Rush has looked relatively flawless during their return to live shows in 2026 for good reason and, remarkably, a lot of that actually comes down to mistakes!
Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson are seasoned veterans who have played the same songs thousands of times, but playing with a new drummer meant turning over every stone in rehearsal.
How Rush Prepares for Mistakes
Lee, Lifeson and new drummer Anika Nilles recently sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone where they went in-depth about preparations for the band’s current Fifty Something Tour.
The shows are Rush’s first since 2015. They’re also the first with Nilles behind the drums, replacing Neil Peart, who died in 2020.
The trio spent months rehearsing prior to the launch of the tour. Understandably, there were a few mishaps during the early sessions. That stuff tends to happen when you’ve never played together as a band and with the group’s most experienced duo shaking off some natural rust.
“When we were rehearsing, toward the early part of rehearsing, if one of us would make a mistake, we would stop and we’d play the song again,” Lee explained.
By the time they were done with rehearsals, however, Rush decided it was time to change their approach. They instead started to welcome any mistakes or mishaps.
“Toward the end of rehearsals, we began just to play through any mistake or whatever mishap that might happen because we had to be prepared for that to happen during a show,” Lee said.
The Opening Night Mishap Rush Were Prepared For
It didn’t take long for Rush’s disaster preparedness to come into play as they found themselves in a situation during “Xanadu,” the opening song of the first show of the tour.
READ MORE: 29 Big Rock + Metal Bands Who Have Canceled or Postponed Shows in 2026
Unbeknownst to most of the crowd, one of Nilles’ drumsticks fell from her hand as she was right in the middle of one of the song’s key drum fills. Nilles was asked what was going through her mind when that happened.
“Maybe ‘(do) not fuck up this fill.’ And then I saw this stick flying around over the toms and I just (caught) it.”
Rush, of course, were ready for this moment. And the fact that this happened during the first show of the tour on June 7 and it is only being talked about now, speaks to the success of the band’s approach.
How a New Drummer Made Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson ‘Learn’ Parts of Rush Songs
Even though she was the lone new member in the band, Nilles was far from the only one who was learning Rush songs.
“We were learning as Anika was learning,” Lee said about early rehearsals. “We were realizing how different Neil’s feel is from other styles of play.”
He feels that having Nilles in the band has helped him and Lifeson have a better understanding of Peart’s compositions.
WATCH: Rush Interview With Rolling Stone
“Sometimes Anika would write me and say, ‘What time is this part in?’ I would go, ‘Fuck, I don’t know.'”
Lee would have to go back and listen to the song and count out the beats to determine the time signature. Doing that made Lee have a better understanding of songs he had recorded with Rush several years ago.
“And I realized we wrote parts as musical passages, and we would do a weird musical passage in an off time signature, but we wouldn’t need to count what that time signature was because we would just glue a bunch of phrases together and we knew it intrinsically.”
The North American leg of Rush’s Fifty Something Tour continues throughout the rest of 2026. A complete list of dates is available on the band’s website.
Keep reading for a look at the least-played songs from every Rush album.
The Least Played Song Off All 19 Rush Albums
Most of the least played songs off these Rush albums have actually been played quite a lot!
Gallery Credit: Joe DiVita