After months of preparation and an intense rehearsal schedule, Rush might have expected the opening moments of their reunion tour to run like clockwork. Instead, Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Anika Nilles found themselves dealing with a series of unexpected problems almost as soon as the first song began.
The band had prepared extensively for its June 7 opening night at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. Lee, Lifeson and Nilles, joined by keyboardist Loren Gold, had performed an extraordinary 24 complete concert sets during 27 days of rehearsals.
Yet none of that could fully prepare them for what happened when they launched into “Xanadu.”
Looking back in a new interview with Rolling Stone, the musicians compared the chaotic opening to something out of Spinal Tap.
Too Much Fog Creates an Immediate Problem
Lifeson recalled feeling relatively calm in the moments before the band walked onto the stage.
“I was, surprisingly, not really that nervous,” he said.
That changed once the performance started and he discovered he could no longer see the effects pedals at his feet.
The problem was an unexpectedly heavy amount of stage fog.
“We were drowning in fog!” Lee recalled.
Lifeson wasn’t the only one struggling to see his equipment. Lee said his own pedals had disappeared beneath the fog as well.
The bassist and singer faced another complication: he could no longer see the mirror he relied on to maintain a visual connection with Nilles behind the drum kit.
And while Lee and Lifeson were attempting to navigate the fog, Nilles was dealing with an entirely different opening-night mishap.
Anika Nilles Loses a Drumstick During “Xanadu”
Nilles had given herself a simple instruction as the long-awaited performance began.
“Don’t f––k this up,” she remembered thinking.
Almost immediately afterward, one of her drumsticks escaped her grip.
“I saw this stick flying over the toms,” she recalled.
Rather than allowing the mishap to derail the performance, Nilles reacted quickly enough to retrieve the stick before it disappeared. She missed only a few strikes in the process and continued playing.
For Nilles, it was the kind of mistake professional drummers learn to handle.
“It happens,” she said. “You drop the stick. As a drummer, you’re used to it.”
Lee noticed the stick flying and admitted that the sight briefly caused him some concern. But he was impressed by how quickly Nilles recovered during such a high-pressure moment.
“She’s a pro,” Lee said. “She rose to the occasion on opening night.”
Between the overwhelming stage fog, invisible pedals and a flying drumstick, Rush’s carefully rehearsed return began with considerably more chaos than anyone had planned.
But the musicians made it through “Xanadu” and continued the show, turning those opening-night problems into memorable stories from the beginning of the band’s reunion run.
Rush’s Fifty Something tour is continuing, with performances currently scheduled across multiple regions through April 10, 2027.