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.

Setlist

Set One

• Xanadu
• Limelight
• Far Cry
• Subdivisions
• Freewill
• Bravado
• Headlong Flight
• La Villa Strangiato
• Vital Signs
• The Spirit of Radio

Set Two

• 2112 (Overture, the Temples of Syrinx, Grand Finale)
• Distant Early Warning
• Red Barchetta
• Dreamline
• Natural Science
• Time Stand Still
• Red Sector A
• YYZ
• The Garden
• Tom Sawyer

Encore

• By-Tor and the Snow Dog
• Working Man

So, guys, anything new? Here at Guitar World, we believe in hitting artists with the hard questions first.

“Not much at all,” Geddy Lee deadpans. The bassist is speaking via Zoom from his home studio, a wall of basses behind him. “I’ve just been playing a lot of cards with Al, trying to win some money off him.”

“He always does,” says Alex Lifeson, joining in on Zoom from his own home music sanctuary. “He’s vicious at Go Fish.”

While we’re on the subject of games, suffice to say that nobody – including, for the longest time, Lee and Lifeson – had “Rush going on tour in 2026” on their bingo cards, and it wasn’t until the spring of last year when the idea started to look like a distinct possibility. Even after the two had finally come to a decision that yes, this was going to be a thing, they kept word from leaking out for months.

“Nobody knew,” Lee says emphatically. “I didn’t even tell my kids.”

“In this day and age, it’s so difficult to keep a secret,” Lifeson says. “We did our best to keep it quiet, and we were pretty successful, I think.”

The announcement was made almost casually, during a private event for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, last October, when, responding to an intentionally placed “fan” question asking if the band would ever tour again, Lee answered, “I kind of think we should tour next year.”

Initially, the tour, dubbed Fifty Something, was a relatively short run of seven major cities, but following near-instantaneous sell-outs, more cities were added, and then more, and as it now stands, the tour will encompass North America, South America and Europe, 86 concerts in all, and won’t wrap until April 2027 in Helsinki, Finland.

“It was very surprising,” Lifeson says of the reaction from fans.

“We knew there were fans that wanted us to come back,” Lee says. “We’d get messages from fans all the time and they want to see Al and me playing together again in whatever form we had chosen. We’re very fortunate we have such a loyal fan base, but I don’t think Al or I or anyone associated with us expected the overwhelming response to the very first announcement. It’s very nice, very gratifying.”

Lee admits to feelings of frustration following the conclusion of Rush’s last tour, R40, in 2015. In his view, the band was playing at peak form, and both he and Lifeson wanted to keep going. Drummer Neil Peart, however, had other ideas about how he wanted to live the rest of his life. “He was so happy being a full-time dad,” Lee says, “and his body just said to him, ‘That’s enough as a touring musician. I can’t do it anymore.’”

Over the next few months, Lee and Lifeson accepted Peart’s decision. “That’s life – no hard feelings.” Lee says. “The man certainly earned a break from the madding crowd.”

Following Peart’s tragic death in 2020 from glioblastoma, Lee and Lifeson gradually occupied themselves with various activities. Lee, who already published his first book, Geddy Lee’s Big Beautiful Book of Bass in 2018, cranked out two more: 2023’s My Effin’ Life: From Holocaust Roots to Rock and Roll Stardom and 72 Stories: From the Baseball Collection of Geddy Lee. “Writing my first book was very gratifying,” he says. “It taught me that instead of banging out notes, I can bang out words. It sent me down a different path.”

Lifeson posted a couple of solo instrumental tracks, Kabul Blues and Spy House, on his website before forming an alt-rock band called Envy of None with bassist Andy Curran, guitarist Alfio Annibalini and lead singer Maiah Wynne. The group issued a self-titled debut in 2022 and a follow-up, 2025’s Stygian Wavz, but played no live shows. “I really didn’t have any interest in going back on the road,” Lifeson says. “I felt like I was really done with that.”

The former bandmates reunited on stage a few times in 2022, first with Primus to celebrate South Park’s 25th anniversary (the show’s co-creator, Matt Stone, played drums on Closer to the Heart), and they performed mini-sets of Rush classics at a pair of tribute concerts for the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, during which they were backed by a number of drummers: Dave Grohl, Tool’s Danny Carey, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Chad Smith and former David Bowie sticksman Omar Hakim.

“The Taylor Hawkins tribute shows were pivotal for a lot of reasons,” Lee says. “Obviously, we got a chance to pay tribute to Taylor, but also we got a chance in our own way to pay tribute to Neil, which was long overdue. To play our songs again with some other brilliant musicians, it showed us that our music is still alive.”

Riding high from those shows, the two briefly considered taking things a step further and playing together in an official capacity. “But it didn’t work out,” Lee says. “No sense dwelling on it, just move on with your life.”

For Lifeson, that meant tending to his health. Stomach surgery to correct a hiatal hernia resulted in gastroparesis, a chronic condition in which the muscles in the stomach don’t move food as they should for it to be digested.

The guitarist visited a wellness clinic in Austria and learned to manage the condition through strict lifestyle changes (alcohol, smoking, gluten, lactose and junk food are out). Once he was back home, he would get together with Lee, just like always, and soon they began jamming. Then they began jamming on Rush songs, just two old friends having a blast.

Only it wasn’t that simple. This wasn’t just two old friends having a blast. It was something more than that… but what? Could they really tour once again as Rush? Should they? Warming up to the idea took some time, especially for Lifeson, who had previously stated that Rush’s touring days were over. And the biggest question of all was, if they did play live again, who would sit in that drum seat? As Lee says, “How do you ask someone to replace a guy who’s irreplaceable?”

Through his bass tech, John “Scully” McIntosh, Lee was tipped off about Anika Nilles, a German composer, producer and music educator, and as it turns out, a virtuoso drummer (her resume includes a 2022 tour with Jeff Beck). As Lee recalls, “We did a Zoom call together and said, ‘Look, we’re thinking of going on the road, and obviously we need a drummer. Would you be interested in playing some Rush songs with us?’

That’s really all we asked. She was totally game for it and said, ‘That sounds great.’ So she hopped on a plane and played with us for a week, and it was on the last day Alex and I looked at each other and went, ‘Wow, I think we have a drummer… Now what the fuck do we do?’”

When was it exactly when you two started playing Rush songs together again?

Geddy Lee: I would say it was in late 2024. I had just finished my third book, and I was sitting down here looking at all these bass guitars, and they were making me feel very, very guilty. So I started getting my fingers back in shape – and they were really out of shape.

I came down every day and played, and I was having dinner with Al one night and I told him, “Yeah, I’m getting my fingers back in shape. I’ve been writing a bit of lyrics and stuff. Maybe we should jam.” We always saw each other anyway every couple of weeks for dinner or drinks or something.

Al came over and we just started jamming and having fun the way we always do after we drink too much coffee. [Laughs] We’re having a laugh. Then Al, I think, or one of us suggested, “Let’s play a Rush song for fun and see if we can remember it without doing any homework.” Of course, we could only remember parts of them. That’s kind of how it started.

Aside from Rush songs, what else were you jamming?

Lee: We were just jamming, making shit up. That’s what jamming is.

When two guys from Rush get together to play Rush songs, what do they play?

Alex Lifeson: There are only like a thousand songs to choose from. We tried to get the easiest ones –

Lee: There are no easiest ones. [Laughs]

Was it just the two of you playing on your own, or did you have any sort of rhythm loop for accompaniment?

Lee: It was just the two of us. Sometimes we’d pull up the song and play along with it just to see – “What the fuck does that sound like?” That would help you remember all the things you forgot. I think Al remembers Freewill being the first song we tried.

Lifeson: Sure it was, yeah.

Lee: Which for a bass player is not a walk in the park. That was interesting to see my fingers tell me to fuck off. But it was fun. We ended up really laughing. And when we walked away from that goofy session, not only had we put some interesting jams down on tape, which I don’t know what’ll ever happen with them or they’ll remain in the bin, but we walked away with this smile. Playing our songs was so much fun.

The next time we got together to jam, we started challenging each other – “Can you remember this one?” Then we would flail through it. After enough of that, we started getting this sheepish grin at the end of our sessions. It was like, “What are we doing here? Are we doing something? Are we quietly tricking each other into going back on the road?” But that was still a ways away before we could agree to that.

What was that moment like when one of you finally said it out loud? Who was the first to say it?

Lee: I don’t know how that went. In the past, it was usually me who would say, “Hey, Al, do you want to do some shows? Do you want to think about this?” But I was a bit sheepish to do that because we’ve already been down that road and it didn’t work out after the tribute shows for Taylor.

We went down that road a little bit, but Al wasn’t into it for a lot of reasons. I don’t know who… I think we both just kind of gravitated to looking at each other saying, “This is kind of fun.”

Lifeson: I remember Ged saying, “We should get together. You should come over, have a coffee. There’s some stuff we need to talk about.” I went over and we did exactly that. We kind of talked about, “Why don’t we just play one of these days? Just play some stuff, maybe work on some stuff or whatever.”

That’s what led to that. I think Ged knew I was not really enthusiastic about even considering going back on the road, doing a tour, especially something that’s turned into this size of a tour. I think he was cautious and just wanted to have… I mean, we’ve been playing together for 60 years, and he just wanted to play together. That’s what we did the first day, and we were laughing and smiling and really enjoying it.

Like he said, we were jamming. We were playing bluesy stuff and whatever, and that led to playing a Rush song or two. That eventually led to playing maybe more Rush songs, and then the ball started rolling and it started to grow on its own, and it seemed to have a life of its own and an energy of its own. Everything started falling into place and moving toward ultimately getting together and doing this tour.

I needed convincing, for sure. Once I felt better – I got my health in order at the beginning of 2025, and that was one big hurdle for me. I was not feeling well enough health-wise to go back onto the road or to commit to doing anything with that sort of thing in mind.

But as the time went by and I felt good, and we started playing more and other ideas came up, it seemed natural that we would follow through with this and really start playing together.

It’s one thing to do one song, but it’s a whole other thing to do 40 songs. And I’ll tell you, it’s hard. It’s hard, hard, hard, but it’s really exciting, and it feels really good when the songs start coming together, and the fingers start going to the right places and it all comes back to you. Muscle memory is a mysterious thing, but it’s beautiful.

That must have been a strange and incredible process. As you said, you needed convincing…

Lifeson: It was gradual. When we started really sounding good together again, like more recently, when I could see a faint light at the end of the tunnel, it almost turned a switch on for me. I went from having self-doubt and not being really positively sure that I really wanted to do it… but I’d made the commitment. It was at that moment that I realized that, yes, this is going to be a good thing. It’s going to be a good thing for me personally and for us.

No doubt you were also considering your health and wondering, “Physically, should I do this?”

Lifeson: Well, I just concentrated on my digestive system. [Laughs] That was the main problem I was dealing with. I’ve had arthritis for years, and I’m pretty successful in dealing with that, but it was the digestive issues that were the real problem.

Millions and millions and millions of people go through that sort of thing. I managed to find a good way to mitigate some of the worst parts of it, and I just feel so much better about my energy and everything in my life, really.

Would it be right to assume that numerous drummers have approached you two over the years?

Lee: Well, yes. I mean, people who are close to us – good friends that are successful drummers – would never infer something like that because they have too much respect, not only for Neil and for the situation… They were grieving as well, so they wouldn’t be so selfish as to say something inappropriate like that.

There were many other drummers who reached out to me in the aftermath of Neil’s passing that were pushing themselves, and that was most distasteful to me. It was completely inappropriate timing.

Of course, we have some great pals who are amazing drummers in their own right, and they’re in very successful bands. We didn’t really know where to begin to look when it was time to choose a drummer. We started with Anika because she had been recommended to me, and I had done some research on her. I loved her vibe and her diverse style, and I had her in mind in case I was going to do some kind of project.

We didn’t have a list. We never, ever accumulated a list of drummers. When Al and I finally said, “Okay, I guess we’re getting serious. Who’s going to sit in that impossible seat?” How do you ask someone to replace a guy who’s irreplaceable?

It’s daunting. We started with the name that was already on my mind. We called her up, she came, and we hit it off. Once we were sure… She brought a lot to the table, but more than her chops, more than her guts and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story. I love her story.

This is someone who grew up in Germany in a family of musicians. Her dad was a drummer. She’s played drums her entire life. She doesn’t even remember the first time she picked up sticks. It’s who she is. I thought, “Wouldn’t that be nice to bring someone so fresh in our midst to inspire Al and me?”

She’s a bit younger than us, and she likes to remind us of that. Every time we tell a story about a gig in 1971, she goes, “Wow, I wasn’t even born yet.” I’m just a big fan of hers, and I think Al has become a big fan of hers.

Part of this little journey we’re on now is about rooting for her. I really want her to succeed in this moment because she’s taking all the heat. The fans love her right now, but they’re going to scrutinize her, and she’s up for it. I just love that about her.

Did you give Anika a big list of Rush songs to prepare for when she came to play with you?

Lee: We just picked a few classic Rush songs. I said, “Learn these as best you can and let’s see what happens.” It was very casual, very relaxed, and it wasn’t an audition. We said to her, “We’re not auditioning drummers, but your playing really interests us. So just come and let’s see what happens.”

Lifeson: I didn’t know what the expectations were. I probably thought, “She’s very good. She seems to have a good grasp of the songs technically.” But there was something that was just not quite there. It wasn’t really until the last day that suddenly she sort of blossomed and understood better what we were kind of looking for or going after. And then after that, it’s just been better progressively through the whole year of rehearsals we’ve been doing.

Lee: On the fifth day, this is what happened: we’d gone four days and Al and I hadn’t even talked about her. We only had her for a few days, so we wanted to work through all these songs and see her reactions. See her gut feel, learn a little bit about it. We didn’t know her. She was a complete stranger, really.

She was a bit intimidated when she first arrived, of course, because she’d heard of the band, but she wasn’t a Rush fan. She didn’t know the songs intimately.

Of course, she knew songs like Tom Sawyer, and she knew of our reputation, and of course, there’s no drummer on the planet that doesn’t know who Neil Peart is and doesn’t revere that name. It was a tall order for her, but we were so busy working through these songs that we hadn’t chatted.

On the last day I said, “Al, can you pop into my house? We have to talk about what’s going on here.” [Laughs] He came over and I said, “What do you think?” And he said, “I don’t know. What do you think?” I said, “I don’t know. What the fuck are we doing?” [Laughs] We talked about her pros and cons. There was a sliver of doubt. Her technique was incredible, her facility…

Playing the fills was the last problem she would’ve had. She nailed the fills. That’s not the thing. There’s a lot more to playing a Rush song than the fills. It’s the feel. It’s the nuances. Our music is idiosyncratic, and that just takes time.

We’ve played Rush songs with maybe five or six different drummers over the last few years. Every time you sit and play a Rush song with a drummer, I don’t care who they are, there’s an adjustment. There’s a little translation that Alex and I have to do with the drummer about this little part or that little part. That’s normal. But we just weren’t sure because this was all new to us. So we went to that last day with an open mind, but a little doubt.

And song after song we played with her, she just killed it. I mean, she understood all those little things that Alex and I had been telling her all that week, and she processed it and delivered. That’s when we looked at each other in the studio and went, “Yep, we have a real problem, because now we have a drummer and we’re going to make a commitment.”

For Anika, it wasn’t just about recreating the records. It was about bringing her own perspective to the music.

Lee: I don’t know if Al feels the same way, but I think she’s very respectful of whose parts she’s playing. She understands that air drummers for the last 45 years have been out there mimicking some of those parts. She wants to do that justice. At the same time, she’s a completely original and independent creative force, but she’s sublimating a bit of that for the sake of a tribute to Neil.

At the same time, the more she knows the songs, the more confidence she has with the songs. There are moments where she’s now able to put her own special sauce on this song or that song. We’ll start looking for moments to let her stretch out. We already have a couple in the set where I look at her and go, “Anika, this is free time. You go wherever you want to go, and I’ll be there. We’ll meet you there.”

I look at it like this: There have been phases to this adventure. Phase one was her understanding Neil’s role in Rush. Phase two is like, we’ve learned all the songs, now let’s have some fun with them. Now we’re massaging the arrangements and seeing how they can go.

At the same time, we’re not out there to turn it into a new thing. We’re there to represent our songs with our hearts and with our best playing fingers forward. And we want fans to celebrate that music with us. The mandate isn’t to change everything. The mandate is to be respectful of the arrangements of the song at the same time elevate from the norm.

You’ve hired Loren Gold as a touring keyboardist, so it’s something of a new presentation.

Lee: That’s correct. That’s what we wanted. When people come in and look at the stage setup, it’s not a trio. It’s not Rush 2.0. It’s a new time and we’ve got a different vibe, but the music is treated respectfully.

Alex, are there any new guitars you’ll bring out on the road?

Lifeson: Yeah, a few. Kirk Hammett gave me one of his Greenies. I’ve been having fun with that. It’s a pretty raunchy Les Paul, for sure. The Gibson Custom Shop did such an amazing job on it. The relic’ing is just spectacular. It sounds really, really great. There’s a couple of other Les Pauls. [He gestures to an Explorer on the wall]

Oh, and I just got this from Gibson. This is a guitar that Cesar [Gueikian], CEO of the company, made with some of the craftsmen there. He sent that along for me to check out, so I’ve been fiddling around with that. It’s so different for me in terms of its shape and style. I’ve got to get used to it.

My original ES-355 has gone to someone else, but I have one of the reissues that I’ll have on the road. I’m still sort of building that arsenal. I think I had 23 guitars on the last tour. I’ll probably have 15 or 16, something like that. I don’t know how many Ged’s going to take out this time around. Ged, I think you had probably 25 basses on the last tour.

Lee: Last tour, I had 27 vintage bases that I played. I don’t know if I’ll get through 27 this time, but it’s a slightly shorter show and I’ve fallen in love with my beautiful ’62 Jazz Bass. I’m going to play that on quite a few songs, but I’m also planning to bring some unusual things out. I’ve got a couple of classic Rickies that I’ll bring out. I’ve got some Hofners and T-birds that I’ve fallen in love with. I’m going to have, I don’t know, maybe 10 to 15 instruments I’ll try to work into the set.

