Seeing Rush in Fort Worth, Texas - June 26, 2026
This past weekend was one in the making for months (years, really) after getting tickets to see the much anticipated return of Canadian rock band Rush live in concert, more than fifteen years since their last performance and six years after the passing of the beloved drummer Neil Peart - who many consider the greatest rock drummer to have ever lived. While we have been to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport many times on connecting flights and layovers, my only time spent there was briefly for a few hours for work over two decades ago. That really doesn’t count! For this trip we would be driving ten hours to get to the Dickies Arena for the show.
I’ve been a Rush fan most of my life. I primarily love rock and blues rock music, and I enjoy listening to it from all decades since its inception and a little before. When I was a little kid my parent’s record collection intrigued me and I could not help but pull out albums and stare for hours at the artwork and photos well before I could read anything on the albums! A few albums really stood out to me: KISS: ALIVE, Alice Cooper: Killer and Rush: All the World’s a Stage. My parents soon recognized they would be better to teach me to properly use the turntable and stereo rather than my just messing things up and breaking things! So there I was in the 1970’s, barely into my ‘Mickey Mouse’ record player years stepping up to the big Sony turntable and Kenwood amps and receivers!
I really took a liking to Rush’s ‘All the World’s a Stage’ album because of the amazing the drum solo at the end of ‘Working Man’… and I thought drummer Neil Peart’s name was actually “Professor” because that’s what Geddy Lee calls him before the solo! Hey, I couldn’t read the liner notes yet! So this album really kicked off a lifelong obsession with the band that grew over the years as a teenaged guitarist learning Alex’s riffs, then really taking off while I was in college and listened to almost nothing but progressive rock. It was during college that I was finally able to see them live for the first time on June 16, 1997 during the ‘Test for Echo’ tour in Columbus, Ohio. I was playing bass in bands in college during this time as well, and being 14 rows back and in front of Geddy Lee was like getting a Master Class in bass playing for myself!
Unfortunately, it was the last time I saw them for a long, long time. Their subsequent tours never came close to where I was living after that, and back then I just never thought about actually traveling significant distances for a concert! There were always family things, work, or expensive plane tickets involved. With their retirement seemingly happening August of 2015 with their last show together, and then Neil Peart’s death from cancer in 2020 it seemed over. I was happy with the one show I saw, and I even got to briefly meet Geddy and get a fist bump from him at one of his book meet and greats in 2019. I was content.
Then in October of 2025 Geddy and Alex released a video on YouTube announcing a new tour and a new drummer – Anika Niles, an amazing young female German jazz/fusion drummer that Geddy’s bass tech Skully had taken notice of while they were working for the late, great Jeff Beck. Tickets were going on sale and once again – ALL the shows were so far away! But, that wasn’t stopping me this time! There were four shows for Fort Worth, Texas and I could be there in a ten hour drive. I chose a Friday show on June 26th, which was supposed to the second of that city’s run (more on that in a bit), and that would give us a Saturday to do something else and drive home Sunday. Tickets went on sale, and they were crazy expensive (which is much larger discussion when talking about concert prices and the Ticketmaster problem… maybe another day). But without spending what might get me a new kidney, tickets were obtained and the wait began the end of June of 2026!
So last Thursday my wife, son, and I took off as soon as my boy got off work. The drive over from Alabama to Texas was brutal from lane closures, road work, wrecks, and general traffic! We had a hotel reserved in Monroe, LA, and then finished up the drive the following morning. The plan was grab some lunch in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, stop at an antique store that I had already scoped out, then check in and head for the show. Everything went as planned and finally… showtime!
We had two tickets, for three of us. At the time of buying them we did not know what my college aged son’s mechanical engineering internship would consist of for the summer, or where he would even be. As luck had it he is living at home this summer and working just 20 minutes away! The plan was if he couldn’t make it my wife (not a big Rush fan) would go with me. If he (a Rush fan) could, she would stay back at the hotel. That is how it went down – as my son and I arrived at the parking lot early and got a fantastic spot at Dickies Arena and immediately went to the merch stand set up there. There was a second stand in air conditioning inside the arena that we visited as well which had some show posters left that were sold out at the first. After loading up with merch, we took it all back to the car so I didn’t have to hold it all night.
