Geddy Lee looked out at the roaring crowd at Los Angeles' Kia Forum and couldn't hide his emotion. "I never thought I'd see this again," he told the fans on night four of Rush's comeback tour—and he wasn't exaggerating.
After a 47-year hiatus, Rush played the title track from A Farewell to Kings, their 1976 masterpiece, live for the first time since 1979. The performance was a moment that had longtime fans absolutely losing it.
This song nearly didn't happen. The vocal melody sits at the very top of Lee's range and stays there for the entire track. For decades, the band simply couldn't pull it off. But Lee has regained enough of his legendary range to make the impossible possible.
The performance unfolded with Alex Lifeson's nylon-string intro—delicate and haunting—exploding into monster electric riffs. Then came touring drummer Anika Nilles through Neil Peart's signature parts. "It was one of the many moments of uncanny resurrection on the tour so far," Rolling Stone noted, capturing the bittersweet magic of Rush's first tour in 11 years.
The LA run also featured deep cuts nobody expected: "The Pass" from Presto and "The Anarchist" from Clockwork Angels. Lee introduced "The Pass" by noting how Peart's lyrics have literally saved fans' lives—a song about a suicidal teen on a rocky ledge that Lee credits with incredible emotional depth.
As the band wraps their Los Angeles leg, they've already blueprinted the rest of the Fifty Something Tour: each night will rotate through one of these four setlists, keeping fans guessing.
This is Rush doing the impossible.