At the end of those five days you did with Anika, if things didn’t work out, for whatever reason, would that have been the end of this experiment, or would you have regrouped and tried something else?

Lifeson: Who knows? I mean, it’s impossible to say.

Lee: My gut tells me we would have regrouped and looked elsewhere, but I’m very happy we didn’t have to do that. We’re really lucky. And also with Loren Gold, our keyboardist – I met him in 2014 when I did a charity show with the guys from the Who in London for their 50th anniversary, ironically.

We kind of hit it off. Again, he was one of those names that just stuck in the back of my mind. And when we talked about adding a keyboard player, his was the first name that came to mind. We’re very fortunate that the two people who were top of our minds both have worked out really, really well. That’s a little bit of a blessing from above, I think. Someone’s looking after us there.

Of course, as you said, Neil is irreplaceable, and he’s beloved by the band’s fans. That said, people seem to be very excited to see Anika play with you guys.

Lee: We’re very gratified with how well she’s been welcomed by the Rush family, so to speak. They haven’t even heard her play one note with us yet, and there’s already this kind of outpouring of love for her, and they’ve shown her tremendous kindness, which I know is inspiring for her. It’s been very gratifying to see the response.

She must be a real inspiration to female drummers around the world.

Lee: Yeah. I think that’s a great part of her story. I love that part of her story. I’ve gotten mail from young girls, older women saying, “Right on, man. Thank you.”

And now she’s part of your story.

Lee: Totally. But let’s be clear: we did not hire Anika Nilles because she’s a woman. We hired her because she’s an incredible drummer, and not just an incredible drummer – an intelligent, hardworking, responsible… I couldn’t even get her drunk last night! [Laughs] I tried.

She’s a unique individual. In many ways, she reminds me of the big goof who sat on the throne before her. She’s a total professional, a work-first person. The fact that she’s female and she’s doing that for women musicians around the world, that’s a bonus. It’s not the reason she’s in that seat.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

No matter the drummer, whoever was to step onto Neil Peart’s lofty drum riser in a reprised Rush was always going to have a massive task on their hands.

Jeff Beck-approved Fusion drummer Anika Nilles’ first shows with the prog giants have been met with widespread acclaim, but getting Rush back on stage wasn’t exactly smooth sailing – nor was Nilles’ rollercoaster 'audition'.

Her first sessions with the band, Rush bassist Geddy Lee says, were “casual.” But for two musicians who spent the best part of half a century playing with one of the world’s best drummers, there was a difficult musical and personal adjustment period to weather.

As Lee remembers in the new issue of Guitar World. “We said to her, ‘We’re not auditioning drummers, but your playing really interests us. So just come and let’s see what happens.’”

Lee says he and bandmate Alex Lifeson had no expectations during the first four of their initial five days together. Lee wanted “to work through all these songs and see her reactions and her gut feel.”

“We didn’t know her. She was a complete stranger,” he develops. “She was a bit intimidated at first because she’d heard of the band, but she wasn’t a Rush fan.”

By the time the sessions neared an end, both Lifeson and Lee realized they harbored reservations about going forward with a reunion.

“There’s no drummer on the planet that doesn’t know who Neil Peart is and doesn’t revere that name,” Lee acknowledges. “It was a tall order for her, but we were so busy working through these songs that we hadn’t chatted.”

So, before their last session, Lee called Lifeson over to his house.

“He came over, and I said, ‘What do you think?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know. What do you think?” Lee remembers. “I said, ‘I don’t know. What the fuck are we doing?’

“There was a sliver of doubt,” he admits. “Her technique was incredible. She nailed the fills, [but] there’s a lot more to playing a Rush song than the fills. It’s the feel. It’s the nuances. Our music is idiosyncratic, and that takes time.

“We’ve played Rush songs with maybe five or six different drummers over the last few years. Every time you sit and play a Rush song with a drummer, I don’t care who they are, there’s an adjustment.

“But we just weren’t sure because this was all new to us. So we went to that last day with an open mind. And song after song, she killed it. She understood all those little things that Alex and I had been telling her all week, processed them, and delivered.

“That’s when we looked at each other in the studio and went, ‘Yep, we have a real problem, because now we have a drummer and we’re going to make a commitment.’”

“There was something that was just not quite there,” echoes Lifeson. “It wasn’t really until the last day that suddenly she sort of blossomed and understood better what we were kind of looking for or going after.”

The band are so committed to Nilles that they aren’t discounting writing music together, and the praise for Nilles has been flooding in since the tour began.

For Rush, replacing Peart was difficult for a number of reasons, but despite a long line of drummers vying for the gig, Nilles was their only choice.

Rush’s full chat can be found in the latest issue of Guitar World. Head to Magazines Direct to pick up a copy.

Prog rock legends Rush have made their long-awaited return to the stage.

11 years after the band exited stage left at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, they were back at the same venue with new drummer Anika Nilles in tow as they kickstarted the Fifty Something tour in style. Our friends at Classic Rock did the math, with the band ending the 3,964-day wait by playing a song that has never opened a Rush set before.

Launching into Xanadu, from 1977’s A Farewell to Kings, the new-look lineup did little to shy away from the fan favorites, with mammoth hits including Moving Pictures’ bangers Limelight and Red Barchetta, The Spirit of the Radio, La Villa Strangiato, and Subdivisions all packed into a breathless two sets. And yes, they played 2112, stripping it down to just three parts.

But it wasn’t just the big hitters on show. Unexpected songs, including Dreamline, The Garden, a tender cut from the band’s superlative final album, Clockwork Angels, and By-Tor & The Snow Dog, ensured the setlist represented a career-wide representation of one of the best bands to abuse time signatures and double-neck guitars with wilful abandon.

And, shock horror, there were plenty of guitars on display. From Geddy Lee’s double-neck Rickenbacker and Lifeson’s double-neck Gibson SG used on that rip-roaring opener, to a Gibson Custom Shop Greeny – gifted to Lifeson by Kirk Hammett – the pair have brought a wealth of gorgeous instruments onto the tour bus.

Tonally, Lifeson has also opted to include his signature IK Multimedia TONEX pedal in his live rig, as he vies to replicate the classic sounds of the band’s records across the set, making it a history of Rush tone, too.

Rush produced 19 albums and a sea of classic material over a change-making 40-year career. That was widely believed to have ended after the R40 tour concluded in 2015, given that Peart wanted to retire from the road.

Peart passed away in 2020, with most fans believing that spelled the end of the band for good. But after the success of Lee and Lifeson’s cameo at the Taylor Hawkins tribute show, the pair opted to revive the band with the help of former Jeff Beck drummer Anika Nilles and ex-Who keyboardist Loren Gold.

Though there was a queue of what Geddy Lee calls “distasteful” drummers eyeing Peart’s drum throne, it was German fusion drummer Nilles who was given the nod. The fact that she wasn’t already immersed in the prog scene, or even a Rush superfan, helps create a degree of separation between Rush with Neil ‘the Professor’ Peart, and this surprise new era of the band.

“When Al and I finally said, ‘Okay, I guess we’re getting serious. Who’s going to sit in that impossible seat? It’s daunting,” Lee admitted to Classic Rock. “[Nilles] brought a lot to the table, but more than her chops, more than her guts, and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story.”

The band will now traverse across the US and Canada, with South American and European shows taking place next year.

Rush setlist: Kia Forum, Los Angeles

Set 1

• Xanadu
• Limelight
• Far Cry
• Subdivisions
• Freewill
• Bravad
• Caravan
• La Villa Strangiato
• Vital Signs
• The Spirit of Radio

Set 2

• 2112 Part I: Overture
• 2112 Part II: The Temples of Syrinx
• 2112 Part VII: Grand Finale
• Distant Early Warning
• Red Barchetta
• Dreamline
• Natural Science
• Time Stand Still
• Red Sector A
• YYZ
• The Garden
• Tom Sawyer

Encore

• By-Tor & The Snow Dog
• Working Man

It may be an old joke, but there’s something to be said for taking things up a notch, and this month the bass community did just that with a heap of new products, ranging from downloadable plugins to vintage-style reissues, and a whole lot more besides.

In the month that saw Suzi Quatro promote the release of her 18th studio album, and Paul McCartney launch his first solo album in over five years, we’ve been talking shop with the best luthiers, bass builders, and low-end gurus, to bring you a must-read report on the latest new gear.

For starters, Fender marked the 75th anniversary of the P-Bass with three new limited-edition models. Will anyone ever topple the Precision from its perch as the best-selling bass of all time?

EMG was also celebrating its 50th anniversary with the launch of three new signature pickup sets for session legend Lee Sklar, Living Colour trailblazer Doug Wimbish, and Metallica powerhouse Robert Trujillo.

Here’s our pick of bass gear releases in May.

Pachyderm Instruments Whamola

Despite slapping down the years on a variety of bass guitars, most of which have been custom jobs from Brooklyn luthier Carl Thompson, Primus bassist Les Claypool has also employed a range of other instruments, including the famous Whamola, which is featured on the song Whamola by Claypool’s Frog Brigade as well as the South Park theme song variations and the Robot Chicken theme.

“It’s a one-string instrument with a handle on it, and I hit it with a stick,” says Claypool. “It’s basically a percussion instrument, the way I play it: it doesn’t have a lot of tonality to it, but I tend to pick up whatever’s handy.”

Pachyderm Instruments has now announced that a small run of Whamolas will be available at the merch booth during the Claypool Gold Tour, which began on May 20th and will continue through July 4th.

We make no promises that fans will come out playing it like he does, but if anyone knows about taking the instrument to the next level, it’s Les Claypool.

Rickenbacker 4000V CB TB

Few players are as closely tied to the Rickenbacker sound as Geddy Lee, whose snarling 4001 tone helped define classic Rush records throughout the ’70s.

Ahead of the upcoming Fifty Something reunion tour, Rickenbacker has revealed a new custom bass built to Lee’s own specs: an unapologetically retro four-string. that blends vintage appointments, and a Turquoise Blue finish.

Originally offered on the late ’50s combo series instruments, the Turquoise Blue finish is accented with checkerboard binding around the body. Another notable throwback is the bridge, which is the 425 style with four saddles as found in the early 4000 and 4005 models.

The 4000V CB TB is fitted with a Vintage Single Coil Toaster Top and a Bass Horseshoe pickup. Rather than volume and tone controls, Lee requested two volume knobs (one for each pickup) that are wired to a mono output.

Most of the rest of us will never get to own one, but a bassist can dream, right?

Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Bass Big Muff Pi 2

For many, the stompbox daddy of all fuzz is the Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi. The recently released dual op-amp Bass Big Muff 2 has now been upgraded with the release of the Deluxe Bass Big Muff 2.

Bass-centric upgrades include a blend knob, and a foot switchable crossover section that splits your signal into two bands. The pedal’s I/O section has also been expanded to include a pad switch on the input, a DI output, and a Direct output.

Looking for a Big Muff? Well this one’s massive.

Fender Limited Edition 75th Anniversary Precision Bass Collection

It was way back in 1951 that Fender first put their Precision Bass into production, so 2026 sees the 75th anniversary, not just of that instrument, but pretty much the concept of the electric bass itself. Without it, your instrument of choice would be radically different, and we wouldn’t have jobs.

Fender is marking the occasion with a trio of limited-edition models.

Leading the pack is the American Vintage II 1951 Precision Bass, a recreation of Leo Fender’s original slab-bodied design. It’s finished in classic Butterscotch Blonde and equipped with a period-correct single-coil pickup.

At the other end of the spectrum sits the more contemporary American Professional PJ Bass, which pairs a traditional split-coil Precision pickup with a Jazz Bass bridge pickup. Other modern upgrades include a HiMass bridge, figured maple top options, and gold hardware.

Meanwhile, the Player II Precision Bass offers a more accessible route into the anniversary lineup. Despite its lower price point, the Player II P-Bass still packs upgraded appointments, a performance-focused neck profile, and a Diamond Dust Sparkle finish.

Darkglass Anagram Marketplace

Darkglass Electronics has officially launched the Anagram Marketplace, a plugin ecosystem designed to expand the capabilities of its flagship Anagram multi-effects processor with third-party effects, and creator-developed tools.

Darkglass describes the move as “the next evolution of the Anagram platform”, transforming the unit from a standalone processor into what is effectively an app-based environment for bassists, producers and sound designers.

Available through the Darkglass Suite, the Marketplace introduces downloadable plugins created both by Darkglass and external developers, opening the door to a continuously evolving library of sounds and processing tools.

Surely worth the attention of every single person who has ever applied finger or thumb or pick to string.

EarthQuaker Devices Scrolls Bass Odyssey

On the list of effects pedals guaranteed to get the average bass guitarist's pulse racing, an all-analog bass preamp is unlikely to feature highly. However, having complete control over your tone has long been the secret weapon in many a pro player's rig. Some use it to add extra polish to their overall sound, while others use it in conjunction with other effects to tweak them to perfection.

The Scrolls Bass Odyssey from Ohio's highly-rated EarthQuaker Devices combines a comprehensive active EQ section with a tube-style drive circuit. Add to that an effects loop, parallel output and balanced XLR out, and you’ve got a studio-ready pedal that’s ideal for use in any setup with multiple signal paths.

Play one of these high-end pedals and you’ll understand exactly how boutique makers such as EarthQuaker Devices earn their keep.

EMG Signature Bass Pickup Sets

EMG is celebrating its 50th anniversary with the launch of three new signature bass pickup sets for Metallica powerhouse Robert Trujillo, Living Colour trailblazer Doug Wimbish, and session legend Lee Sklar.

The Lee Sklar P Set is a recreation of the original split-coil pickup configuration housed in Sklar’s famed “Frankenstein” Precision Bass.

According to EMG, the set revives the look and sound of the company’s earliest production runs, complete with raised-logo covers and a specially tweaked preamp designed to mirror Sklar’s long-running 18-volt setup.

Doug Wimbish’s DW Set takes a similarly archival approach. The PJ configuration – previously exclusive to his signature Spector basses – has now been released as a standalone aftermarket set for the first time.

EMG says the pickups were recreated directly from the exact PJ combination Wimbish has used since the early ’80s, with vintage-style branding and both long- and short-Jazz sizing options available.

Meanwhile, Robert Trujillo’s existing RT “Rip Tide” signature set has received a flashy anniversary makeover in a new gold finish. While the electronics remain unchanged, the updated aesthetic joins a broader series of special-edition EMG anniversary products tied to Metallica’s long-running relationship with the pickup giant. All three pickup sets ship with EMG’s solderless wiring system.

Nordstrand Acinonyx V

Nordstrand Audio has expanded its retro-inspired Acinonyx lineup with the launch of the new Acinonyx 5 – a five-string evolution of the company’s offset short-scale bass design that arrives after a limited-edition run last year.

At the heart of the Acinonyx 5 is a compact 30.7-inch short scale, paired with an Indian rosewood fingerboard featuring a compound radius for a more modern feel across the neck. Nordstrand also promises a comfortably worn-in playing experience, describing the neck profile as one that “fits the hand like an old broken in glove.”

Seamoon FX More!

Sounding like a machine from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, the More! By Seamoon FX is a totally different breed of octave pedal.

Unlike regular octave pedals or synth-style processors, the More! appears to focus on enhancing the fundamental low frequencies beneath the original signal, offering what Seamoon describes as a more “felt than heard” effect.

The pedal sports a notably stripped-back control layout, featuring a single level knob alongside a toggle switch that shifts between two distinct bass emphasis modes. One setting prioritizes deeper sub-bass response for smoother, weightier tones, while the second introduces a more aggressive mid-bass character with increased dynamic saturation.

Kikichi Guitars

Japanese boutique bass builder Kikuchi Guitars has officially launched in Europe and the United States, bringing the craftsmanship of veteran luthier Yoshiyuki “Yoshi” Kikuchi to a wider global audience.

Kikuchi’s résumé reads like a history of high-end bass building. After founding Atelier Z in the 1980s, he relocated to New York in the early ’90s, where he worked alongside respected builders Roger Sadowsky and John Suhr. He later oversaw production of the acclaimed Sadowsky Metroline Japan basses – experience that now feeds directly into his own boutique operation.

With a pedigree rooted in some of the most respected names in boutique bass building, Kikuchi Guitars arrives as a serious new contender for players chasing vintage-inspired tone with modern precision.

2112 is widely regarded as Rush’s commercial breakthrough. Disappointing album sales of 1975’s Caress of Steel, coupled with declining attendance at shows – not to mention a less-than-ideal critical reaction and the potential catastrophe of being dropped by their label – spurred Alex Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and Neil Peart to, frankly, give it their all.

Now, as the newly reformed Rush – with drummer Anika Nilles – are set to embark on the Fifty Something Tour, kicking off on June 7, Lifeson recalls that uncertain period and how much of a make-or-break moment it really was for the band.

“We were heavily in debt,” Lifeson says matter-of-factly in an interview with Rick Beato. “Our managers had spent so much money just keeping us on the road, and there was a lot of pressure.

“It really was, either we go home, and I go work for my dad as a plumbing assistant, or we just say screw everybody, we're just going to make the record that we want to make, and if it fails, then at least it's our thing, we did it. That was [1976’s] 2112 – so that was my protest record.”

Lifeson clarifies that the record’s success wasn’t “instantaneous,” but rather, “it took a year for that record… touring and promoting it” to find its audience.

“What happened was people really locked onto it. This happens to so many people: when you discover a band, you feel like that's your band. I'm the only person that knows how great this band is. That's kind of what happened, one gig at a time.”

By the end of that same year, the record had gone platinum, even entering the Canadian Albums Chart, peaking at No.5, as well as becoming the band’s first record to crack the U.S. Top 100.

“We were on a much better track,” Lifeson continues. “Now the gigs were starting to come in, we were headlining more… we felt emboldened, and never was a record company executive or management allowed in the studio from that point on. That bought us our independence, and we were precious with that.”

In a classic Guitar World interview from 1996, the Rush guitarist described the atmosphere that led to the creation of 2112.

“Because there was so much negative feeling from the record company, and our management was worried, we came back full force with 2112,” he recalled. “There was a lot of passion and anger on that record.”

Ultimately, “it was about one person standing up against everybody else.”

