Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut has two shows, one in late October and one in early November. It was always more or less a given that we would go to one of them. Now we officially are.
There are two shows in Boston but we can’t make either one. We will be in San Diego helping my step daughter move into her new apartment ahead of starting her PHD program. That’s going to be epic in and of itself. Weirdly, on the day we are flying home Rush is playing in Cleveland. Somehow, mysteriously, our flight home was magically rerouted to Cleveland instead of Boston so… yeah, we’ll go to that show too. I mean, that one is a total accident, right?
Now the only question is… do we stop with two more shows or do we try to accidentally snag some tickets for a third show as well. We’re already clearly insane so why not just lean into it, right? At this point literally every Rush show could turn out to be the last Rush show. One never knows.
Here is my updated list of Rush shows:
1987–12–03 — Worcester Centrum — Worcester, MA 1990–05–10 — Worcester Centrum — Worcester, MA 1991–12–10 — Worcester Centrum — Worcester, MA 1994–03–11 — Worcester Centrum — Worcester, MA 1996–11–09 — Fleet Center — Boston, MA 1997–06–23 — Great Woods — Mansfield, MA 2002–07–12 — Tweeter Center — Mansfield, MA 2002–10–28 — Fleet Center — Boston, MA 2004–08–12 — Tweeter Center — Mansfield, MA 2007–06–27 — Tweeter Center — Mansfield, MA 2007–07–09 — Mohegan Sun Arena — Uncasville, CT 2007–09–06 — Marcus Amphitheater — Milwaukee, WI 2007–09–17 — Madison Square Garden — New York, NY 2008–06–15 — Comcast Center — Mansfield, MA 2008–07–05 — Saratoga Springs Performing Arts Center — Saratoga Springs, NY 2008–07–07 — Mohegan Sun Arena — Uncasville, CT 2008–07–11 — Verizon Arena — Manchester, NH 2010–09–14 — TD Garden — Boston, MA 2011–04–08 — Giant Center — Hershey, PA 2011–04–10 — Madison Square Garden — New York, NY 2012–09–07 — Verizon Wireless Arena — Manchester, NH 2013–05–09 — Mohegan Sun Arena — Uncasville, CT 2013–05–11 — Etess Arena — Atlantic City, NJ 2015–06–23 — TD Garden — Boston, MA 2015–06–29 — Madison Square Garden — New York, NY 2026–07–28 — Madison Square Garden — New York, NY __________Upcoming Show Dates____________________ 2026–09–19 — Rocket Arena — Cleveland, OH 2026–11–01 — Mohegan Sun Arena — Uncasville, CT
Jen, Bellana, and I took a train from a little South of Boston to New York on Tuesday morning. Mike the bass player took the same train on Monday. Kevin the drummer flew into New York from Arizona on Monday. Sarah and Adam, two of Bellana’s friends, came into town from somewhere to the South (sorry, I don’t recall exactly where) on Tuesday too.
Jen, Bellana, Kevin, Mike, and I met for dinner before the show and had some excellent sushi and steak. I had three pieces of salmon sashimi and it was delicious. I also stole some of Jen’s french fries because I am a stinker who enjoys getting in touch with his Irish heritage by eating all things potato based. The fries were (and I am not overstating this in the slightest) spectactular.
When dinner was wrapping up, Bellana went off to meet Sarah and Adam and we all converged on Madison Square Garden. It wasn’t until after we got inside that things started getting weird.
The tickets we bought were in section 328. Section 328 however, isn’t an actual section. I don’t know what the hell it is. I think it’s a press box of some sort. There were two rows, separated by a stairway, and the seats were folding chairs up against a sort of desk with monitor screens under a glass table with a glass partition-like thing sticking up in front of it. We would have had to look over the glass and down to our left to see the stage.
Those seats would have been fine and we would have been able to stand with no one behind us complaining. It just felt odd. The situation, however, was about to get even weirder.
Bellana and Sarah and Adam went off to find a merch table while the rest of us stayed in our press-box-ish seats. I should mention that we only had six tickets and Adam was going to sit by himself somewhere else, down in the 200 level. As the rest of us were discussing the weirdness of our seats am MSG staff member approached us. He told us he had a number of seats that had not been sold (why?) and he offered to upgrade us.
