil Peart announced the creation of an annual Neil Peart Spirit of Drumming Scholarship for up-and-coming drummers. Since then they have awarded scholarships to 4 aspiring drummers, and started accepting applications for the 2026 Award last week, with a submission deadline of June 20th:
... Presented by Modern Drummer, Neil's wife and daughter Carrie Nuttall-Peart and Olivia Peart, the scholarship was created to celebrate Neil Peart's extraordinary musicianship, creativity, integrity, discipline, and lifelong commitment to artistic growth. They, along with David Frangioni CEO, Rob Silverman MD director of Worldwide Education, and Dennis Wolfe of UMe will be reviewing the applications. The selected scholarship recipient will receive a comprehensive prize package designed to support their development as a drummer, including:
* One full year of private drum instruction with internationally recognized Modern Drummer director of worldwide education, drummer/percussionist, Rob Silverman
* A Modern Drummer All Access subscription
* Rush special edition box set releases from Universal Music Enterprises
* Official Modern Drummer merchandise and educational materials
* Recognition through Modern Drummer platforms and community initiatives"The Neil Peart Spirit of Drumming Scholarship is more than an award," said David Frangioni of Modern Drummer. "It is an investment in the next generation of drummers who carry forward the passion, curiosity, discipline, and creative spirit that Neil represented throughout his life and career." Legendary drummers Mike Portnoy and Alex Gonzalez were both directly inspired by Neil and in his honor have created video messages urging drummers to apply and go for it! ...
You can get all the details at ModernDrummer.com, and interested contestants can apply at this link.
A new book from RUSH: The Day I Was There author Richard Houghton will be released this coming November, and is now available for pre-order. The book is titled Vanished Time: A People's History of Rush, and rather than being a traditional band biography, it takes a fan-centered approach featuring more than 500 firsthand accounts from Rush fans, chronicling concert experiences, personal encounters, road trips, unforgettable performances, and the many moments that helped define the Rush community over the decades. The book comes in at 336 pages and is slated for release later this year on November 3, 2026, with pre-orders now available.
10 years ago today, back on May 29, 2016, there was a great Rush reference on HBO's "Veep" (Season 5, Episode 6 - C**tgate). Jonah Ryan is running for US Congress in New Hampshire and in one scene Jonah walks into his campaign headquarters where his director of communications gives him some bad news, "Sir, as your director of communications, I need to tell you that we just got a letter from the band Rush. They said that we can't use the song "Working Man" anymore because they find you odious..."
That's all for this week. Have a great weekend!!