In more recent news, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson revealed that, following Peart’s death, several drummers tried to force a Rush reunion on them while they were still in mourning.

As Rush prepares to make their grand return to touring next month, Alex Lifeson has been discussing what’s in his reunion rig – and a copy of Kirk Hammett’s legendary Greeny is a surprise addition.

Lifeson, Geddy Lee, and former Jeff Beck drummer Anika Nilles will kick off the Fifty Something tour in Los Angeles on June 7. It’s the band’s first tour without stalwart drummer Neil Peart, who passed away in 2020.

After soft-launching their comeback at the Juno Awards, Lifeson is looking forward to bringing some new axes to the stage.

“Kirk Hammett gave me one of his Greenys,” he says in the new issue of Guitar World. “I’ve been having fun with that. It’s a pretty raunchy Les Paul, for sure. The Gibson Custom Shop did such an amazing job on it. The relic’ing is just spectacular, and it sounds really, really great.”

Hammett is the third owner of the fabled Greeny Les Paul. It made its name in the hands of Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green, who then personally chose Gary Moore as its caretaker when he left the music scene entirely in 1970. Hammett then bought it for a “very realistic” price after the Irishman’s passing.

A slew of affordable and definitely-not-affordable reissues have come since, with Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil among those to have stumped up $20K for a Custom Shop model.

For Lifeson, there are other electric guitar changes afoot, too.

“My original ES-355 has gone to someone else, but I have one of the reissues that I’ll have on the road,” he says. A new Epiphone reissue of the guitar has also been teased.

“I’m still sort of building that arsenal,” Lifeson expands. “I think I had 23 guitars on the last tour. I’ll probably have 15 or 16 [for this tour].”

“Last tour, I had 27 vintage bases,” Lee takes over. “I don’t know if I’ll get through 27 this time, but it’s a slightly shorter show, and I’ve fallen in love with my beautiful ‘62 Jazz Bass. I’m going to play that on quite a few songs, but I’m also planning to bring some unusual things out. I’ve got a couple of classic Rickies that I’ll bring out.

“I’ve got some Hofners and T-birds that I’ve fallen in love with. I’m going to have, I don’t know, maybe 10 to 15 instruments I’ll try to work into the set.”

The band has credited their appearance at the Taylor Hawkins tribute show as the spark for their reunion, although Lee has said it was “distasteful” how many drummers came forward following Peart’s passing, each with an eye to taking his drum throne.

Rush are the cover stars of the latest issue of Guitar World. Print and digital copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Prog giants Rush are set to hit the road for the first time since Neil Peart’s passing next month, with former Jeff Beck drummer Anika Nilles sitting in for the Professor. But while the band was still in mourning after his death, Geddy Lee says some drummers were already eying Peart’s position.

The band had retired in 2015 after the R40 tour, with Peart’s deteriorating health the main reason for their curtain call. Peart passed away five years later, with most assuming that Rush, simultaneously, were no more.

That has, of course, proven not to be the case. Nilles was recommended to the band by a tech who spent time on the road with Jeff Beck’s 2022 tour, and Lee and Lifeson eventually approached her. However, they note some other players were tactless in their approach.

“People who are close to us – good friends that are successful drummers – would never infer something like that because they have too much respect, not only for Neil and for the situation,” Lee tells Guitar World. “They were grieving as well, so they wouldn’t be so selfish as to say something inappropriate like that.”

However, he adds that “there were many other drummers who reached out to me in the aftermath of Neil’s passing that were pushing themselves, and that was most distasteful to me. It was completely inappropriate timing.”

Lee says it was when he and guitarist Alex Lifeson linked up with Dave Grohl to play Rush songs at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in 2022 that sparked their reunion. Two years later, they were back on stage again as part of a Gordon Lightfoot tribute show, and the rumor mill began spinning when Lifeson confessed that the pair had been jamming.

But timing and finding the right drummer were everything.

“We didn't really know where to begin to look,” Lee says. “We started with Anika because she had been recommended to me, and I had done some research on her. I loved her vibe and diverse style.

“We didn’t have a list,” he adds. “When Al and I finally said, ‘Okay, I guess we’re getting serious. Who’s going to sit in that impossible seat? It’s daunting. We started with the name that was already on my mind.

“We called her up, she came, and we hit it off. She brought a lot to the table, but more than her chops, more than her guts, and her willingness to sit in that hot seat, she brought an intelligence and a story.”

Born into a family of musicians, Lee says the 42-year-old, born between the Rush's ninth and tenth albums, “doesn’t even remember the first time she picked up sticks,” rather, “It’s who she is.” Her relative freshness, he adds, has been vital in Rush’s second coming.

They soft-launched their comeback at the Juno Awards in late March. Their full-fledged return is happening next month at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles, on June 7, where they played their final show with Peart 11 years ago.

Rush are the cover stars of the new issue of Guitar World. Print and digital copies can be ordered from Magazines Direct.

Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson debuted their new Rush lineup yesterday (March 29) at the Juno Awards in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, marking their first live performance with new drummer Anika Nilles.

The duo and Nilles performed Finding My Way – the first track on Rush's self-titled 1974 debut album, which featured John Rutsey on drums in the studio, rather than the late Neil Peart, who joined the band later that year.

As for why they decided to go for this seemingly unlikely pick for their first performance with Nilles, Lee told reporters post-show, “You really can't ask us what song to play. If we have to choose one song, it's almost impossible. We have so many. So we just asked management, and they said first song, first album.”

“Also, it's the only song we know how to play,” Lifeson quipped.

In what must have been one of the most pressure-filled moments of her career so far, Nilles proved she is more than worthy of stepping into Peart’s shoes, as she accompanied a Les Paul-wielding Lifeson and Lee on his eye-catching Seafoam Green Fender Jazz Bass.

Rounding off the lineup was keyboardist Loren Gold, who will also join the band on their upcoming tour.

Lee and Lifeson also took the opportunity to pay tribute to Peart, with video footage of the beloved drummer and bandmate flickering on the screen behind them.

The appearance served as a preview of the upcoming Fifty Something tour – Lee and Lifeson’s first shows under the Rush banner in 11 years. It kicks off in North America on June 7 at the Forum in Los Angeles.

What was supposed to be a limited, 22-show run ended up extending to the UK, Europe, and South America, with dates in 2027 added just a few weeks ago.

Back in October, Rush delighted prog rock fans worldwide by announcing the Fifty Something reunion tour across North America. What's more, they recently added UK, Europe, and South America shows to the bill, with 24 shows across 13 countries slated for 2027.

Jeff Beck’s drummer, virtuoso Anika Nilles, will be filling in for the late, legendary Neil Peart, alongside Loren Gold, who has worked with the likes of The Who, Roger Daltrey, and Don Felder, on keyboards.

And while the legendary band has already sold over half a million tickets for the North American leg of the tour, reuniting as Rush was far from an easy decision. In fact, it has been years in the making.

“I think the first attempt that Alex [Lifeson] and I had of thinking about another tour was after we played here in London at Taylor Hawkins tribute concert with the Foo Fighters,” Geddy Lee tells Planet Rock.

“That was an incredibly emotional day – and there was such an easy, happy, loving environment backstage between the musicians that, when we finished our set, we gathered with a bunch of them backstage, all of them encouraging us to go back on tour.”

He continues, “So when we got back to Toronto, we were still kind of high from that moment, and we started talking about it, because it felt like, in some way, we had denied our participation in Rush once the band stopped, and so playing again with different drummers, we sort of reclaimed the music.

“It was important to recognize that it didn't just end in 2015 [after Peart's retirement from touring] – there's still some joy to be had playing our own songs.”

Lee goes on to say that, despite the initial enthusiasm, Lifeson wasn't so keen, and the “whole idea fizzled out”.

“We just carried on being friends, which is a full-time job – trying to keep him out of my wine cellar is hard,” he quips.

Lifeson carried on working on his other projects, which included featuring on Marco Minnemann’s 2017 record, Borrego; forming the supergroup Envy of None, whose debut album was released in 2022; and even working on his own solo material.

“There was an opportunity to get together [with Lee] for a project,” the guitarist explains. “So we did that – we just kind of jammed, trying to get the fingers in shape. The next thing we knew, we thought we'd play some Rush songs. We really hadn't played them in a few years, and it was just so much fun.

“When we began talking about it more seriously, the whole idea started to gather steam, and it turned into this great project to get back into shape and to become a full-time player of Rush music."

However, it wasn't as easy as the two had expected – especially considering all the decades they spent playing the Rush repertoire.

“When you do it every day for 40 years, you can read a newspaper while you're playing, but when you get away from it and revisit it, you suddenly realize, those songs are hard!” he concludes.

Lifeson and Lee – together with Nilles and Gold – have been practicing relentlessly for what is bound to be a historic return.

Tickets for the newly announced shows go on sale on February 27 at 10 am local time. For more information, head to Rush's official website.

In more recent Rush news, Lifeson revealed his biggest challenge when preparing for the Rush reunion tour.

NAMM 2026: The NAMM Show, in case you’re new to the beautiful circus that is the musical instrument industry, is the National Association of Music Merchants trade show.

Ostensibly it's a three-day conference in Anaheim, California, for the people who make gear to show it off to the people who buy gear, i.e., music merchants. In reality, it's a vortex that draws in every corner of the music biz.

Just as soon as you're shaking your head at a Gene Simmons impersonator, you're bumping into Stevie Wonder.

Yet, beyond the personalities on display, it's the chance to see and play nearly every piece of bass gear imaginable that makes the NAMM show a worthy annual pilgrimage.

For three days, we scoured the halls and searched through the masses of full stacks, combos, Class D heads, 4-strings, 5-strings, 27-strings (probably), and the heaps of new pedals to hit the shelves.

The result was a bout of hearing damage, calloused feet, and a roundup of all the exciting and amazing products debuting in the bass world.

Between talking shop with the best luthiers, and catching up with our bass guitar heroes, the yearly conglomeration of all things music was a wild success that left us lusting for new basses, amps, and pedals of every kind.

Here’s our pick of the crop from this year’s show.

Ernie Ball Music Man 50th Anniversary StingRay

It’s hard to believe that Music Man’s best-selling bass has been with us for 50 years, as it’s such an inescapable feature of the bass guitar landscape. Music Man designed and released the StingRay in 1976, a worthy successor to the Precision and Jazz Basses that Leo Fender had designed two decades before.

Ernie Ball's 50th Anniversary model celebrates five decades of the StingRay. They’re highly exclusive too. Available in two versions: the Liquid Gold will come in just 50 instruments worldwide, while the Molten Gold will be limited to 300 instruments. Each is fitted with a single humbucker and a commemorative 50th Anniversary silkscreen on the back of the headstock.

A truly exclusive bit of Californian craftsmanship that should have extra appeal to the well-heeled Music Man aficionado.

Aguilar Octamizer DLX

An effect that plunges you deeper into subsonic territory can only be a good thing, right? We are, of course, talking Aguilar’s Octamizer pedal.

The original circuit has been updated with an added octave up setting that’s a sure-fire solution to adding thickness to higher-register lines. Three independent footswitches provide control over the clean signal, octave down, and octave up effects, allowing you to stack voices instantly without adjusting any of the controls. The clean signal can now also be fully muted for pure sub-octave tones.

“When we set out to design the Octamizer DLX, the goal wasn’t to fix the original Octamizer – it was already doing what bass players needed,” writes Aguilar. “We wanted to keep that familiar feel intact while giving players more creative space, better tracking, and new voices they could access instantly.”

Walrus Audio Mantle Analog Bass Preamp DI

The new Mantle DI by Walrus Audio is a must-try for bass players serious about tone. It features two proprietary custom-wound Sapphire Transformers, and an EQ that’s designed to offer “powerful control over sub-lows, mids, and top-end content while remaining intuitive for fast tone shaping.”

If none of that makes sense to you, just know that bass gear guru Ian Martin Allison beelined it to the Walrus Audio booth solely to rave about it.

“I am an absolute DI fanatic, owning probably 50+ DIs and preamps,” said Allison. “And while they’re all great in specific ways, they all either lack something critical or try to stuff in too many features, making for an underwhelming or even overwhelming user experience. This is exactly why I needed this product to exist. I’m thrilled to say that now it does. And it is absolutely killer.” 

Ashdown Engineering UK-Built Amp Range

A manufacturer whose bass amps are ever growing in popularity, judging by the number of bass players we spoke to who love them, Ashdown Engineering has announced Phase 2 of its return to UK manufacturing with five brand-new UK-built amplifier ranges.

Finished in distinctive Ice Blue, the range spans ultra-portable micro heads, clean and intuitive amplifiers, studio-inspired combos, and powerful Rootmaster systems – each designed to deliver “unmistakable Ashdown tone, reliability, and practicality for today's bassists.”

Spector Limited Custom Shop SB-1

The first bass designed by Stuart Spector in the mid-1970s wasn’t quite as slick as the current range, but with other luthiers queueing up to take a long, hard look at the body shape, it left a mark on the bass world that is still obvious today.

Recreated in celebration of its 50th anniversary, the new SB-1 stays faithful to the original specs, including the body shape, pickup placement, vintage-style headstock, and neck-through construction.

Spector has created only 50 of these unique throwback basses in four wood options: 15 of walnut, 15 of maple, 10 of curly cherry, and 15 of rainbow alder, making it a unique collectors item.

As Spector put it, “The SB-1 predates the iconic NS series and is the foundation of the Spector legacy. This limited Custom Shop run brings the historic SB-1 design back.”

Fodera Victor Wooten '83 Monarch Standard

If Victor Wooten has a hand in a product, people are bound to take notice of it, and his Fodera signature model is no exception. Honouring Wooten’s original 1983 Monarch (serial number 037), the Victor Wooten ’83 Monarch Standard is essentially a Monarch featuring details from Victor’s own bass.

It features a solid mahogany body with a beautiful maple top. The three-piece maple neck has an Indian Rosewood fingerboard with clay dot inlays. And powering it all is a Trickfish Custom 3-Band Preamp wired to EMG P/J pickups.

Hearing Wooten himself test out its rich tone and dynamic range was the icing on the cake. “I got my first Fodera in 1983,” said Wooten. “I got it right out of high school and it just fit me perfectly. I’ve stuck with them ever since.”

Laney DB-East-Pre

Session veteran Nathan East was also on hand to demo Laney’s latest bass preamp that he helped design, and we were knocked out by its sound. After unveiling the dual-input DB-East signature head last year, the British amp builder is now offering the inner workings as a pro-level preamp.

With dual inputs and two pre-dialed-in outputs, the DB-East Pre features a tube channel, a Range dial for adding bottom end to its overdrive, selectable mid pre-shapes, and a Tilt switch for a little more bottom or top end EQ.

There’s even a partner app to dial in East’s favorite impulse responses, including IRs from hit record rigs. Pretty much everything a bassist could need on the fly.

“It's a total game-changer,” said East. “There's a lot of information packed into this little box.”

Aguilar Tone Hammer 210 Combo

Rated at 300 watts, Aguilar's new Tone Hammer combo features a vertically-oriented cabinet loaded with two custom ceramic 10-inch speakers inspired by the company’s DB series.

The back is home to dual XLR outputs for front-of-house and in-ear monitor routing as well as built-in cabinet impulse responses. A headphone output and auxiliary input seal the deal.

“The Tone Hammer combo wasn't designed as a scaled-down solution,” a press release states. “Instead, Aguilar focused on the environments bassists actually work in – small venues, Broadway pit settings, and houses of worship where players often rely on in-ear monitoring rather than stage volume.”

Dingwall Jacob Umansky 'Sol' Signature

Bass players of all stripes queued up to check out the latest collaboration between Jacob Umansky and Canadian luthier Sheldon Dingwall.

Designed as a mass-appeal version of Umansky’s Dingwall Custom Shop Z3, his signature model retains a host of premium features including a bookmatched ash top, a matte white/black ceruse finish and Darkglass electronics.

It’s not just for shredders either, with a pickup configuration that makes it far more versatile than you might think. Sure, you'll need to get to grips with that multi-scale fingerboard, but where else are you going to get that tone?

“It’s more than just an instrument to me,” said Umansky, having tested the prototype on tour with Intervals last year. “It’s a reflection of how I play and who I am as a musician. Each time I pick it up it pushes me to explore new ideas.”

Blackstar MM Debut Bass 25

There were rigs of all sizes at the Blackstar booth this year, but what caught our attention was the compact MM Debut 25, a Marco Mendoza signature edition of its Debut Bass 25 practice amp. With Clean and Drive channels, and a responsive 3-band EQ, this is a bassists dream for backstage practice. Other features include Mendoza's distinctive Bird logo, bespoke tolex, and custom fret cloth.

“The MM Debut Bass 25 is everything a bass player needs to enjoy playing every day,” said Mendoza. “It’s simple, inspiring and sounds incredible.”

Fodera x Trickfish Preamp & Practice Amp

Of all the excited rumblings we heard on the show floor about new products, Fodera’s collaboration with Trickfish might have been brought up the most.

Pairing the tone shaping of Fodera’s boutique instruments with the clean preamp circuitry that Trickfish is known for, this new preamp and practice amp has got everything you need: headphone out, aux in for play-alongs, DI out for recording, and a 4-band EQ. Plus the added ability to switch between 2-, 3- and 4-band to make on the fly adjustments quickly.

Ibanez Mode Series

The latest new models to arrive from the Ibanez stable are built upon a foundation of ergonomic design. And with split-coil Delta pickups and a Sonictech S Preamp onboard, they sound just as good as they look – but most important, they feature a competitive price tag that could allow almost any bassist to cop a high-end electric.

Other features include a passive tone control with a push/pull active/passive switch, the MR5S monorail bridge, luminescent side dots for stage visibility, and Ibanez’s new Aero-light Tuners.

Aria Pro II SB-CLB Cliff Burton Signature

Elsewhere at the show, Aria announced a commemorative signature bass to mark 40 years since Cliff Burton's passing. A reissue of the Aria Pro II Cliff Burton – which launched in 2013 with the approval of his family and Metallica – the new model retains many characteristics of the original with a few additional features.

It’s built with an ash body, a 7-piece maple/walnut neck, and a 24-fret rosewood fingerboard. Aria fits it with an MB-1E pickup and their B.B. Circuit, which features an Attack Mode Selector offering six predefined EQ curves. Burton’s signature is also reproduced on the back of the headstock.

