The Spirit of Rush
Rush had more surprises in store on their fourth night at Los Angeles' Kia Forum, finishing the first run of their Fifty Something Tour
“I never thought I’d see this again,” Rush‘s Geddy Lee said early in night four of Rush’s first tour in 11 years, looking out at the crowd at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum. As they completed their triumphant run in Los Angeles, playing a different set of songs each night, they laid out the blueprint for the rest of the tour — going forward, it appears that the band’s current plan is to choose from one of those four setlists each evening. As with night two, Saturday night’s show featured all seven sections of “2112,” and also debuted three previously unplayed songs: “The Pass” from 1989’s Presto, “The Anarchist” from 2012’s Clockwork Angels, and, most shockingly, the first performance of the title track of A Farewell to Kings since 1979. A few thoughts on the evening’s show:
After a mere 47-year absence from the stage, “A Farewell to Kings” sounded like it never left. Near the end of the second set, following an ecstatic “YYZ,” Rush debuted the deepest cut of the whole tour without warning. As with the studio version, the track began with Lifeson plucking out a delicate intro on a nylon-string guitar before blasting into monster electric riffs. The band presumably avoided the track for many years largely because the vocal melody starts at the top of Lee’s range and then stays there, but Lee has become perhaps the only rock singer of his generation to actually reverse vocal aging. For this tour, he’s regained some of his old banshee range, apparently thanks to some remarkably effective coaching. So he sounded quite comfortable with the song, which he and Lifeson must have had to re-learn from scratch nearly to the extent that new touring drummer Anika Nilles did. The instrumental break before the final chorus, with Nilles let loose on Neil Peart’s parts and Lifeson soloing like his Seventies self, was one of the many moments of uncanny resurrection on the tour so far — the essence of Rush, in full, despite the tragic absence of a key third of the band.