Upgrade us? The fuck? I have never even heard of someone getting a ticket upgrade at a concert before. I mean… huh? Are we interested in seats in the 100 level? Well, seven hells yes we’re interested! He handed us six tickets, four together and two a row behind, and walked away. Kevin summed it up best when he said, “did we just manifest this?” He then grabbed the guy and asked if we could get one more ticket so Adam could sit with us. That’s when Bellana and Sarah and Adam came back to join us and told us that a different staff member had approached them with upgraded tickets too! What the hell is going on here?
We tried but were unable to get seven upgraded seats, but we did manage to get six together. Adam took one of their upgrades and the rest of us sat together. Through out the whole first set there was an empty seat next to us so Adam joined us during the intermission only to have the owner of the missing seat show up during the second set. Oops. We were all standing though so we all just stayed there like nothing weird was happening.
Ticket upgrades? At a supposedly sold out arena concert? Who knew?
Okay then… how was the show?
It was fucking amazing.
It was absolutely awesome.
Geddy Lee’s bass playing was his normal level of amazing. He really sounded like someone who never stopped playing over the last 11 years. The really impressive thing was his voice though. In some of the last tours before retirement he was struggling at times. His notoriously high voice was not as high as it used to be, as is normal for human beings as they get older, and there were things that he just couldn’t do. Sure, the band adjusted the keys to steal him a few extra notes but there will still times where he sounded like he was haing a rough time. Last night though there was none of that. He has mentioned that once they seriously starting playing again he worked with a voice couch to try and recover some of his range and apparently it worked because he was in the best vocal form I’ve heard since probably the early 90’s. It was so impressive.
As for Alex Lifeson’s guitar playing, he did have some issues. I am a guitar player and he is one of my absolute guitar playing heroes so I may have been more sensitive to everything he did than the normal obsessive Rush fan would be, but I did hear some struggles. I believe he has arthritis in his hands and there were definite signs of pain. I saw him shaking his hands out in between songs a couple of times like he was trying to loosen them up a little. There were a few times where he was going in for the kill on a solo and his hands just weren’t responding and he didn’t quite get there. There were other times where he did though, and hold shit were those moments amazing. The intro to La Villa Strangiato stands out as an example where he was jaw droppingly amazing. The end of the 2112 Grand Finale too. I was in awe. Amaze Amaze Amaze. I would say that the struggles represented maybe 2–3% of the show. The rest of the time he was absofuckinglutely perfect.
As for the new folks, we’ll start with keyboardist Loren Gold. We were joking before the show that he probably doesn’t have a lot to do as Geddy is still playing quite a bit of keyboards. I think he was handing all of the sampled sounds that the whole band used to trigger throughout the show, and there were times when I heard keys playing that were not there on the studio records. That was cool. The big thing I noticed was that as Geddy was playing the keyboard solo in Subdivisions, he was playing it as well. I couldn’t hear any doubling but I could see that they were both doing the same things with their hands. Spoiler alert, I will have to pay attention to that at the next show we go to. Loren was also singing harmonies all through the show. That was really cool.
Now… for the topic everyone wants to know about, how did Anika Nilles do? Neil Peart is the greatest rock drummer the planet has ever known. Filling his role in the band is literally an impossible challenge for any drummer alive. Having said that, Anika toured with Jeff Beck. Look through Beck’s long, illustrious career and look at the drummers he worked with. Every single one of them is unbelievably incredible. She fits in with that crowd perfectly. She is absolutely equal to this challenge. Without question. She was amazing. She was astounding. She was astonishing. I need to rethink my hierarchy of the world’s greatest drummers in a post-Neil Peart world. I was pretty convinced that the top spot went to Gavin Harrison of Porcupine Tree, The Pineapple Thief, and King Crimson fame, but now? Now I am not so sure. I think my favorite parts of the entire show were the moments where she did something different than Neil. The moments where she took a piece of Rush music and made it her own. Those moments were incredible. To say I was impressed is a massive understatement.
The show was incredible. The show was amazing. The show was an absolute joy. How incredible? Incredible enough that Jen and I bought tickets to the November 1st show at Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. We’re also trying to see if we can work any other show dates into our schedule. It was that good.
Now for some photos…
Pre-upgrade view
Xanadu with the double necks
Alex playing Heavy Bastard
Geddy and Anika… hiding behind her cymbals
All four of them
Two things. First, the only way my camera saw Anika was when she was on the screen. Second, I forgot to put my camera into burst mode of the pyro in Far Cry so this is all I got. Sorry.
They did three tributes to Neil. This was Bravado. They also did video montages for him on Time Stand Still and The Garden. They did a little tribute to John Rutsy during Working Man as well.