Tech 21 Geddy Lee Amalgamation Signature Chorus

Also new for 2026, Geddy Lee has teamed up once again with Tech 21 to create a chorus pedal tailored to his own personal specs, allowing you to get even closer to his signature sound.

“With the Detune control, you can adjust the pitch of the choral voicing,” write Tech 21. “Engaging Deviate mode alters the Detune function and adds an additional voicing for even more depth – as if 3 people are playing at once.”

Speed and Depth knobs round out the control set for adjusting the modulation.

Blessed with an unmistakable vocal shriek in addition to his superlative bass skills, Gary Lee Weinrib – nicknamed Geddy Lee after the way his grandmother used to pronounce his name – was among the first bass guitar players to combine funk with elements of progressive-rock and make it big while doing so.

Complemented by his virtuoso bandmates in Rush – guitarist Alex Lifeson and the late drummer Neil Peart – Lee’s bass playing veers from the subtle, to the atmospheric, to an all-out riff storm.

“Sometimes I hit the bass so damn hard that you can hear not only the frets whack but sometimes the string hitting the pickup,” Lee told Bass Player back in 2006. “I can be a bit of an animal!”

Gear-wise, Geddy is best known for his signature Fender Jazz Bass, although he’s plucked a Rickenbacker or two in his time as well.

“When we signed our first record deal in 1974, I got my share of our small advance and the first thing I did was buy a Rickenbacker 4001. I think I paid about $400 for it.

“Much to my dismay, when I plugged it in, it didn’t sound like Chris Squire! It took me quite a lot of fiddling to get it to sound the way I wanted.

“I tried a Fender Precision as well. I played with the shape of the body: I cut it into a teardrop shape and added a Jazz bridge pickup to hotrod it up. I actually destroyed that bass, pretty much! It had a pretty outrageous sound.”

Shortly after Rush's 1974 debut album, the trio began to explore long, multi-part compositions with rhythmically complex passages, hitting its stride with 1975’s prog-rock treasure Fly By Night.

“I used the Rickenbacker on nearly every track on Fly by Night. But on By-Tor and the Snow Dog, a fantasy tune that featured characters representing good and evil, I was given the role of By-Tor, the evil one.

“There’s a monster sound that growls during one really chaotic musical segment, so I put my '69 Precision Bass through a Fuzz-Tone. It was distorted all to shit; we added phasing, and ultimately put in everything but the kitchen sink.”

“I had all that going through a volume pedal, so every time the monster was supposed to growl, I would lean on the pedal. It sounded like a real monster!”

Around 1977's A Farewell to Kings, Lee sought to make his bass sound even bigger, and began using Moog Taurus bass pedals and a doubleneck Rickenbacker bass/guitar to create the lush soundscapes of the epic Xanadu.

1981's Moving Pictures finally broke the band into mainstream rock radio with hits like the anthemic Tom Sawyer and the tweaked-out instrumental YYZ.

“I have this 1972 Fender Jazz that I used a lot on those albums,” said Lee when asked about his current instrument of choice. “It's just a great recording bass, one which people have often mistaken, sound-wise, for my Rickenbacker.

“You can get that out of a Ricky, there’s no question about it, but it’s a lot of fiddling. I wanted to get a bit more punch in the bottom end, and what I liked about the Jazz Bass was that it was really easy to get a great tone in the studio.”

“The Jazz Bass has a really sweet neck, and I feel far more fluid playing it than I ever did on the Rickenbacker.”

Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee took everyone by surprise when, just three days ago, they announced that Rush are officially reuniting for a seven-city tour, with the addition of Anika Nills on drums to honor the legacy of the late Neil Peart.

Despite the two jamming and making surprise appearances at various concerts over the past couple of years, Lifeson, in particular, was vocal about his hesitancy to tour again.

However, now that Rush is back, Lifeson and Lee are knee-deep in refamiliarizing themselves with the band's gargantuan repertoire – and, according to the guitarist, the complexity of Rush's guitar parts took even him by surprise.

“I love playing so much. And I've continued, over these last years, doing other projects. But when we sat down and started playing some of the Rush stuff, I realized how hard it was to play these songs,” he admits in an interview with Geoff Edgers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“When you do it every day for 40 years, it's not a big deal, really,” he continues. “You're used to it. But when you're away from it, and you are a little more objective about the intense complexity of the music and the feel and the new nuances and all the things that go into making a Rush song and performance, to be challenged with that again was really, really exciting. And the more we started rehearsing and playing, the more I just fell in love with the idea of playing again.”

Speaking about their decision to reunite as Rush, Lee reveals that it was a “very difficult decision” on many levels.

“First of all, because [of] what it entails in terms of work, but also what had transpired, you know, losing a member like Neil is devastating,” he says. “It was a very sad time, and it took time for us to even contemplate. This is a relatively recent decision, and I would say it was kind of out of the question for the longest time because of those circumstances – and how do you replace someone who's irreplaceable?”

The Rush bassist/vocalist goes on to say that the two were also caught up in their own individual projects. However, the idea of a reunion became less absurd when “something happened the last couple of years” that brought the two back to jamming together.

“He would come over, drink my coffee, hang around, jam, and we would laugh,” he relates.

“And then one day, I don't know why, we started playing some Rush songs for fun. God, we were laughing so hard, and we were enjoying it so much, and it was almost like playing those songs dispelled the dark clouds.”

Lee and Lifeson are officially back in the saddle – with the addition of drummer Anika Nilles – and will be traversing North America in summer 2026. To witness this reunion, fans can participate in a presale by signing up here by 11:59 p.m. ET today, with general on-sale tickets going live on October 17.

Back in March, Rush released their career-spanning greatest hits collection, Rush 50. Despite rumors of a possible Geddy Lee–Alex Lifeson reunion under the Rush moniker, it didn't seem likely to transpire, given drummer Neil Peart's death in 2020 and the two having rejected the notion in multiple interviews.

However, the two are back in the saddle, with the official announcement of a Rush tour – dubbed Fifty Something – for summer 2026. Filling in on drums will be the award-winning German composer and producer, and Jeff Beck collaborator, Anika Nilles.

The seven-city Fifty Something is described as a “celebration of Rush’s music, legacy, and the life of late drummer and lyricist Neil Peart,” with the tour kicking off with two nights at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles on June 7 and 9, and concluding in Cleveland on September 17.

“It’s been over 10 years since Alex and I have performed the music of Rush alongside our fallen bandmate and friend Neil,” says Lee in a press statement. “A lifetime’s worth of songs that we had put our cumulative hearts and souls into writing, recording, and playing together onstage.

“And so, after all that has gone down since that last show, Alex and I have done some serious soul searching and come to the decision that we fucking miss it, and that it’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of Rush music. So in 2026 my BFF Lerxst (aka Alex Lifeson) and I are going to hit the road once again to pay tribute to our past and to Neil by performing a vast selection of Rush songs in a handful of cities. No small task, because as we all know Neil was irreplaceable.

“Yet life is full of surprises,” Lee continues, “and we have been introduced to another remarkable person; an incredible drummer and musician who is adding another chapter to our story while continuing her own fascinating musical journey. Her name is Anika Nilles, and we could not be more excited to introduce her to our loyal and dedicated Rush fanbase.”

According to the band's social media platforms, these shows will find the band playing two sets each night, with each show featuring “a distinct selection of songs.” Rush will also “build each night’s setlist from a catalog of 35 songs, including their greatest hits and fan favorites.”

Since Peart's death, Lee and Lifeson have performed together a number of times, including at the 2022 tribute concerts for the late Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, the Gordon Lightfoot tribute in Toronto, and with Les Claypool at South Park’s 25th anniversary concert.

The two have also been jamming, with Lifeson revealing in a 2024 Rolling Stone interview that “we sound like a really bad tribute band for the first three or four run-throughs on these things.”

Moreover, in an interview with Guitar World last year, Lifeson was hesitant to confirm whether a Rush reunion tour was even on the cards. “I mean, we toured for 40 years. I’m not interested in going back out on tour,” he said.

“I don’t wanna sit in a hotel room for hours and hours and hours to work for a couple of hours. Been there, done it, loved it. But that’s in the past. So whether Ged and I get back together again and write or do anything, we’ll see.”

However, it seems like fans' prayers have been answered, and Rush will be heading out on tour once again, with the tour, in Lee's words, aiming to “pay homage to our music, pay homage to our lost brother, represent the songs – and celebrate the songs.”

Fans will be able to participate in a presale by signing up here before this Thursday [October 9] at 11:59 p.m. ET, with general onsale tickets going live on October 17.

Geddy Lee is the rare type of bass player whose combination of talents creates a fiercely original voice. His vocal shriek is unmistakable; his bass guitar countermelodies, soaring and adventurous; his tone, in-your-face.

Combining his skill set with guitar alchemist Alex Lifeson's sonic concoctions and drum god Neil Peart's downright ridiculous chops, Rush achieved a sound that was undeniably huge.

“He’s Geddy Lee, you know. Nobody plays like him,” Les Claypool told Bass Player. “His phrasing is unbelievable. It’s almost like Paul McCartney, in that he is very melodic and in the way he phrases his bass parts. It’s almost lyrical.”

Lee was one of the first bassists to utilize a stereo bass rig. Around 1977’s A Farewell to Kings, he began using Moog Taurus bass pedals and a doubleneck Rickenbacker bass/guitar to create the lush soundscapes of the epic Xanadu.

“We wanted to have rhythm guitar behind some of Alex's solos,” Lee told Bass Player. “We figured the best way to do that was for me to play my double-neck Rickenbacker, and fill in the bottom end with the pedals. We eventually started using it to sneak other melodic parts in, as well, to fill out the texture.

“That set me on a road of experimentation that got to be a little insane – we were basically trying to invent MIDI before it was invented. We built unbelievably complex machines, some of which were total failures.

“I just accepted synth bass for a number of years, but I got frustrated not being able to play my No. 1 instrument. When MIDI came along, that changed everything. The combination of MIDI and sophisticated multi-note sequencers and samplers allowed me to make our records dense and interesting.”

“We've always been obsessed with being able to play our records live as a three-piece – we didn't want other guys onstage. So that meant an increasingly complicated array of tools to help us accomplish it. And we wanted it to be performance-based, not taped.

“Eventually, it got to be too much for me, so Alex and Neil started triggering keyboard events, as well. As a bass player, it's important to know the rules – and the best ways to break them.”

One thing was clear from Rush's live performances: Geddy always had a blast up there. “There was always such a positive vibe coming from our fans. I really fed off that – It instantly put me in a great headspace.”

The following interview from the Bass Player archives took place hot on the heels of the R30: 30th Anniversary World Tour in 2005, with the trio having begun writing a new album of original material, the first since 2002's Vapor Trails.

You’ve used a number of different basses through the '70s and ‘80s – Rickenbackers, Steinbergers, and Wals – but for the last 10 years, you've used your '72 Fender Jazz Bass almost exclusively. Why?

“When we started working on Counterparts, the band started going in a retro direction, sound-wise. I went back to using an Ampeg SVT, and I rediscovered the glorious bottom-end of the Fender – I haven't stopped exploring it since. I feel far more fluid playing the Jazz Bass than I ever did on the Rickenbacker.

“The Ricky was a real slam-bam kind of instrument that I had to play more aggressively. The action was high, because that was how I got the tone I wanted.”

What were your reasons for switching basses?

“The Steinberger's size made it easier for me to move around between all my gear onstage. It had an interesting midrange honk, but it had an unsatisfying tone. It didn't have the top-end snap and bottom-end growl that I like.

“I started playing Wal basses when we recorded Power Windows because they're beautiful-sounding instruments with a tight, snappy high end.

“At the time, there was a slight bit more funk in how I was playing, snapping strings and playing chords way up the neck. I used lighter-gauge Rotosound Funk Master strings, which allowed me to play chords without taking up so much space in the sound spectrum.”

Has your tone changed very much through the years?

“Yes, a lot. In the early days, it was clangy top-end first, with a round but not overly aggressive bottom-end. In the mid '80s I started crunching it up a bit more with distortion and compression. It's continued to change with every record.”

How do you keep from burning songs out?

“Sometimes just giving a song a rest and coming back to it can be great. Working Man is one song that we were totally bored with, and we gave it a break. We brought it back for the last two tours, and it's been really refreshing. It's a real three-piece jam song, and we all just have a blast.”

After playing with Alex for so long, I imagine you could identify him after hearing only a few notes. What are his stylistic hallmarks?

“He's one of the great builders of odd chords, and there's a very particular way he arpeggiates them. As a soloist, he's got a fluidity and a freedom of movement around the neck that's quite original.”

How would you describe Neil's rhythmic sensibility?

“In many ways, Neil's more rooted in jazz than in rock – even though he rocks pretty darn well. I think in his heart, he's a jazz player who's adapted to rock. He likes to play on the very back end of the beat.

“When he wants to rock, he'll flip his sticks over and use their butt ends, and when he wants to be more nuanced, he'll play with the tips, and he goes into a whole different kind of swing. He just has an incredibly deep tool kit, so many things to pull out. Plus, his hyperactivity is pretty well-known.”

Do you play bass in your downtime?

“From time to time. Once in a while I'll go downstairs to my home studio and just pluck around. And I keep a bass lying around so I can just run my fingers up and down the 'board if I'm hanging out with the kids or watching TV. But I don't pay any serious attention to it unless I've got something coming up.”

Do you find yourself losing facility after a break?

“I used to really feel a fall-off when I was younger. Now I just feel refreshed. Alex has found the same thing to be true. It just takes less time to get back in shape. It used to be downright painful if I went too long without playing.”

Does songwriting feel natural, or does it take a lot of work?

“I have to really sit down and make myself go to work. But this last tour cycle lasted two years, and I'm ready to change gears. Working with new people is instantly inspiring, but if I'm going to be writing with Alex and Neil, I like to lie fallow for a while. Then when we do get together, I'm fired up to play.”

Has the writing process been the same for every record?

“It's always a little different. We never know what's going to happen until we get together and sit down. It usually starts with Alex and me getting together to have some dinner, drink some wine, and talk about what's been on our minds musically. Then we'll organize a writing room for ourselves with some decent sounds and good instruments, and try to make sure we're not bogged down by too much technology so we can jam freely.

“I'll have my Jazz Bass, and I'll keep my Taylor acoustic handy in case I have a guitar idea that I think might work. We'll start at my home studio, where I have a Logic Audio setup that I use to grab all our jams. If I feel there's something wonderful in those jams, I can cut them out and use them later.”

Which typically comes first, your basslines or your vocal melodies?

"It can go either way. If the vocals come first, I'll use bass like a guitar – to create a structure around that vocal melody. Then, if Alex likes that idea, we'll build a structure, and we'll decide if that initial bass sketch is still appropriate.

“If it's not, I'll write a line that better fulfills the song's bottom-end needs. Once Neil comes in, the bass track may change again. Often his approach to the rhythm will change what I do on bass.”

What are some of the ways you push yourself creatively?

“The danger with playing bass is in looking at familiar blocks on the neck and always going there. It's most important to find different note combinations and not fall into those same patterns. I force myself to push beyond them, often by using double-stops or chords.

“When I'm recording, after I take one pass, I'll often have another go, to try a fresh approach. I find if I pretend I'm a lead guitar player, I can get into a new melodic area where I wouldn't normally find myself. I'm typically more concerned with keeping things rock-solid on the bottom.

“At the end of the day, it can result in a bunch of self-indulgent nonsense, but sometimes it'll do interesting things to the melody. I like that kind of experimentation.”

While a Rush reunion may not be in the cards), Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee are still keeping the band's spirit alive by regularly meeting up for friendly jam sessions.

“It’s good to jam with friends as you get older,” Lifeson says in the new issue of Classic Rock. “I need to play. Once a week I go to Ged’s – it’s in the calendar – keep my fingers moving, play Rush stuff, new jams. We do record it, but I couldn’t even begin to tell you where it’ll go.”

Despite recording their jams, the two insist fans should not get their hopes up. As Lee coyly puts it, “Al and I are lifelong friends. We jam together once in a while, it’s true. That’s all I want to say about that right now.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone last year, Lifeson confirmed that the two are actually playing “a lot of Rush songs” during these regular jam sessions, but end up sounding like “a really bad tribute band for the first three or four run-throughs.

“And then muscle memory kicks in, and we’re having a ball doing it. It’s good for the fingers. We’re together in a room like we’ve always been. That’s been really good, but there’s no chance that we’re going to get a drummer and go back on the road as the rebirth of Rush or something like that.”

That doesn’t mean Lifeson and Lee won’t treat audiences to a live performance from time to time. In fact, the two reunited last May at the Gordon Lightfoot tribute concert in Toronto, where they put their own spin on The Way I Feel.

Visit Magazines Direct to pick up the new issue of Classic Rock.

When you've been recording nearly an album a year since the mid '70s, how do you come up with something fresh? Try taking five years off. That's what Geddy Lee and Rush did before getting back together in 2001 to record Vapor Trails, the band's 17th studio album. 

In the down time, Lee remained musically active by producing local artists in Toronto and recording a solo album, 2000's My Favorite Headache. Far from stagnating, he evolved significantly as a bassist. “My bass playing has gone into such a weird zone,” Lee told Bass Player in 2002. “I’ve carried that on to a ridiculous degree.”

Lee developed a rhythmic, often chordal style that worked well with a layered approach. “I'm strumming a lot, and sometimes I end up with two or three bass tracks on each song. Rather than wait for a guitar part to fill in a melody, I'll just go up the neck, fuzz out my bass, and have it perform that function.”

All over Vapor Trails, it seems Geddy went out of his way to avoid playing roots. “I think that's from the way I use bass chords: The roots are implied without necessarily having to be emphasized. Sometimes we miss that, though, so I'll go back in and add a lower bassline that grounds the part. But if it's not necessary, we live without it.”

Rush recorded Vapor Trails digitally using Emagic Logic Audio software. Most of the songs were born out of jams recorded direct to disc, many of which made it all the way into the final mixes. “People say digital is this sterile medium, but they don't understand what it can do for you. You can get a very recordable sound and just jam into the computer, and then manipulate it afterward.”