Dickies Arena is a 14,000 seater opening in 2019. I really liked the place! It was a 15 minute drive from my hotel. There was ample parking that got me very close to the doors. The staff was friendly, getting through security, getting inside, finding bathrooms and the seats were a breeze. The seats were very comfortable and they had DRINK HOLDERS! That should be a law at any venue with seating! We had seats on Geddy’s side of the stage and a little before 8pm the show began. Here I was, along with thousands others, seeing something that we never thought would be seen again! In typical Rush fashion, the show opened with a comedic video intro that led into the epic song “Xanadu” from 1977’s album “A Farewell to Kings”. I had done a good job of not watching or paying too much attention to the first few shows in Los Angeles and Mexico City, so each song was a welcome surprise for me! While I did take a few photos and quick videos throughout the show, I pretty much kept the camera down and soaked it all in. Besides, I am sure there will be a Blu-ray release for this historic tour that will far exceed anything my iPhone can do!
It should be mentioned that the first show for the Fort Worth run was supposed to have been Wednesday June 24th, but there was a delay with equipment at the border coming back from Mexico and that show was pushed back. That meant our show was the first show since Mexico City and it had been almost a week since Geddy had last sang. While I hate that postponed show REALLY put a lot of people out, I think it worked to our advantage for our particular show as Geddy’s voice was in fantastic form! (Wow... as I literally writing this I just read they postponed tonight's show and the rescheduled show as Geddy has Bronchitis and Laryngitis!)
The set list for my June 26, 2026 show was as follows:
Set 1
01 Xanadu
02 Limelight
03 Far Cry
04 Subdivisions
05 Freewill
06 Bravado
07 Caravan
08 La Villa Strangiato
09 Vital Signs
10 The Spirit of Radio
Set 2
11 2112 (a. Overture b. The Temples Of Syrinx c. Grand Finale)
12 Distant Early Warning
13 Red Barchetta
14 Dreamline
15 Natural Science
16 Time Stand Still
17 Red Sector A
18 YYZ
19 The Garden
20 Tom Sawyer
Encore
1 By-Tor & The Snow Dog
2 Working Man
The video montage to Neil before and during Bravado was classy and very moving. I was also very happy to see a nice tribute during ‘Working Man’ to original drummer John Rutsey, who played in the early years and the first album before being replaced by Peart. John passed away in 2008 from a heart attack due to of diabetic complications. Other highlights of the evening for us was ‘Natural Science’ which my son was really looking forward to hearing. I was hoping for “By-Tor & The Snow Dog” and I got it – something I didn’t get to hear live in 1997! As the two and a half hour show came to a close I felt a huge sense of relief and excitement at the same time. Relief from being able to make it so far and attend the show, but also that Geddy and Alex sounded great… seeing for my own eyes that drummer Anika Nilles is a MONSTER on the drums! Neil Peart can and will never be replaced, but I think most Rush fans have welcomed her with open arms because she along with keyboardist Loren Gold have giving these two guys a shot in the arm and are helping deliver a lot of joy to fans who though it was all over for years. With the show over, my son and I returned to the hotel with multiple T-shirts and a show poster in hand. What a fantastic night!
(And for the nerdy guitar stuff…) As many may know Geddy hasn’t used bass amps on stage for years. Rather than amps he has been seen jokingly with various household appliances in the backline like clothes washers, refrigerators, even rotisserie chicken ovens! He tone has been shaped by combinations of various Tech 21 Sansamp products (now many signature variations, Palmer Speaker Simulators, and Avalon preamps. On the other side of the stage Alex would use a more traditional approach with guitar cabinets and heads, particularly Hughes & Ketner amps around the previous tours leading up to the last shows with Neil. Interestingly, he has opted this tour to go completely digital with IK Multimedia’s TONEX pedals replicating the classic amp tones particular to each song and Fractal Audio for various effects. Playing ampless is something I have been flirting with myself the past six months… nowhere to the degree Alex and Geddy are though, of course. While I’m still not a big fan of gear with deep menus and needed a computer to tweak, they DID sound good!
