Rush Celebrates ‘Fifty Something’ Years: Photo Gallery

Rush fans never could have expected what has transpired here in 2026, when it comes to the return of the Canadian progressive rock legends to the live concert stage for their Fifty Something reunion tour.

While the feelings of excitement with an outing like this can fade after a certain number of shows, that hasn’t happened here. In fact, as their recent concerts in Cleveland demonstrated, they continue to add little twists and turns to the storyline.

First, you have to understand that Rush and Cleveland go way back. It was WMMS music director Donna Halper who received a copy of the band’s independent Moon Records version of their self-titled debut album in the mail. She promptly put “Working Man” on the WMMS airwaves in 1974. The rest, as they say, was rock and roll history.

So it makes sense that the area shows here felt like a regional holiday. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame even teamed up with RushCon (an all-volunteer organization — run by women, by the way, so hold your jokes) to present four whole days of events for fans surrounding the two concerts.

You can see a gallery of selected photos from the week’s happenings below, including special appearances by luminaries including Rush art designer Hugh Syme, who came to the Rock Hall to discuss his long career working with the band, sharing a number of images he’d created along the way.

Anika Nilles of Rush

Rush’s Return to Cleveland and Anika’s Triumph

The resurrection of Rush here in 2026 is something that even the most ardent fans wouldn’t have placed bets on. We’ve all read the reports about the shows since the tour launched in early June and maybe, you’ve even watched your share of video on YouTube.

Words and video from an iPhone will not prepare you for seeing it in person — the production is out of this world, of course, as you’ll see from some of our photos.

It was emotional and yes, Anika Nilles is killing it on the drums, honoring the Professor, the late Neil Peart in every way. She also showed, um, grace under pressure at a subsequent concert in San Antonio when she had an incident during “Tom Sawyer” that you have to see to believe.

READ MORE: Watch Anika Nilles Handle a Drum Stick Mishap With Ease

Now that she’s worked past the inevitable challenges of learning those parts to play them with the proper precision, she’s also been having fun — including a nightly bit during “Working Man” where she does her best to make Geddy Lee or Alex Lifeson break.

It’s mutual, and the pair do their part to return fire humorously. The interplay between all three is a lot of fun to watch. But it’s the visible fun and gratitude that you see also with Lifeson and Lee which means a lot, very much similar to what fans saw earlier this year when Rik Emmett returned to the stage with Triumph. They’re doing this — as Rush has always done — for the right reasons and you can feel that watching them on stage.

Geddy Lee of Rush

No One Told Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson to ‘Hold Your Fire’

Tapping keyboardist Loren Gold as an additional touring musician was a good move. Though Lee still plays a fair amount of keys throughout the night, the addition is one that really has released him from his usual spot on the stage. It seems like that newfound freedom has put extra energy into his playing and if you spend just a minute or three watching him during these concerts, you’ll probably have the thought that Geddy Lee is underrated as a bass player and we should be talking about him more next to the usual “greats.”

Similarly, one could marvel at Lifeson’s performances on this run. He’s spoken about various health challenges over the years, including arthritis — and more recently, discussed the obstacles he had to work past to even consider this current reunion outing. The guitarist and Lee definitely played the long game when it came to getting back on stage, even though the initial seeds were planted with nothing more than continuing their friendship.

The Challenges Involved With Returning to Rush

Naturally, that bond eventually led them back to playing Rush songs together in private, something that Lifeson told me in 2024 that they were just doing for fun, nothing more. “We sound like a really, really bad Rush tribute band,” he shared with UCR in May of that year, a couple of weeks after they’d started to revisit the material.

“But we’re trying to figure out the songs and thinking, ‘Why did we write that so difficult? Why is it so hard to play?’ And after about three run-throughs of all of these songs, muscle memory kicks in and your hand just goes to where it goes, you sort of get out of the way. And you’re playing it [and thinking], ‘Oh, thank God, I did make this simpler than I thought it felt.'”

Still, he admitted in that same conversation, “It’s not as easy to get my fingers to do what my brain tells them to do,” he explained. “They’re much lazier than they used to [be] and they have a poor memory. But doing this really helps a lot.”

READ MORE: Alex Lifeson Has Been Jamming Rush Songs With Geddy Lee

Alex Lifeson of Rush

The Fifty Something tour is where we’ve seen all of this hard work behind closed doors pay off. The dexterity and precision that Lifeson displays as he attacks his parts on deep cuts like “La Villa Strangiato” and “Anthem,” the latter from 1975’s Fly by Night, is incredible to witness.

READ MORE: All 167 Rush Songs Ranked

The Set Lists are a Fan’s Dream

Speaking of “Anthem” — a track which Lee told Cleveland fans ended up being the results of the first music they worked on together with Peart after jamming a couple of existing Rush tracks — it’s a good example of the depth that they’re treating fans to with their set list choices.

It would have been completely understandable if they would have opted to deliver a two-hour “greatest hits” kind of set. But Rush has never been that kind of band. Add to it that these dates are celebrating their history of more than 50 years, it’s clear looking at the song choices that they “understood the assignment.”

“By-Tor and the Snow Dog,” prior to this outing, last made an appearance in a Rush concert set during their 30th anniversary tour in 2004. “Finding My Way,” from their 1974 self-titled debut, went even further back, falling out of the set list after 1980. The legendary “2112” suite also made a return after nearly 30 years. These are just a few impressive examples.

READ MORE: Rush Delivers Surprise-Filled Second Show

Watch Rush Perform ‘Finding My Way’ at the 2026 Juno Awards

In one sense, it continues a pattern that was very apparent in the final tours that Rush did leading up to their R40 outing in 2015. One of the consistent elements with each additional live chapter they added was that they were mixing in a good amount of songs that they hadn’t played in years — or in the case of “Losing It,” from 1982’s Signals, which was first aired out in June of 2015 —  hadn’t played at all.

It was as if knowing perhaps they were probably starting to wind things down, they wanted to treat fans, especially the younger ones who hadn’t seen them, to some unique moments.

Here Again….Thank Goodness

We’re seeing the above play out again, one more time. Will there be a sequel? It’s hard to know. But what first began in part as a way for them to offer an overdue tribute to Peart has grown deeper than that. Yes, the emotion still hangs in the air as they honor both their legendary drummer, lyricist and comrade throughout the night(and his predecessor, John Rutsey, as well), but there’s a celebratory tone to it all as well.

READ MORE: The History of John Rutsey and Rush

It’s also evident just how much these shows mean to Lee and Lifeson, the chance to do something they thought would never happen again — and just as the guitarist expressed in 2024 during that conversation with UCR, they’re having fun together as friends, in the same way they did behind closed doors. This is a bonus round for them, just as it is for the fans and all involved will remember these shows for a long, long time.