For every bass performance, Geddy recorded three tracks: One direct through an Avalon U5 preamp/DI, one from the U5 through a Palmer speaker simulator for low-end distortion, and one from the U5 through a Tech 21 SansAmp RBI, the rack-mount version of the SansAmp Bass Driver. Before being recorded, each track went through a vintage Neve preamp/EQ and a Urei 1176 compressor.

Geddy Lee's following track-by-track tour of Vapor Trails took place in the July 2002 issue of Bass Player.

1. One Little Victory

“This song began as a series of guitar experiments Alex did. One night he stayed late and laid down some ferocious, bluesy playing, but it didn't sound much like a song. I waited for an interesting piece of lyric to come along, and that gave me an idea to go in and start playing with Alex's riffs. In my digital world I selected the parts I thought were strongest and began jamming to them on bass.

"Some of them started coming to life, so I reshaped them digitally according to the attitude I thought would work for the lyrics. With the bass, I just tried to fill the gaps inspired from the riffs. I generally tried to keep it moving and bluesy.”

2. Ceiling Unlimited

“About four months into our writing sessions we took a month off, and when we came back we jammed for a couple of weeks. Those were some of the most inspired jams I've ever had with Alex – we played a lot of out-there things that just jelled, including the basis for this tune. 

“The choruses seemed to groove better when I was up in a high register, but we were missing the bottom end as the song went out. So in each successive chorus, I added a lower octave of bass. The first chorus has one high bass, the second has the same line doubled in a midrange register, and the last chorus has three octaves of bass – so the song keeps getting bigger as it rolls along. 

“It also features the first kind of ‘bass solo’ I've been allowed to throw on a Rush song. I wanted to trade off with Alex, but he's very anti-guitar solo at the moment, so he didn't want to get into that.”

3. Ghost Rider

“In the verses and pre-choruses we had a natural connection between the lyrics and Alex's part, but finding the right atmosphere for the chorus was a bitch of a job. I think I wrote 11 or 12 different choruses until I got something that satisfied us emotionally and musically. 

“Ghost Rider ended up being one of my favorite songs on the record. Bass-wise, the verses have my original jam parts where I'm playing a chordal thing; then I went back in and added a lower bassline. 

“If we play this one live, I'll have to determine what's important. Bass chords create an interesting sound on record, but I don't think they're necessary live, so I drop a lot of the chording and stick to the bottom. That often translates better. I may go back and forth between the two, which gives us an opportunity to create interesting dynamics.”

4. Peaceable Kingdom

“This was originally supposed to be an instrumental, but our producer Paul Northfield thought it was so strong that it would be a shame not to exploit it more. The lyric seemed to fit the hot, burning chordal patterns Alex and I had come up with for the tune. 

“The song opens with a combination of bass chords and guitar chords that blend into one sound. Then we break away into the Peaceable Kingdom sections, and I slip into a Jack Bruce-like riff and jam the blues. It's harmonically very interesting for me. I'd like to play this one live, but I'm not sure if we can pull it off without all the vocal harmonies.”

5. Stars Look Down

“This started with Alex and me just riffing together in a funky way. When we hit the chorus, everything changes: I go into a fingerpicking bass-chord pattern, with three or four chords that circle around. He joins me at the end of the song, doing the same thing on nylon-string acoustic, which makes for an interesting orchestration.”

6. How It Is

“This song fell together easily; the melody just popped out of my mouth and worked well with the lyric. But every time we tried to ‘produce' it, we lost something, so we decided it was best to go back and work with the original jams that inspired the melody. 

“Alex added some mandola in the beginning and middle, but overall this tune was a ‘jam to disc.’ I just tried to find the busiest, angriest bass riff for the verses – a bit over the top – to contrast the choruses' sweet, melodic nature.”

7. Vapor Trail

“I wrote the melody around a bass pattern that was glued to one of Alex's guitar jams – a sweet, repetitive arpeggio. This tune reminds me of some of our older material: There's a repetitive guitar part that hardly changes, and the only melodic movement is coming from the bass part underneath. 

“It's kind of a lonely tune with a real mood, so I wanted to mix the tune with a deeper, less twangy-sounding bass guitar. We ended up using less of the SansAmp in the mix. This tune has two bass parts: One is playing in a lower register, and a high-end figure repeats subtly in the background.”

8. Secret Touch

“This is a bit of an extravaganza. We built the song around these repeating bass chords that I thought sounded like French horns. The tune has a hypnotic feel, and because we weren't happy just enjoying that feel, we had to smack it up with some power. 

“When we get to the middle section and all hell breaks loose, there are these stuttering bass punctuations. I double-tracked them, but on one of the tracks I went in and digitally truncated the notes to make them sound really punchy.

“There's another point where I'm playing straight 16th-notes, and when we were jamming originally, we could hear the sound of my fingers slapping against the string but when we played it back it didn't have the same ‘smack.’ 

“So we put up a mike and recorded the sound of my fingers while we were laying down the parts, and we used it subtly in the mix. I don't know how much of it survived under all the guitars, but it's there.”

9. Earthshine

“This was fairly straight-forward – Alex and I jammed on a riff, and then halfway through, I added a lower bassline to provide more rumble. When we hit those Celtic-like pre-chorus sections, it's basically a combination of two bass parts: a low part and a chordal part. You can really hear the extra basses come and go on this one.”

10. Sweet Miracle

“Bass-wise, this is one of the simpler songs – sadly, only one bass track! It began with the verses; I'm playing chords, I wrote the melody along with those chords, and then Alex added his parts to that.

“For certain songs where the lyrics are atmospheric and require just the right mood, there's no option but to just write a vocal melody and shape the bass chords around that melody.”

11. Nocturne

“I'm very pleased with how this one turned out; we stretched out a bit. I had my three bass channels assigned to three outputs on the console, but for some reason, during the verses I accidentally routed one of the channels to the wrong output, and it came up on a rail normally reserved for a vocal track. 

“There was this deep reverb on it, and it sounded so cool – so we wrote the song around that sound. Then during the middle section, there's one low bass part, one bass-chord part, and a third part that's echoing into that reverb.”

12. Freeze

“We were dying to work in some screwed-up time signature because we hadn't done that in a while, so we came up with a jam that was in seven. But then I got the idea to digitally form the jam around the song's lyrics. The more I played with it on the computer, the weirder the time got. 

“I decided the bass and guitar should be repetitive and hypnotic, but I threw out any rules for the time signature: I shaped the time of each verse section to the number of beats I needed to fit in the vocal properly. That's why it's hard to count that song – there aren't any rules as to when a beat is dropped or added. The middle section is a bass-and-guitar jam, which we left virtually as is.”

13. Out Of The Cradle

“This began as a simple rock tune; a number of basslines come in off the top to set the mood, with chords playing off each other in a dynamic way. If I were a piano player, those would have been piano parts – but since I'm a bassist and we were trying to use as little keyboard as possible, I had the bass perform that role.”

Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist Geddy Lee made a surprise appearance at last Thursday's (May 23) Gordon Lightfoot tribute concert at Toronto’s Massey Hall. Lifeson and Lee were billed under the nom de plume “L+L” before revealing their identities and joining Canadian alt-country band Blue Rodeo on stage. 

To the audience's surprise, Lifeson and Lee put their own spin on the Canadian songwriting great's The Way I Feel. The Rush duo also took the stage for an ensemble performance of Summerside of Life.

“It was important for us to pay tribute to Gordon,” Lee tells Variety. “Not being folk or pop artists, Alex and I were looking for one of Gordon’s songs that might better suit our style of play and we found that in The Way I Feel. Its structure was loose and more open to interpretation than many of his more popular tunes.

“After the gig, Gordon’s daughter Meredith [Moon] said to us, ‘Leave it to Rush to make The Way I Feel sound prog,’ so I think we succeeded.”

In addition to this surprise performance, Alex Lifeson recently revealed that he's been jamming with Geddy Lee.

“It’s funny because we sound like a really bad tribute band for the first three or four run-throughs on these things,” he said.  “It’s 'Oh, my God, what did I play there? Why did I play that so hard?

“And then muscle memory kicks in, and we’re having a ball doing it. It’s good for the fingers. We’re together in a room like we’ve always been. That’s been really good, but there’s no chance that we’re going to get a drummer and go back on the road as the rebirth of Rush or something like that.”

In a recent Guitar World interview, Lifeson set the record straight on the prospect of a Rush reunion as well as his his recent gear endeavors under his Lerxst banner.

Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson reveals he has recently been jamming with his bandmate, Rush bassist and lead singer Geddy Lee.

In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Lifeson unveils what's happening behind the scenes and why there are currently no plans to take their songs out on the road.

“It’s funny because we sound like a really bad tribute band for the first three or four run-throughs on these things,” he reveals. “It’s 'Oh, my God, what did I play there? Why did I play that so hard?

“And then muscle memory kicks in, and we’re having a ball doing it. It’s good for the fingers. We’re together in a room like we’ve always been. That’s been really good, but there’s no chance that we’re going to get a drummer and go back on the road as the rebirth of Rush or something like that. And if we wanted to write new material, nobody cares about new material anymore. They just want to hear the old stuff from guys like us.”

Despite these recent jamming sessions and Lee publicly talking about a possible live reunion, Lifeson doubled down that he's not convinced they should tour again, particularly because of his recent health issues. 

“No, we’ve talked about it in depth, and I was waffling between maybe considering it and not. And then my health issues came up. I know if we went on the road, it couldn’t be like we used to do it.”

In a recent interview with Guitar World, Lifeson explained how doing the book tour with Lee for the bassist's memoir My Effin' Life, and their reunion for 2022's Taylor Hawkins tribute shows temporarily reignited his passion for touring.

“So for a little while I thought, you know, it’d be kind of good to get back out,” he mused. “And then I thought… nah, not really.”

However, he didn't exclude any further song collaborations with Lee. “I mean, we toured for 40 years. I’m not interested in going back out on tour. I don’t wanna sit in a hotel room for hours and hours and hours to work for a couple of hours. 

“Been there, done it, loved it. But that’s in the past. So whether Ged and I get back together again and write or do anything, we’ll see. Until then, there’s plenty to work on, you know?”

Blessed with an incredibly versatile singing voice in addition to his superlative bass guitar skills, Gary Lee Weinrib – nicknamed Geddy Lee after the way his grandmother used to pronounce his name – was among the first electric players to combine funk with progressive-rock elements (quirky time signatures and key changes, a flurry of different musical styles, intoxicating dexterity... you know the drill) and make it big while doing so. 

Complemented by his virtuoso band-mates in Rush – guitarist Alex Lifeson and the late drummer Neil Peart – Lee's bass playing veered from the subtle, to the atmospheric, to an all-out riff storm.

Since Rush’s 1974 debut, the metallic clang of Geddy's bass has pierced the minds of millions. His signature sounds still abound on the trio’s 2007 album, Snakes and Arrows, but there were also a few new twists and turns in his bass playing – namely, a fascinating "flamenco" strumming technique he first developed for the Vapor Trails album in 2002.

“I think the bizarre nature of our music allows for more notes,” Geddy told Bass Player. “When you think of Rush you don’t think of a sedate rhythm section. We try to hold the ‘chops’ side of our music in reserve, but we always allow for that moment to exorcise those demons, and when the moment comes up, we let rip.”

First, the move: with your middle finger bent and out of the way, flick your index finger back and forth, hitting the string with both downstrokes and upstrokes. You can start a pattern with either stroke, but playing downstrokes on the downbeats tends to sound more consistent and feel more comfortable.

Geddy's 16th-note flamenco flutter floats the verses in the single Far Cry. Built around an F# minor tonal center, the song's opening riff leans on a C natural, the wicked-sounding tritone or the scale's flatted 5th. 

Like so many Rush riffs, this one has an unusual meter: The trio drops beat four in bars 4 and 12, making a bar of 3/4 time. For the verse, Geddy jumps to the middle of the neck to dig into a slab of solid 16ths culled from the E minor pentatonic scale. The trick here is to maintain a consistent strumming pattern.

The flamenco technique makes another appearance on The Main Monkey Business, a mid-tempo instrumental strut.

“That was a pet project of mine. We did this big monster jam, and I spent four days trying to create the most self-indulgent piece I could think of. I changed parts when I felt like it, and I put it together in a really selfish way, not considering whether someone else would be able to understand it or not. I had a lot fun chopping up Alex's guitar parts.”

Geddy plays a fugue-like cascade of 16ths in the intro that foreshadows the tune’s chorus hook. Here, Lee utilises an open string drone on D, flicking his finger across two strings in the same motion. 

“It was absolutely inspiring to watch Geddy play,” said producer Nick Raskulinecz, whose talent and energy galvanized sessions for Snakes & Arrows. “Geddy carefully plans all his parts, but the record captures a lot of his off-the-cuff playing. He'd pull off these riffs that were just amazing. Plus, Geddy actually plays basslines – he doesn't just follow the roots.”

As with Far Cry, the flamenco-strummed line will sound right only if you strum down and up a with equal velocity. No, your ears don’t deceive you – the chorus hook changes meter every bar (this is Rush, after all). 

Forever famed for their none-more-catchy 1992 hit Everything About You California's Ugly Kid Joe continue to deliver their brand of funked-up rock in venues around the globe. 

Asked how he got into the bass guitar, bassist Cordell Crockett recalled that his father – Guitar Player magazine co-founder and music legend Jim Crockett – was an influential figure. “The first time I heard the sound of the bass it was the song Love Rollercoaster by Ohio Players. My mother told me it was a bass guitar, so we hit my father up for a bass. I started taking lessons from Jim Aitkin who wrote for Keyboard magazine. Jim taught me the blues and I never looked back.”

Thanks to the success of Everything About You, 1991’s debut EP As Ugly As They Wanna Be became the first short-form LP to be certified platinum. The band promoted the record in the US during a tour with Ozzy Osbourne and Motörhead, and signed with Mercury the following year, chalking up further hits including a 1993 cover of Harry Chapin’s Cat’s In The Cradle.

Here, Crockett reveals five albums featuring bass playing mastery that influenced him, which he admires or which simply sound good as a soundtrack for jumping off the sofa in the ‘swan dive’ position.

1. Beatles – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

“I know it seems clichéd to mention Mr McCartney, but considering that he still plays his old Beatle bass better than 98 per cent of players today, I don't care. I chose Sgt. Pepper because as a baby I would stare at those satin suits for hours, while listening to this record (thanks, Mom!). Even John Paul Jones, Geddy Lee, Sting, and Steve Harris dig this guy. Paul's basslines taught me how to use alternate roots to chords better than anyone else.”

2. Earth, Wind & Fire – Gratitude (1975)

“One of the greatest live records of all time, Gratitude's two-LP set is the most influential record in my life. You can learn so much about playing a groove by playing it with two drummers simultaneously. This album features two drummers and percussionists as well. Verdine White's fretless work is awesome. Many bassists of today owe him a lot of ‘gratitude’ see what I did there? If they stopped posing for a moment and thought about it.”

3. Stanley Clarke – School Days (1976)

“While my mom and sisters inspired me to play bass, my father gave me my first bass and amp. Since he was the publisher of GPI Publications, he had friends who offered advice to me from time to time. Stanley Clarke was one of those friends. He suggested I use an MXR Dyna Comp pedal, which I did immediately. Without that, attempting to learn what I heard on School Days would have been much more difficult. His solos transcend the bass: it just happens to be the instrument he chose. Lucky us!”

4. Brothers Johnson – Blam! (1978)

“When I was 13 I got to visit the Bass Institute Of Technology in its infancy. I got even more lucky when one of the students showed me how to slap the bass like his idol, Louis Johnson. Every gig I play with Ugly Kid Joe I use that technique with pride. I saw Louis live, and heard the most incredible sounds out of a bass ever! There’s a reason that Quincy Jones booked him as his go-to guy for Michael Jackson. Blam! showcases funk bass, on a StingRay, that’ll floor you!”

5. Van Halen – Women And Children First (1980)

“Probably one of the hardest gigs to have as a bassist is supporting the greatest guitar player of all time, Eddie Van Halen. Add to that, a singer who is as crazy as Patsy Cline, and a drummer who uses four kick drums, and you come up with a guy who clobbers his bass and sings like a lark – Michael Anthony. This, their third album, has the most high-energy performances of all their records, in my opinion. I used to always go for the fast tracks on those albums. Romeo Delight and Lost Control are the shit!”

A new four-part docuseries, Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too?, is set to premiere on Paramount Plus on December 5th – and you can watch the first trailer below.

Highlights include snippets of Lee fishing with Les Claypool, flying a plane with Krist Novoselic, and surfing with Robert Trujillo. “The idea for this show was born out of interviews I did for my first book, The Big, Beautiful Book of Bass,” says Lee. “I was struck that these accomplished musicians also lived incredibly interesting, multifaceted lives offstage.”

The series follows Lee as he travels to the homes of four bass legends: Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, Primus’ Les Claypool, and former Hole and Smashing Pumpkins bassist Melissa Auf der Maur.

“I’m trying to show the world that a bass player can do many things,” Lee says in the trailer. “Join me as I try to answer one really important question: are bass players human too?”

Another neat takeaway from the trailer that’s bound to get bass guitarists raving include Trujillo’s rendition of Portrait of Tracy on what appears to be Jaco’s Bass of Doom. Trujillo helped the Pastorius family to recover Jaco’s infamous 1962 Fender Jazz Bass back in 2010.

As well as glimpses of Lee trading bass licks with Auf der Maur, the trailer also pays tribute to Lee’s world-conquering curiosity, with the Rush frontman stripping his coveralls following a tour of Claypool’s “Rancho Relaxo” home in Sonoma County, before defiantly asking, “Is this what they call good TV?”

Aside from the new series, Geddy Lee is also gearing up for a book tour in support of his upcoming memoir, My Effin’ Life, which is set to arrive on November 14th. The tour starts in New York City on November 13th, and runs through to December 7th in Toronto. See below for a full list of dates.