Alex auctioned off the real Whitey for charity, This must be a replica.
The whole band
Lasers
Geddy playing a Gibson Thunderbird. Awesome.
Old people rock
Lasers and missed focus
The Omega Stand
No bass? No!
During Tom Sawyer, Alex was trying to make Geddy laugh so Geddy was trying to block him out
The only time I could see Anika’s face was on the video screen
And there we have it. My 26th Rush concert. The first since 2015.
To quote Rocky from Project Hail Mary, amaze amaze amaze!
We are home, safe and sound and in one piece after a great two day New York adventure. I’ll share the details eventually, but for now it’s getting late and I am tired from traveling and I want to go to sleep.
I will leave you with this. Sort of a preview for a larger post that’ll probably come tomorrow.
Eight days from now I will see Rush. I have seen them 25 times dating back to December of 1987. It has been 11 years since my last show. 11 years since Neil Peart first retired, effectively ending the band, and then passed away, seemingly definitely ending the band. I said at that time that I wanted them to stay finished. No Neil, no Rush.
Then last year Geddy and Alex let it be known that they were getting together on their own and jamming. Then they let it be known that they had started jamming on Rush tunes. Then they let it be known that they had started jamming with a drummer, Anika Nilles, and then they announced a tour.
I surprised myself by going from no Neil, no Rush to OH MY GOD I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THEM AGAIN in the amount of time it took me to read through the tour announcement. They didn’t announce any shows in Boston, but they did announce four in New York and we were able to snag some tickets. Of course they did eventually announce Boston dates but we will be in California those days. There are still two shows in Connecticut though. They are sold out and the resale prices are absurd. We’ll see how they look in October though.
Oh, and there is a rumor of a residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas. If that happens… we might have to be there for it. Just one show, that’s all.
Vegas and Connecticut are questions for future me. Current me just has to make it through the next eight days without spontaneously combusting with glee. You might be able to tell from reading through this blog, but music is really important to me and since 1981 (when I was all of 10 years old) no music has been as important to me as Rush. To my musical soul they have always been the beginning and end of it all. It is going to be different without Neil Peart, but it is still going to be amazing. I just have to get through eight more days.
I mentioned yesterday that I went to a wake for the parent of an old friend. The old friend is also a former band mate. Back in the 90’s I was the guitar player and sometimes the lead singer (yikes!) and she was the drummer.
That’s right. Our band had a woman playing drums more than 25 years before Rush had a woman playing drums. How cool were we?
Speaking of Rush (again), that’s what this post is going to be about. Rush. Again. The 50 Something Tour. The grand come back. The historically nerdiest band in the world assuming their rightful place as the coolest band to ever come back from retirement and the death of 33% of the lineup. The feel good story of 2026.
Back in the 90’s, the band we were in was made up of all Rush fans. There were three of us and we were all fanatics. We used to try to play The Spirit of Radio and I could almost sort of get there. Not really, but kind of. There was one, maybe two (memory fails me) occasions where the three of us went to see Rush together. Pretty sure we saw them together on the Test for Echo tour in… 1996? 1997? Probably ’97. I can’t recall. Was there another time too? 2002, maybe? I can’t recall.
Our Rush loving drummer had a sister who was a guitar player who was studying at Berkeley College of Music and was approximately 1369742987149176284691327469 times better than I was. I was always sort of expecting that I would get the axe and she would replace me. It’s kind of insane that they never did that. It would have made the band infinitely better.
The guitar playing sister moved to California at some point. She was at the wake last night. I hadn’t seen her since… I don’t even know when. At least 1999, probably earlier than that. The first thing she said to me last night was, “are you going to see Rush?” Did I mention she was a Rush fanatic too?
Side note: All of you people making jokes about how Rush is a boys only club can just fuck right the fuck off. I know more die hard Rush fans who are women than who are men. I married one. So there.
Back to the story, she asked me if I was going to see Rush and I said we got tickets to see them in New York. At this point I had completely forgotten that she lived in Southern California. If I hadn’t forgotten that I would have known what was coming. She said she saw them in Los Angeles. They played four shows… she saw two.
They have only played four shows on this tour so far and she saw two of them. I think I turned green with envy. I mean it. Literally. Green.
The tour reaches its second location tonight. They are playing the first of two shows in Mexico City. I have a valid passport. There’s no legal reason why I could not be there. I should be there. We all should be there.
Inside the Red Head's Head 