Anika Nilles rebuilt her prep routine to learn Rush songs

Anika Nilles did not walk into Rush’s catalog with a normal set of rehearsal habits and a neat chart in hand. The veteran drummer said the material forced her to rebuild how she learned songs, because Rush’s parts had to be absorbed in chunks and memorized in a way that captured both the notes and the feel.

That shift is the heart of her preparation for Rush’s Fifty Something Tour, which began June 7 at Los Angeles’ Kia Forum. In a June 11 interview, Nilles said she could not use her usual method of listening once, writing a quick chart and then playing from that map. With Rush, she said she had no idea at first how she was learning some of the parts, a comment that underlines just how deeply the music resisted her standard workflow.

For drummers, that is the shock in the story: this was not just a matter of learning fills and odd-meter transitions, but of rebuilding the way a world-class player processes repertoire. Rush’s writing demanded more than transcription. Nilles had to internalize long-form pieces in pieces, then reconstruct them with the kind of memory and feel that makes a part breathe instead of merely land on the grid.

Her homework was just as intense off the kit. Nilles said she dug through everything Rush-related she could find online, from music and videos to interviews and live performances. The band reportedly began rehearsals with only six or seven songs, a sensible starting point for a trio facing a catalog known for density, precision and constant movement between technical demands and musical detail. Even with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson bringing decades of shared history, the rehearsal process was treated like a fresh build, not a ceremonial handoff.

Rush’s own tour announcement identified Nilles as the drummer for the 2026 Fifty Something Tour and framed the run as a tribute to Neil Peart. Live Nation described it as a celebration of Rush’s music, legacy and Peart’s life, and said Nilles had already played more than 60 shows as Jeff Beck’s drummer and released four solo albums. The tour is a 12-date, seven-city run, and the opener carried historical weight too: the Kia Forum was also the site of Rush’s last show with Peart in 2015, before his death in January 2020.

That made the June 7 return more than a reunion. Opening night ran 22 songs over about three hours, and the scale of the set only reinforced the point Nilles had already made about her preparation. To step into Rush’s world, she had to change the way she learned music first.