• November 13 – New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
• November 15 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Met Philadelphia
• November 17 – National Harbor, MD @ The Theater at MGM National Harbor
• November 18 – Boston, MA @ Orpheum Theatre presented by Citizens
• November 19 – Cleveland, OH @ State Theatre at Playhouse Square
• November 21 – Montréal, QC @ Théâtre Maisonneuve
• November 23 – Vancouver, BC @ The Centre in Vancouver
• November 24 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
• November 26 – San Francisco, CA @ The Masonic
• November 28 – Los Angeles, CA @ Orpheum Theatre
• November 30 – Denver, CO @ Paramount Theatre
• December 03 – Chicago, IL @ Auditorium Theatre
• December 04 – Detroit, MI @ The Fillmore Detroit
• December 07 – Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall

Geddy Lee Asks: Are Bass Players Human Too? premieres on Paramount+ on December 5th. My Effin’ Life is out 14th November via HarperCollins.

Chris Squire. Paul McCartney. Lemmy. Bruce Foxton. Roger Glover. Cliff Burton. John Entwistle. At some point or other, these and many other household-name bass players have wielded a Rickenbacker 4001 (1961-81) or its successor the 4003 (’82 to date), and what a joyous noise they make, too. 

Sure, the Rickenbacker 4001 looks a bit nuts; certainly, it sounds a bit eccentric. But it’s a stone-cold classic bass guitar that cuts through the most unfriendly mix and will be your friend for life.

Don’t believe us? Well, we drafted in the man who is arguably the most famous Ricky player of them all, Geddy Lee of Rush, to explain what it is about this iconic bass that makes it so splendiferous. Although he ‘crossed the floor’ to Fender more years ago than even he cares to remember, his affection for the old warhorse is unending – and frankly, what’s good enough for Geddy is good enough for the rest of us…

Do you remember the first time you saw a 4001, Geddy?

“The first time I ever saw that bass was in a Beatles video – I think it was Hey Jude. I saw Paul McCartney playing it, and first of all it struck me as a great-looking bass. When you’re a kid – and even today! – cool-looking basses have a particular value, ha ha! I don’t know what colour it was, because our TV was black and white, but I think it was a solid colour.” 

When was the first time you saw one played live?

“The first time I saw someone playing one was Chris Squire, in the early days of Yes. John Entwistle played one for a short while too, but it was really Squire’s use of the 4001 that made me fall in love with it. The tone he got out of it was so clear and crisp, and it had such great definition.”

The tone of the 4001 is both loved and hated by bass players: clearly you fell into the former camp.

“Let me say that I do love the sound of the Rickenbacker, but I will qualify that by saying that I love the sound that Chris Squire got out of it – and that’s the sound that made me want to buy one. When we signed our first record deal in 1974, I got my share of our small advance and the first thing I did was buy a Rickenbacker. I think I paid about $400 for it. Much to my dismay, when I plugged it in, it didn’t sound like Chris Squire!”

“I found that all through the years I used the Ricky: it had a great trebly sound, but I had a hard time getting the right amount of bottom end unless I used the Rick-O-Sound feature, which enabled you to send each pickup to a different source. I used to send the bass pickup to a bass amp and the treble pickup to an amp that was set up for that twangy sound. It took quite a lot of work to get it to sound like a classic Ricky. It wasn’t easy to get the sound I wanted!” 

You play a Fender Jazz nowadays. Why did you switch? 

“The Ricky worked well in the early days for the kind of tone that I wanted, but in the late '70s I picked up a used Jazz in a pawn shop and started working it into our sound almost immediately. On Moving Pictures for example, half the songs are played on a Ricky and the other half are on a Jazz. I wanted to get a bit more punch in the bottom end. You can get that out of a Ricky, there’s no question about it, but it’s a lot of fiddling, as I said earlier. What I liked about the Jazz was that it was really easy to get a great tone in the studio.” 

Did you ever feel like giving the Ricky another shot on a Rush album?

“I last broke it out when we started recording the album, Snakes & Arrows, but we just didn’t like the way it sounded. We just couldn’t get the sounds out of it that we get so easily out of the Jazz, so there didn’t seem to be any point. Could we have made it work? Yes. Would we have got anything unique out of it? I didn’t think so, and neither did our producer, so we just gave up on it. I think we wanted to use it just so we could say we’d used it!” 

You once told us that you bring out the 4001 for the encores just to make the people who always ask you about the Ricky shut up. Is that still the case?

“Yeah, exactly. My road crew even made some T-shirts that say, ‘Yes, He’s Playing The F***ing Ricky!’ I’ve been playing the Jazz now for many more years than I played the Ricky, but I’m still more closely associated with the Ricky.” 

Do you think the Rickenbacker 4001 is still a bass everyone should play?

“It’s a question of taste, really. Different strokes for different bass folks! I love lots of different basses. Also, different basses sound good at different times: I have a fantastic Wal at home that I used for a couple of albums, and I adore that bass, but there was time when it sounded right to me and a time when it sounded really wrong to me, so I stopped using it. The Ricky is a classic. It has a unique tone which makes it stand out, and it deserves kudos for that.”

Primus frontman, novelist, film director and bassist Les Claypool isn’t your average musician. For starters, he doesn’t think like you and I do. As he says: “I don’t necessarily think of my bass as a bass. If I got a gig with Booker T and the MGs, I would approach it differently. I would do my job. But for me, the bass just happens to be the crayon I pulled out of the box. I would still be drawing the same kind of picture if I was playing an accordion or a guitar.”

Claypool has the added luxury of a studio in his house in northern California. “My studio would make some engineers cringe and some engineers ejaculate,” he told BP. “It’s just a room full of crap, but I’ve got an amazing collection of old vintage gear. For the bass guitars, I have a plethora of boxes all wired together, and every now and then I hit a button and a sound comes out.”

Bass-wise, Claypool is still using his famous Carl Thompson 4-string. You know the one – it has the funky scrolled-up horns and the bit of wood bearing Geddy Lee's autograph nailed to the headstock. Asked if manufacturers ever approach him about a signature bass, he replied: “Most people know that I play a Carl Thompson. If I was to play a production bass, I’d probably play a Fender Jazz.” Like Geddy Lee? “Actually, if I wanted to sound like Geddy Lee I’d play a black-and-white Rickenbacker.” 

In 2022 Claypool got his chance, as Primus stepped out on their A Tribute To Kings Tour, playing a set of original material before covering the 1977 Rush masterpiece in its entirety.

“The thing about those basses is that they all sound different, depending on what year they were made. I have a really old Rickenbacker 4001 with the herringbone binding signed by John Entwistle. I bought it the week before he died. It is a spectacular-feeling and sounding bass, but then I have another one that I got from Alex Lifeson that doesn’t play as well and doesn’t sound as good. So they’re not that consistent. I love the tone, though – it’s super cool.”

You probably know Claypool as a highly technical bass player, squeezing off flurries of notes from his bass guitar like there’s no tomorrow. However, this isn’t all he can do: on his 2009 solo album, Of Fungi And Foe, he threw all notions of technical playing for its own sake to one side, specifically on jammed tracks such as A Bite Out Of Life. As he explained: “I recorded that song after a night out of vodka debauchery. I just accompanied the guitar part – and what came out was almost like an old Bow Wow Wow bassline.

“On the song Booneville Stomp I played a Dobro bass – just a cheap thing made in China. I picked it up and de-tuned it, and had EMG stick a pickup in it, and it’s great because I can bang on it and not worry about it. EMG told me that it was a total piece of crap, but sometimes these little finds have a lot of personality.”

The off-the-wall nature of Claypool’s various activities have led to him being labelled as an eccentric maverick, but it’s all part of taking the path less travelled, he insists. “You can apply what I've said about bass to many aspects of existence on this planet. We're all taught and encouraged to conform and fit in, and wear the same style of collar and hair and shoe, and the people who raise a few eyebrows are the ones who change things.”

As well as the Carl Thompson and the Rickenbacker, Claypool has employed a range of other instruments during his career, including the famous Whamola. “It’s a one-string instrument with a handle on it, and I hit it with a stick. It’s basically a percussion instrument, the way I play it: it doesn’t have a lot of tonality to it, but I tend to pick up whatever’s handy.”

As bass players, perhaps the most important thing we can learn from Claypool is to place ourselves within the music and not worry about the details so much. As he says, “I’ve always tried to be pretty casual about the way I approach things. Because I have so many different projects going, I just start assembling songs, like making a junkyard sculpture. Y’now, like there’s an old gas tank over here and a bit of tractor over there… so when it comes time to record, I look and see what lyrics I’ve got and start building. It’s like doodling on a scratchpad.”

Bass guitar heroes don’t get much bigger than Geddy Lee. Although he ‘crossed the floor’ to Fender more years ago than even he cares to remember, the metallic clang of his Rickenbacker 4001 has pierced the minds of millions. 

For Lee, laying down the basslines for Rush has certainly had its ups and downs. “I’m a fairly obnoxious bass player,” he told BP in 2007. “I don’t think my bass playing style is very typical. I always want my bass louder in the mix. You bassists who think your bass isn’t loud enough, you’re right!”

In true prog style, Lee likes to dabble with effects in order to shape his iconic bass guitar tone: “If you listen to my bass on its own, it sounds really ratty and nasty, but the right kind of distortion helps knit the overall sound together. I’m very intrusive, but we are all our own worst critics, right?”

For any band, working in the studio and making records can be an intense and emotional experience, and for Lee it’s the live arena where he feels he can stretch out more as a bass player. “Using distortion live is key for me. When you're in the studio using computers to write music – fitting everything nice and tight on that graph – it can be too mathematical and clean. That doesn’t necessarily make for a great performance.”

The following interview is from the August 2007 issue of Bass Player, which followed the release of Snakes & Arrows, the first new music from Rush since 2002’s Vapor Trails.

How do you and Alex Lifeson typically write together?

“Normally we just sit down and start playing. When I feel there is something connecting, I hit record. And as long as we’re having fun and we’re into something, I let it run. On a break I’ll start listening through what we’ve done, isolating bits I think are worth developing. Alex and I have a great relationship – he knows I enjoy doing all the structural arrangement, so he lets me run with it.”

How did you go about writing the new material for Snakes & Arrows?

“Alex and I would get together about three days a week. We sat down and did a lot of talking about how to approach it. We used to write a lot while we were touring, using acoustic instruments in hotel rooms or the back of a station wagon. That’s a great way to write for a couple of reasons. It’s much more demanding to play an acoustic instrument, so Alex got his fingers in incredible shape in a very short period of time. Also, if you are writing on an acoustic guitar, it’s clearer what works and what doesn’t work – you can’t be fooled by the technology. Sometimes the sexiness of the sound can trick you into believing a part is great, when you’re really just working with a cool sound.”

How does that relate to bass? 

“Bass is pretty naked all the time, though you can fuzz it out with effects. For me the bass is mostly a device to come up with patterns and harmonies to support the vocal melody. When we were writing, I’d play a lot of chords on bass, treating it like a guitar.”

Do you and Alex program your own drum beats?

“Yeah, we have fun doing that. Alex follows his off-the-wall instincts for drum patterns – he has a reputation for being the world’s wildest electric drummer! Neil thinks Alex is a genius on drums, so he borrows some of those ideas to get going. When we finish a sketch we give it to Neil both with and without drums so he can work out his own ideas.”

Do your parts change once it shifts to live drums?

"They have to, because it feels very stiff when I’m playing bass with a drum machine. Often I cut-and-paste those original sketches and put together a new arrangement. Once the real drums are there, I’ll talk to Neil about his drum patterns and adjust things in my part. The end result has more of a realistic heartbeat, rather than a metronomic feel. In Neil’s online diary about making Snakes & Arrows, he says that he sees himself as more of a composer than an improviser.” 

Where do you see yourself along those lines?

“The two of us are similar – I guess that’s rubbed off after all these years. I’m very much a beast of structure, while Alex is very spontaneous. We make a good team because of that. I’m much more linear then he is. He’s a crazy Serb! I think that’s why we have been such good friends all these years. Neil and I can read each other’s minds rhythmically, which can be both good and bad.” 

Having tracked bass and vocals independently, have you run into trouble performing both parts simultaneously onstage?

“There’s only been one song that’s been a real struggle for me to separate bass and voice – The Way the Wind Blows. The vocal is legato over a very active rhythm section, so I have to learn some independence. The bass has to be subservient to the vocal; it’s all subservient to what sounds best for my voice. The hardest thing is to capture the dynamic nuances. The Way the Wind Blows is a difficult song live because it goes from a real rocking verse part into what we call the anti-chorus – most choruses get louder, but sometimes ours get softer. That’s a hard dynamic to work with a live three-piece band. A recording studio is better suited for that kind of delicate playing.” 

Was Malignant Narcissism one of the songs born out of jamming?

“Actually it was way more spontaneous. That song was the very last thing we did we on the record; we wrote it in the studio after we were pretty much done with everything. I was in the middle of doing vocal tracks when a friend visited and told me about Fender’s Jaco Pastorius Tribute Bass. I checked it out online and thought it looked cool, so I asked Fender to send me one. I’d just plink on it in between vocal takes. It’s a glorious bass to play – it just feels special.” 

“I was jamming with it one day, and unbeknownst to me, Nick was recording the jam. At one point I was playing a little riff, and he came in and went, 'Dude, that’s a song – you’ve got to make a song out of that!' Neil happened to be there – we had finished his drums by then and torn down his regular kit, but we had left a little four-piece kit set up for us to jam on. We threw the song together with just bass and drums, playing live. Later, Alex came back and put his parts down. It took just a couple of days to throw together.” 

Have you played much fretless bass?

“Not successfully. But I’ve discovered that when you play fast, people can’t tell if you’re in tune or not. When the notes pass quickly, you can get away with lousy intonation. I asked Fender to make a fretted version of the Jaco Pastorius bass, so if I’m having trouble with intonation, I can always play that one. But that’s a bit of a cop out. After all, I can’t make a big deal out of playing fretless if I can’t do it live – the shame will be too much for me to bear!”

How did The Main Monkey Business come to be?

“That was a pet project of mine. Once we had most of the material written, we did this big monster jam. We had a ton of great parts, and I spent four days trying to create the most self-indulgent piece I could think of. I changed parts when I felt like it, and I put it together in a really selfish way, not considering whether someone else would be able to understand it or not. I had a lot fun chopping up Alex’s guitar parts.”

How would you characterize your own bass playing?

“I was born into the Jack Bruce, Chris Squire, Jack Casady world – those guys all pushed the melodic side of bass playing. That’s how I viewed my role: not just to lay down the beat, but to add melody and some edge – especially in a three-piece – to fill up the sound. That’s why I often let my open strings ring out; I try to be a bass player and guitar player at the same time. I guess my main strength is that I’m able to knit with Neil and smooth out some of the hyper rhythms that we do together. By playing more, it frees Alex melodically to do what he needs to do in the context of the trio.”

How do you think you’ve grown in the last few years as a bass player?

“I’m a lot happier with my bass playing on this record than I was on Vapor Trails. For example, I think there is more range to the parts. They are more thoughtful and melodic. I didn’t realize that until I went back to start rehearsing some of the Vapor Trails material for this tour. I realized the emphasis on Vapor Trails was rhythm, and that it had a rather narrow melodic scope compared to this record, which is all over the neck. I’m much stronger melodically, and I hadn’t realized that until this rehearsal. I feel really good at the place I am as a player at the moment.”

Snakes and Arrows is available to buy on Amazon.

As improbable as it may seem today, there was a time when Kiss and Rush – two bands that would each go on to sell tens of millions of albums – used to frequently share bills, with the latter opening for the former. 

At the time, Rush bass guitar player Geddy Lee hadn't yet grown into the low-end legend he is today and, reportedly, played mostly by ear. According to Kiss bassist Gene Simmons, for that matter, Lee – during Rush's early days – didn't even know what a blues scale was.

In a recently-published interview with Ultimate Guitar, Simmons said, “One night back at the hotel or backstage someplace [when the bands were touring together], Geddy and I were sitting down, trading licks, and I said, 'Do you want to do a blues scale? You go first, and then I'll continue the chord pattern,' and he said, 'I don't know what you mean'.

“At least from what I recall, Geddy didn't understand what a blues scale was or what '1, 4, 5' meant,“ Simmons maintains. “That also bears noting – when you go '1, 4, 5' to a musician, that means something, it's a relationship of notes or chords.

“So I go, 'Well, okay then, you hit a G, either octave or low,' and he said, 'Which one is that?' Geddy played purely by ear. Now, of course, later on, he learned what the notes were and stuff like that.“

Green in his scale knowledge early on or not, Lee would go on to become one of rock's most celebrated bassists.

“His phrasing is unbelievable,“ Primus's Les Claypool said of Lee's bass playing in a Bass Player interview last year. “It’s different than anybody else. It’s almost like Paul McCartney, in that he is very melodic and in the way he phrases it. It’s almost lyrical, the way he [McCartney] phrases his parts, and Geddy has that kind of phrasing.“ 

Interviewed in 1999 for Bassist magazine, Rush legend Geddy Lee singled out Freewill from the band's 1980 studio album, Permanent Waves, as a song that helped redefine who and what Rush were as a trio. “The body of the song is not difficult,” said Geddy. “Alex and I wrote that part together and we kind of mimic each other on that. What makes it really interesting is when I lock in with the drums, which leaves Alex free to play around the rhythm with chordal patterns – that's what makes it such a great trio piece.”

Speaking to MusicRadar, guitarist Alex Lifeson said the song was "probably one of the most ambitious pieces of music Rush has ever done." He also revealed that his guitar solo was spontaneous. “Recording it, I didn’t have anything planned; I was just responding to what the other guys did. In a sense, everybody’s soloing at the same time. It’s so frenetic and exciting – Geddy and Neil are all over the place. I was just trying to keep up!”

You can revisit Geddy Lee’s isolated bassline on Freewill below.

“The difficult part was the middle section where there was a bit of free form," said Geddy. "We pick up the tempo and Neil and I jam a little bit behind the guitar. One moment it’s heavy riffing and then you spread out the sound and utilise the rhythm section verses the guitar.”

Geddy was still favouring his Rickenbacker 4001 at the time, but having picked up a used Fender Jazz Bass in a pawn shop, he immediately started working it into his sound. “The Ricky worked well in the early days for the tone that I wanted. On Permanent Waves and Moving Pictures I wanted to get a bit more punch in the bottom end. You can get that out of a Ricky, there’s no question about it, but it can take a lot of fiddling. What I liked about the Jazz was that it was really easy to get a great tone in the studio.”

