“Alex Lifeson went off on loose-limbed benders, taking…

“Alex Lifeson went off on loose-limbed benders, taking madcap detours and stretching out phrases just to see where they’d land”: Rush deliver the thrill of mastery at Madison Square Garden – live review

(L-R) Alex Lifeson, Anika Nilles, and Geddy Lee perform onstage earlier this month, at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas.

There is a distinct difference between watching a band work through a setlist and that rare experience of witnessing virtuosos caught up in pure, unadulterated joy.

On night one (7.28.26) of their four-night stand at Madison Square Garden, Rush delivered two-and-a-half hours of the latter – a rapturous jubilee that felt less like a choreographed arena rock show and more like master musicians kicking back and letting it rip – simply because they can.

From the opening swells of Xanadu, the energy inside the arena was beyond juiced – and it never let up. Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson spent the evening trading “holy shit” grins and laughing out loud, visibly drinking in the deafening waves of adoration from the tri-state crowd, making decades of formidable prog-rock mastery feel like second nature.

Lifeson was sparkier and more unruly than ever. He knows the holy texts, of course, and he gave fans the brilliant, note-for-note solos on Tom Sawyer and Limelight they knew by heart. But for much of the night, he went off on his own loose-limbed benders, taking madcap detours and stretching out phrases just to see where they’d land. It was fretboard swagger at its most generous.

And Lee! After all the hand-wringing over his June bronchitis scare down in Texas, he came to rumble. There was no tentative easing-in, no cautious vocal pacing. He hit the microphone full-throated, leaning into his bass with a physical, nimble crunch. Whatever resting period that forced hiatus gave him, it worked – his voice had a bright, soaring punch that reached for the high rafters without a flicker of strain.

Then, of course, there's Anika Nilles. Stepping into the drum throne of the beloved Neil Peart (who passed away in 2020) is a monumental – and some would say, unenviable – task, but the German-born drummer proved to be a dream behind the kit: fast and fluid, swinging with a luscious, elastic groove that gives even the oddest of odd-time signatures a supple, human heartbeat.

In the time since the Fifty Something tour debuted at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, CA, in early June, cellphone videos of Nilles acing the around-the-kit tom fills to Tom Sawyer have been shared millions of times, but those viral clips don't prepare you for the physical impact of seeing her do it live – it’s the intoxicating spectacle of a genius executing genius things, and with a high-beam smile, no less.

Overhead, poignant video tributes to Neil Peart wove throughout the show, grounding the night’s jubilation in tender, warm remembrance. Rather than heavy eulogizing, the visuals captured Peart's humor, artistry and legacy, elevating the performance into a true-life celebration.