When Rush formed in 1969, their roots were firmly in the Cream and Led Zeppelin-emulating school of hard rock. “When I start playing bass guitar at about 14, it was like one of those instruments that no-one wanted to play,” Geddy told BP. “It was Jack Bruce who sold me on it. He was easily the most powerful influence on me as a bass player.”

Thanks to ever-stronger and inventive material, peaking in 1981 with the superb Moving Pictures album, Rush became prog rock’s quintessential trio. Geddy Lee also achieved universal acclaim, ranking number 13 on our list of The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time.

Permanent Waves is available to buy or stream.

A steady five-decades long stream of ambitious bass-driven songs has made Geddy Lee perhaps the most admired bassist in the land – he was Bass Player’s first ever Bassist of the Year back in 1991. Maybe that’s why, when Geddy was spotted at a Metallica show during the group's Ride the Lightning tour, Metallica’s first bassist Cliff Burton, was humbled, to say the least. 

“We played Toronto and all of a sudden we got a message backstage that Geddy Lee was in the audience,” guitarist Kirk Hammett revealed during a Q&A for the band's longtime photographer, Ross Halfin. “Cliff Burton just freaked out. He started pacing, he started smoking pot, and he was like, ‘Oh my God! Geddy! Geddy Lee!’ He could not settle down; he was so nervous and just happy at the same time that Geddy Lee was there.

“And then Ross tells him that Geezer Butler is out there one night,” Kirk continues. “Same thing – he starts pacing around, super nervous, grabs a beer.”

Kirk picks up the story at 31:50 in the video below.

Speaking to vice.com in 2015, Geddy Lee also remembered attending the show, claiming that he nearly worked with the band. “I remember going to see them here in Toronto,” said Geddy.

"That’s when the original bass player was still happening. There was some discussion with Lars about working with them. And, you know, we talked about it and I liked their band a lot at that time, but it just never came together. I’ve got great respect for them, but you won’t hear too much speed metal or death metal in my house.”

Listen to Metallica play Whiplash from their 1985 Toronto show below.

Influenced by bass players as diverse as Stanley Clarke and Lemmy, Cliff Burton, who was tragically killed in a bus accident in September 1986, pioneered a unique ‘lead bass guitar’ approach that left an indelible mark on the first three Metallica albums, Kill ‘Em All, Ride The Lightning and Master of Puppets. 

In an interview with Thrash Metal back in 1986, Cliff listed his bass influences in full. “Well, first off, with bass playing it would be Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler, Stanley Clarke," said Burton. "Everything Thin Lizzy did has also had an influence.” Asked if Steve Harris was on his radar Burton replied: “No, I never really heard him until I’d already developed my own style. Lemmy also had an influence in the way he uses distortion. That was different, new and exciting.”

Burton was also a fan of Peter Gabriel, Yes and The Police. He loved classical music, especially Bach, which came to the fore in his riff workout on Master of Puppets. "This was the guy who would sit around and listen to the Eagles and the Velvet Underground," Kirk later told Metallica biographer, Mick Wall. "He turned us on to R.E.M. he turned us on to Creedence Clearwater Revival. And he also loved Lynyrd Skynyrd too. Cliff was so far ahead of his time."

Ross Halfin’s book Metallica: The Black Album In Black & White is available now.

Thrash metal is not known for its bass guitar players. There are too many guitar riffs for a start, played at ridiculous speeds, making the musical environment a difficult one for bassists. But then there’s Frank Bello, the most notable exception, whipping out super-melodic fills with amazing fingerstyle precision – and headbanging like a demon at the same time.

Bello plays an unusual style for the thrash idiom, which rarely has space for elaborate basslines. His fills and runs often expand around the main guitar parts, counterpointing the riffs and frequently shifting octaves to add dynamics. As well as his unique choice of notes and playing style, Bello is unusual among thrash bassists for his tone. "What most people don't understand is that your tone is really in your fingers," he says. "I love that Tom Petersson has a piano-like top end vibe, but I'll always have my sound because of the way I play."

All these years down the line, Bello is still aspiring to match the standards set by his bass heroes, he tells us. "We once cut a bunch of covers for the reissue of Worship Music and one of them was 'Anthem' by Rush. Now, I'm the biggest Geddy Lee fan, and I couldn't get this one lick in this song. It was bothering me so much, I was having sleepless nights.

"At four in the morning I'd go downstairs and get my bass and I'd be looking at YouTube and thinking, 'What is he doing?' while my wife and kids were asleep upstairs. I watched every live clip of that song I could find, and finally, there it was. Sometimes you can hear it but something's missing and you have to see it."

As a veteran of the New York thrash scene, we asked Frank to nominate five bass players that influenced his melodic fingerstyle bass playing.

Tom Petersson - Cheap Trick

"I grew up listening to Tom Petersson. He’s a very underrated bass player. It was his tone that got me – from his 8-string and 12-string basses. The lines weren’t complicated, and I don’t think they needed to be, because that piano-like tone – which came from three octaves of strings because of the little piccolo strings – just blew my mind. I used a 12-string in an Anthrax song in the 1990s, just in the background – and how he got the right amp for that tone I have no idea."

Paul McCartney - The Beatles

"Paul McCartney has been such an influence on me over the years, and I haven’t ever really thought about it. Talk about a guy who is not just a songwriter but who added so much to the songs with his basslines. He had a beautiful voice, and the bass adds so much melody to the songs. Listen to ‘Penny Lane’, where he plays a descending line in one verse and then plays it again – but an octave lower – in the next verse. And we’re still talking about it all these years later."

Geddy Lee - Rush

"Geddy Lee is one of my biggest influences. The intricacy of his scales and the synching-up with the drums really add up to a celebration of the bass. The Moving Pictures album is so inspiring to me to this day, and when I listen to a song like ‘YYZ’ I have to pick up my bass and play. The bass is meant to be played like that and I just have to follow it. Synching the bass and drums like Rush do is not a thought process, it’s just a natural talent. I was just listening to it the other day and it’s beautiful."

Geezer Butler - Black Sabbath

"I know the whole Ozzy period of Black Sabbath was amazing, but I love the Dio era too. Listen to the song ‘Heaven And Hell’ – Geezer Butler is having so much fun in that song. He's telling a story within a story, just with the bass part. When you can sing a bassline like that one, how much of a compliment is that?" 

Steve Harris - Iron Maiden 

"Every song on the first Iron Maiden album is like a bass exercise, but fun. That’s how Steve Harris writes – on the bass. Listen to the bass solo from ‘Phantom Of The Opera’. I love this stuff more than ever. I’ve got to know him over the years and I’ve asked him lots of questions about how he did it. Steve is one of my favourite bass players in the world, and he still has the fire."

Anthrax and Black Label Society are returning for round two of their 40th Anniversary Tour, which launches on January 17 at the Revolution Concert House in Boise, ID, and concludes on February 18 in Oakland, CA at the Fox Theatre.

Visit anthrax.com for updates.

In response to the huge success of its previous Geddy Lee collaboration, the MP40, Tech 21 has released the YYZ Shape-shifter Signature SansAmp, which is based on the limited-edition MP40, but with the color scheme and graphics to match Geddy’s existing SansAmp gear.

Besides the pedal's Master Volume, 3-band EQ and Drive controls, you can use the Mix control to set the blend ratio between deep (studio-clean) and drive (gritty bass tube amp tones), while a ‘Tight’ button lends some additional snap to your distorted sound.

It's the boost function that's the real USP, however – it adds a footswitchable 12db presence boost, while a Shape-shifter button adds a further 6dB of, um, Schmegilka on top. According to Geddy, Schmegilka "is an indefinable thing of awesomeness!” And who doesn't need more of that?

The manual also includes a list of Geddy’s own suggested settings, including Rickenbacker Shape-shifter, Camera Eye, Red Barchetta, YYZ, Warm Tube/Studio and Bi-amped Overdrive.

As with all SansAmps, the YYZ can drive a power amp and speakers, augment an existing amp set-up, or run directly into the mixer of a PA system. You’ll need a 9V battery or a suitable DC power supply to power it.

The legendary Rush bassist first partnered with Tech 21 in 2017 to design a signature 1U rack mountable SansAmp, the GED-2112, which was later distilled into a pedal format and then re-launched as the limited edition MP40 in celebration of the 40th-anniversary of Moving Pictures.

For more information visit tech21nyc.com.

Rush have shared pro-shot footage of their performance of Working Man at the recent Taylor Hawkins tribute show at LA’s Kia Forum. 

The video was shared on the band’s social media channels and sees Red Hot Chili Peppers man Chad Smith filling in on drum duties. Smith was one of three musicians drafted into the drum seat for Rush's mini-set at the tribute concert, in the absence of the group’s legendary former drummer Neil Peart, who passed away in 2020. 

As the group note in the video post below, the show’s location has special significance for electric guitar player Alex Lifeson and bass guitar man Geddy Lee. 

“For the first time since August 1, 2015, we returned to the stage at the LA Forum, scene of the very last performance with our lost brother Neil,” reads the band's accompanying statement. 

“This time it was for the second Taylor Hawkins Tribute and sitting behind the throne were 3 wonderful human beings, who also happen to be spectacular drummers – Dave Grohl, Chad Smith and Danny Carey. Talk about being spoiled… but the best, yet bittersweet part of this whole deal is that no one would have loved witnessing that more [than] Taylor himself. 

“Rest In Peace Hawk, as we keep Alison, Shane, Annabelle and Everleigh Hawkins along with the entire Foos family in our thoughts.”

Rush were far from the only big-name guests on the bill for the Foo Fighters’ two spectacular Hawkins tribute shows. 

Soundgarden bandmates Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron appeared alongside Nirvana’s Krist Novoselic, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Pat Smear, and The Pretty Reckless vocalist Taylor Momsen for a pair of Soundgarden covers, while Wolfgang Van Halen played both the London and LA shows. 

Elsewhere, Joe Walsh reformed his pre-Eagles outfit the James Gang especially for the event and Josh Homme and John Paul Jones teamed-up with Grohl to re-form their supergroup, Them Crooked Vultures. 

On Saturday (September 3), the first Taylor Hawkins tribute concert took place at London’s Wembley Stadium, with a formidable lineup of musicians joining forces to celebrate and commemorate the life of the late Foo Fighters drummer, who passed away earlier this year.

Featured on the jam-packed lineup were electric guitar and bass guitar royals Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee, who reunited to perform three Rush classics.

With the help of Dave Grohl – who took up position behind the kit in place of the late Neil Peart – the trio first performed 2112 Part I: Overture and Working Man, fan footage of which can be found below.

In both instances, Grohl does a stellar job of faithfully delivering Peart’s parts, while Lifeson and Lee spend the duration of both tracks going blow-for-blow by way of some classically high octane exchanges and a smattering of expertly executed guitar solos.

Lee and Lifeson’s inclusion on the bill was apt, owing to the close personal and musical relationship they shared with Hawkins. In 2008, at the request of Foo Fighters’ management, the pair attended one of the band’s shows in Toronto so that Hawkins could play one of his favorite Rush songs live.

That particular gig was, as Lee said during the tribute concert, “The beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Grohl had echoed these sentiments when he welcomed Lee and Lifeson on to the stage, labeling Rush as the “one band that I always associated Taylor Hawkins with”.

“Taylor got up and played with two guys once, in their hometown of Toronto, Canada,” he told the crowd (transcribed by Louder). “And I have to say, it was not only one of the greatest nights of my life watching him do that, but perhaps, one of the greatest nights of his."

The song that Hawkins played all those years ago with his heroes was YYZ – lifted from 1981’s Moving Pictures – with which Lee and Lifeson appropriately and touchingly ended their set with the help of former David Bowie drummer Omar Hakim.

“For Alex and I, it's a privilege to be up here and play with SuperDave,” said Lee on the night. “In 2008, as Dave told you, we got a call from Foos' management, asking if we'd come to the Toronto show, and show up so that Taylor could play one of his favorite Rush songs with us. We obliged, and that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

In 2014, Hawkins spoke to Prog magazine about his YYZ performance, recalling, “You can imagine how nervous I was. But I got through YYZ with them. Even though they told me I was playing too fast! The nerves I was going through; here I was replacing Neil Peart in Rush – well, almost!”

Lifeson and Lee were joined on the concert's 50-song setlist by a huge array of special guests, including Liam Gallagher, Josh Homme, Chrissie Hynde, Nile Rodgers, Lars Ulrich, Chris Chaney, Travis Barker, Shane Hawkins, Brian May, Krist Novoselic and many, many more.

Wolfgang Van Halen was also on the bill, and took to the stage to perform two Van Halen classics: On Fire and Hot For Teacher.

A second Taylor Hawkins tribute concert is set to take place on September 27 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. For more information about the upcoming event, visit Foo Fighters' website.

Last night (August 10), Trey Parker and Matt Stone held the second of two concerts celebrating the 25th anniversary of their enduringly popular animated TV series, South Park.

Headlined – as was the case with the first show – by Primus and Ween, Wednesday night's show also featured a surprise reunion of the two surviving members of Rush, electric guitar hero Alex Lifeson and bassist/vocalist Geddy Lee.

Taking the audience (and, it seems, Parker and Stone themselves) by surprise, the two quickly launched into a spirited rendition of the Rush classic Closer to the Heart, with Stone taking the place of the late Neil Peart on drums. 

The unexpected cameo was arranged by Les Claypool, who – on and off since 2020 – has been playing Rush's A Farewell to Kings in its entirety on tour with Primus. You can see fan-filmed footage of the performance below.

In 2021, Lifeson said that though Rush would never formally reform without Peart, he remained open to collaborating with Lee on other projects.

“I talk to Ged every couple of days or so. We try to get together for dinner. That’s been a more challenging thing lately,” he told Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM at the time. “If there’s something that comes up in the future, an opportunity for us to do something, we’ll decide over a cup of coffee what that’ll be.

“There’s no urgency and there’s no preplanned thing now,” Lifeson said when asked if they had any musical plans together. “He’s doing whatever he’s doing, I’m doing whatever I’m doing, and we keep each other informed and stuff like that.

“We had such a great history and did so much great stuff together, it’s not really a big deal if, for the rest of our lives, we’re just best friends.”

Lifeson, for his part, has been busy of late with Envy of None, his band with bass guitar player Andy Curran, guitarist Alfio Annibalini and vocalist Maiah Wynne. Significantly more informed by industrial and electronic music than Rush, the band released their self-titled debut album in April.

Bass guitar virtuoso Jeff Berlin has announced that his Jack Bruce tribute album will feature lead contributions from a stellar line-up of guest talent, including Alex Lifson, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and Eric Johnson. 

The record pulls in all manner of names and focuses more on Bruce’s own compositions and solo material, as opposed to his best known tracks with Cream. 

As such, Lifeson guests on the track Creamed, while Eric Johnson takes care of the solo on Theme from an Imaginary Western (a track that was a hit for Mountain but was penned by Bruce for his debut album Songs for a Tailor). 

Thal contributes a solo on Rope Ladder to the Moon and there is yet more guitar talent on show in the form of Bill Frisell, who guests on One With A Word, while country ace Johnny Hiland stars on Cream tune Train Time.

Elsewhere, the album includes contributions from Sammy Hagar, Scott Henderson and a ‘bass relay’ featuring a stunning low-end line-up of Geddy Lee, Tony Levin, Billy Sheehan, Michael League, Nathan East, Mark King, Ron Carter and Marcus Miller.

The record was initially conceived soon after Bruce’s death in 2014, but faced severe delays – partly due to the fact that the fan-funding platform PledgeMusic went into liquidation in 2019. However, Berlin says the record is now finally available to order. 

“Recording the music of Jack Bruce has been the most emotional recording project of my career," explains Berlin. “Jack was the greatest bass influence I ever had. In the center of his music were these strange and wonderful bass lines weaving in and out of the key, reaching for resolutions and finding them, again, and again. Jack’s playing was a living evolving improvisation.

“Jack was the Alpha and Omega for me. I never would have become the bass player I became if I didn't hear his unfettered improvisations and innovations, his creating a completely original bass tone, and his playing every gig as if it was his last. 

“When he died, I immediately set out to honour him by reviewing his music to choose some of my favourite songs of his and recording them via my own musical vision. As was his legacy of musical brilliance, I wanted this record to be brilliant to honour his spirit. He really means this much to me.”

Berlin also spoke about his love of Jack Bruce – whom he had befriended – with Guitar World, back in 2020. 

“Jack Bruce was one of the greatest musicians ever,” said Berlin. “He was an influence on everybody He was the first virtuoso the electric bass ever had The studio albums were really good, but Wheels Of Fire and Sweet Wine on Live Cream were unbelievable.

“For all the angst between him and Ginger Baker, they were made for each other in that band. I can remember every note of those records as I’m talking to you. Jack had jazz roots, and the nature of jazz is to be creative – and Jack brought that into rock. He was spellbinding.

“Pick any song from that live record. It was beautiful and just as influential as Jaco to any of us. It changed me: I’m the bass player I am now because of Jack.”

Jack Songs is available to order now from Jeff Berlin’s site. The bassist has also informed former PledgeMusic backers that they will receive a free download of the album.

Primus have announced they have canceled the European leg of its upcoming A Tribute To Kings tour due to “unavoidable logistical challenges”.

The European dates were originally scheduled to commence on September 9 in Sweden, would have seen Les Claypool and co trek the continent performing Rush’s 1977 album A Farewell To Kings in its entirety, in tribute to their musical icons.

Primus’ performance in Sweden would’ve been followed by dates in Norway, Denmark and Germany, as well as three dates in the UK – Glasgow, London and Manchester – before concluding on October 1 in Dublin, Ireland.

Confirming the news on social media, a statement read, “We are very sorry to announce that due to unavoidable logistical challenges, Primus has canceled the upcoming European tour dates scheduled for the Fall of 2022. 

“We apologize to our fans who were planning to attend and look forward to performing in Europe again soon,” the statement continued. Ticket refunds will be available at the original point of purchase.”

The band recently wrapped up the US leg of their A Tribute To Kings tour on June 25 in Las Vegas, after completing a mammoth three-month, 46-date stint around North America.

Speaking to Guitar World about the daunting undertaking, Primus bass legend Les Claypool said the whole tour originally “started as a joke”, though became a reality when he and Primus bandmates Larry Lalonde and Tim Alexander started taking the idea seriously.

As for the challenges associated with playing Geddy Lee’s bass guitar parts, Claypool told Bass Player, “They’re spectacular. They’re big. They’re hard! That was back in Geddy’s Rickenbacker days, and I love those Ricky tones, although Moving Pictures was on his Fender Jazz bass, and the tones on that record are equally spectacular. 

“But it’s Geddy Lee, you know?” he added. “There weren’t a lot of duds in the Geddy Lee bass-playing world.” No doubt the challenge was made ever-so-slightly easier for Claypool after he received one-to-one bass lessons from Lee himself prior to the tour.

From a Rush perspective, Lee told Bass Player that he was “very complimented” by the gesture, albeit conceding he thought the entire concept was “a little bit nuts”.

“By all accounts it’s quite an impressive performance and a real tribute, performed by an awesome band,” he said. “Les has a unique rhythmic sensibility. I find his playing to be an amalgam of various styles: he can slap, twang, or run up and down the neck like a jazz player. His tone is original, deep, and true, and he’s developed a style that is deliciously eccentric.”

The cancellation of the European leg means the A Tribute To Kings tour has come to a premature end, though Primus will be back in action for a handful of dates this August.

For more info, head over to Primus.

Last week, the Foo Fighters announced that they would hold two massive tribute concerts in honor of their late drummer, Taylor Hawkins.

Today (June 15), the band revealed the lineup for the two shows, which will take place in London and Los Angeles on September 3 and September 27, respectively. Filled to the brim with guest stars, the lineups are a testament to the rock world's love of Hawkins, who died in March at the age of 50 while the Foo Fighters were on tour in Colombia.

At both shows, the Foo Fighters – now comprised of Dave Grohl, Nate Mendel, Chris Shiflett, Pat Smear and Rami Jaffee – will be joined by Brian May, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson of Rush, Wolfgang Van Halen, Josh Homme, Stewart Copeland, Chris Chaney, Omar Hakim, Mark Ronson, Hawkins' side band Chevy Metal, and many more.

Liam Gallagher, Chrissie Hynde and Supergrass, among others, will guest at the London show, while Miley Cyrus, Joan Jett, Chad Smith, Brad Wilk, Gene Simmons, Nikki Sixx and Alanis Morissette and more will appear at the Los Angeles show.

“As one of the most respected and beloved figures in modern music, Taylor's monolithic talent and magnetic personality endeared him to million of fans, peers, friends and fellow musical legends the world over,” read a statement – issued last week – announcing the concerts.

“Millions mourned his untimely passing on March 25, with passionate and sincere tributes coming from fans as well as musicians Taylor idolized. 

“The Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concerts will unite several of those artists, the Hawkins family and of course his Foo Fighters brothers in celebration of Taylor's memory and his legacy as a global rock icon – his bandmates and his inspirations playing the songs that he fell in love with, and the ones he brought to life.”

Tickets for the shows – which will take place at London's Wembley Stadium and LA's Kia Forum – have yet to go on sale, but fans can sign up to the Foo Fighters' mailing list for information on tickets, the shows and more.

If there was going to be one band on the planet with the desire, the chops and the derring-do to dive headlong into a madcap endeavor such as performing Rush’s 1977 prog landmark A Farewell To Kings live it was Primus.

That’s just the sort of thing that its bassist and frontman Les Claypool would do, right? Rush super-fan, friend of the band, and one of the world’s foremost practitioners of bass guitar. There are few, if any, players more qualified.

But having heard Claypool’s side of the story about how Primus’s A Tribute To Kings Tour, we thought we’d give Geddy Lee a call to see what the Rush bassist made of all this, and indeed, how he looks back on A Farewell To Kings and the changes in his playing since the recording. 

Lee has nothing but love for Claypool and Primus, but does offer a warning – this material is a lot easier to record than it is to perform live.

How does the Geddy Lee who recorded A Farewell To Kings in 1977 compare to the Geddy of today?

“I’d say that as I have gotten older, my playing has become more rhythmic, more nuanced and fluid, as opposed to my slightly more aggressive younger self.

“Since 1977 my tone has evolved from a deep and twangy, strident Ricky tone, to kind of a ‘souped up’ Fender Jazz sound, which gives me a bouncier lower mid and bottom end, with a bit more fuzz on my midrange twang.

“The lower midrange presence I’m getting now might be the biggest difference between my tone then and now.”

How do you think the original bass parts stand up? 

“Damn, you mean I have to listen to them again? Okay... well, I think they stand up pretty well and are very much reflective of the period – which means we were writing with a ‘live’ approach in mind, not too many overdubs, so we could reproduce them accurately onstage. As such there was lots of space in the track for my sound, as well as my fairly busy, prog-rock bass parts.” 

Would you record them differently nowadays, and if so how?

“These days I use my own array of solid-state devices, plus a mic’d speaker cab if I need some room sound on the top, or some extra air movement in the bottom end. It is not unusual for me to use three or four channels on the mixing console, one for each device and each slightly different, and I mix those according to what the song needs, or how indulgent I want to get! 

“In the old days, it was two sets of amps, fed by the pickup split on my Rickenbacker 4001 Rick-O-Sound output. So the bass pickup would go to one set of amps and then an old tube compressor, and the treble pickup would go to its own setup and a different type of compressor, so I could crunch the sound individually… plus a DI in case I needed it during the mix for presence, or to put it in some extra effects.”  

Which are the most challenging bass parts on the album, as you see it? 

“Recording my bass on A Farewell To Kings was not as challenging as playing those same parts live. Cygnus X-I, for example, was big fun to record, but onstage Neil and I had to be feeling all the stops and starts in exactly the same time frame. 

“Singing and playing those parts is always more challenging than simply playing the instrument bits, regardless of their complexity, because when I’m not singing, I can devote my full attention to playing them correctly. 

“If anything, perhaps the most challenging parts to record were the funkier parts of Cinderella Man, where I was pushing myself for the first time into a slightly different style of play.”

What was your reaction when Les expressed his desire to play the album live with Primus?

“I was very complimented, of course, and then I thought he was a little bit nuts, but by all accounts it’s quite an impressive performance and a real tribute, performed by an awesome band.”

What are Les’s strengths as a bassist?

“Les has a unique rhythmic sensibility. I find his playing to be an amalgam of various styles: he can slap, twang, or run up and down the neck like a jazz player. His tone is original, deep, and true, and he’s developed a style that is deliciously eccentric.”

Tell us you’re going to come out and play a guest solo at one of the Primus shows…

“Haha! Now there’s a random suggestion!” 

You’ll know the Toronto quartet Barenaked Ladies, formed in 1988, for hits such as If I Had $1,000,000, One Week, Pinch Me, and the theme to The Big Bang Theory, all of which have helped them shift 15 million albums, win eight Juno Awards and become members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 2018.  

Bassist Jim Creeggan usually drives the music with instantly identifiable double bass tones, although he also plays electric bass guitar on occasion, and he’s joined as always by Ed Robertson (vocals, guitar), Kevin Hearn (keyboards, guitar), and Tyler Stewart (drums) on their shimmering new album, Detour De Force.

The producer is Mark Howard – of Bob Dylan, Tom Waits and The Tragically Hip fame – and guests include Creeggan’s brother Andy, their former keyboard player, and bassist Fernando Saunders. Meanwhile, a certain renowned Canadian bassist lent Creeggan some gear... Any guesses who?

Jim, your new album sounds really fresh – not like a band that’s been doing it for several decades. 

“Yeah! I’m really excited about it. It has that catchy element. Some of our best writing is like slowly carving a big stone down to the shape that we really want to talk about. That’s how I like to think of it.” 

Or like that giant chunk of meat in a kebab shop that gradually gets smaller as they cut bits off it? 

“That’s it. Our music is just a kebab. It’s been in the shop a long time. Maybe it’s been there too long. Does it attract flies? Is this a good idea? Am I gonna be okay? That’s a great metaphor.”   

As always, you sound like you’re having fun on bass, with lots of space to move.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Every song seemed to bring out a new thing for bass, you know. I actually surprised myself. For example, I never really learned how to play with a pick over the years, but there’s a song here that needed that kind of dynamic. 

“We were struggling with this song, because we didn’t know how to really do it. We did about three different versions of it, and I was just like, ‘I need to go Peter Hook on this.’ I liked Joy Division when I was in high school, and I knew that sound, so I just followed the melody.”  

Do you know Hooky? 

“About three years ago we were in England and we played a show with him – it was great.”  

What’s the split between upright bass and bass guitar on the record? 

“Most of it is double bass, and it was really interesting, because we did the majority of the songs all in one room. Mark Howard puts the console right in the middle of the studio. I used my pickup system on the double bass because there would be too much bleed with the drums if I had a mic on it, but we also experimented with a Hofner violin bass, plugged right into the board. Sometimes you need that real sustain up top, and Howard was asking me to play more melodic, too.”   

When did you start to add electric bass guitar to your band’s music?  

“Around 2000, though I played electric bass before that. We were recording the Maroon album, and they said, ‘Hey, we’re just wondering – what do you think about playing electric bass? It sits nicely on top of the bass drum.’ I was like, ‘Well, I’m a double bass player, you know?’”

Surely it’s easier to move from the double bass to the electric than the other way round? 

“It’s a little easier, but then there’s all the other nuances about electric bass that I’m still discovering now. Anyway, first I played Fenders, but my Jazz got stolen on the way to Japan from Australia, right out of the shipping container. They left the actual case! 

“I also played a Gibson Recording bass: I love that big sound, and I can really lay into it. I eventually got a 1962 Fender Precision, which was so beautiful, and then I bought an F Bass for my son, because he wanted to learn to slap, so I thought I should get him a bass that is great for that style. 

“I played that on the new record as well, and that’s really become my main stage bass. It’s so well done. They’ll put an ash core in it, and then add alder wings, so you get that resonance, but you still get the bounce. With fingerstyle, that bass is just so clear and responsive. My sound man was like, ‘Can you get any more of those basses?’”

So all this is part of your transition from playing solely upright bass to playing both instruments.

“Yeah. I was playing through a piezo pickup on the double bass for years, and I work that sound hard. If it’s not there, I’ll push it till it gets there, so I really played hard all those years. Now, I’m definitely backing up a little, because I’m 51 now and I can’t do that forever.

“I use a lighter touch with an active bass, so I don’t choke the notes as much. I’ve always struggled with that. But I’ve had great people to help me. Eden amps, Sadowsky, F Bass, David Gage, D’Addario – all those guys have been so cool to me over the years.”   

When you tour, do you take a double bass and an electric bass? 

“Yeah, but for a while – because of the flights and the shipping and stuff – I took a Ned Steinberger NS Design standup bass with me. That’s been great. I practice on that bass all the time, because you can have the action very low, so you can spend more time in thumb position [ie holding down a string with your thumb] and you can get to where you need to be without getting exhausted in 20 minutes.”

Don’t purist double bass players regard those instruments as cheating a little bit? 

“I am fully cheating and I don’t give a shit! [laughs] Because you know what happens? What happens is, you try to play credibly in thumb position, but if you’re tired, you can’t practice that. But yeah, I know what the world is like. Maybe it’s time for everybody to just go, ‘Hey, I just want to know what notes to play.’”  

They never will. Everybody seems to think that everything that everyone else does is wrong.

“Exactly, and I think those things come out of insecurity. We, as bass players, are supportive players, and because of that supportive role, we rarely have a chance to explore more melodically. Sometimes we just go, ‘Well, I’m a bass player. This is the way I do it. I’ve made sacrifices to be here.’ But you know what? To be a musician, you’ve got to open up your mind. You’ve got to try some stuff. That will make your bass playing better.”

Which bass players influenced you? 

“I admired the jazz players like Paul Chambers, mainly. Edgar Meyer was a great inspiration for me, because he had a real wide breadth of feeling in his playing, which I think comes with classical. He also played bluegrass and stuff, which was great. 

“But Geddy Lee was the first guy that I was air-bassing to, before I even played bass, you know. Actually, Geddy’s gear is on this record. We asked him if we could use his Taurus pedals, and he was generous enough to give them to us. On the song Big Back Yard I’m actually playing his pedals and playing bass at the same time.” 

He’s a remarkably nice guy. 

“Yeah – he was very generous to us when we were coming up as young players. Rush gave us a bottle of champagne when we sold out this big concert venue in Toronto, Massey Hall. You know, here’s Rush giving us a bottle of wine, saying, ‘Way to go!’ And Geddy inducted us into the Canadian Hall Of Fame. He didn’t have to do that, but he really cares. 

“I remember watching him play, and I noticed that he threw in this little triplet. I couldn’t figure out how he did it, so I emailed him and he got back right away, saying ‘I hold my hand like this, and sometimes that triplet happens, and sometimes it doesn’t!’ That was so cool to hear.”    

• Detour De Force is out now via Wea Int’L

Aside from giving bass guitar lessons to Primus's Les Claypool and collaborating on a secret project with Barenaked Ladies' Ed Robertson, Rush bassist Geddy Lee, it turns out, has been working on a memoir lately.

Set for release next autumn via HarperCollins, the project began as a way for Lee to channel the grief he felt after the death of his Rush bandmate, Neil Peart, from brain cancer last January.

“My friend and collaborator on the Big Beautiful Book Of Bass, Daniel Richler, saw how I was struggling in the aftermath of Neil’s passing, and tried coaxing me out of my blues with some funny tales from his youth, daring me to share my own in return,” Lee wrote on Instagram earlier this week. “So I did – reluctantly at first, but then remembering, oh yeah, I like wrestling with words. And soon my baby-step stories were becoming grownup chapters. 

"Being the nuclear obsessive that I am, I'd write and re-write them, reassessing perspectives in the narrative not just by scouring my memory banks but my diaries and piles of photo albums too – In a voice that sounded, well, just like me, a presentable, epic-length account of my life on and off the stage was taking shape: my childhood, my family, the story of my parents' survival, my travels and all sorts of nonsense I've spent too much time obsessing over.”

In addition to the memoir and his project with Ed Robertson, there also exists the ongoing possibility of a future collaboration featuring Lee and his other Rush comrade, electric guitar legend Alex Lifeson.

"We’re both eager to get back together and kind of get back into that thing that we’ve done since we were 14 years old that we love to do," Lifeson told Make Weird Music in February. "And we work really, really well together, so we’ll see what happens with that.”

More recently, Lifeson clarified that, should he create and release any new music with Lee, it would not be under the Rush name.

“Rush ended in 2015," Lifeson told Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM in July. "There’s no way Rush will ever exist again because Neil’s not here to be a part of it.”

Rush bass guitar icon Geddy Lee may have been busy lately getting his teacher's hat on, but that doesn't mean he's lost his appetite for writing new music.

Aside from potentially working on material with fellow Rush alum Alex Lifeson (though, in light of Rush drummer Neil Peart's death in 2020, whatever they make won't be under the Rush name), Lee has also apparently teamed up with Barenaked Ladies frontman Ed Robertson for a "super-secret" project.

Speaking to Classic Rock magazine, Robertson discussed the bond he shares with Lee, before revealing that he's working with the Rush low-end master on something that he "can't talk about."

"Geddy is somewhere between my surrogate father and imaginary big brother," Robertson told Classic Rock. "I love him so much. I was in the studio with him yesterday for a super-secret project that I can’t talk about."

Though they've made their names with very different shades of rock music, Lee and Robertson have long been pals. Lee inducted the Barenaked Ladies into the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame in 2018, and also lent the band some gear for the recording of their most recent album, 2021's Detour de Force.

"When it came time to make this record [Detour de Force], we discussed using Taurus pedals, and were like: 'Where are we going to find those?' Jim [Creeggan, bass] said: 'Could we ask Geddy?'" Robertson told Classic Rock.

"It wasn’t just another instrument laying around in the studio. 'There’s my guitar, there’s Jim’s bass and there’s Geddy’s Taurus pedals.' They’re like sacred objects [laughs]."

If we had a million dollars, we'd bet that whatever music Lee ends up making with his fellow Canadian rocker will be worth a listen... 

While she's only been playing bass guitar since April 2020, nine-year-old Ellen Alaverdyan has an aptitude for the instrument comparable with players far her senior.

The young musical prodigy has built a considerable following in that short period of time, too: her YouTube channel – named EllenPlaysBass – currently boasts almost 2,000 subscribers, while her Facebook page has nearly 40,000 followers. Oh, and she's even received an endorsement from Prince drummer Sheila E.

In her latest YouTube video – to thank Tech 21 for sending her a Geddy Lee signature Geddy Lee Signature SansAmp YYZ pedal – the up-and-coming star plays through Rush classic Tom Sawyer in its entirety, showcasing her slick four-string chops on her Sterling by Music Man StingRay bass.

The clip follows a string of covers on her Facebook page, including renditions of Deep Purple's Perfect Strangers, The Beatles' Penny Lane, Jimi Hendrix's Hey Joe and tons more.

“I've been listening to music my whole life," Ellen told Bass Musician back in May. “At the beginning I didn't understand a thing, but I liked it. I went on to the ukulele, then singing, then drums, then piano, then guitar, then finally bass.”

When questioned regarding the gear she uses, Alaverdyan responds, rather adorably, that she's “playing a bass, obviously”. 

Alaverdyan attributes her rapidly attained bass guitar skills to Yousician, an online platform for learning guitar, bass and other instruments. She also says she learns from her father, Hovak Alaverdyan, who plays guitar in Octavision, a supergroup which also features Sons Of Apollo members Jeff Scott Soto and Billy Sheehan.

Funk metal stalwarts Primus are gearing up for their long-delayed Rush tribute tour – A Tribute To Kings – in which they'll play a whopping 45 shows across the US over a two-and-a-half month period.

And in an effort to dust off the metaphorical cobwebs post-pandemic, frontman Les Claypool has revealed he recently received a bass lesson from legendary Rush bassist Geddy Lee.

In a new photo posted to Claypool's Instagram account, the Primus man is seen next to the prog-rock pioneer – both with bass guitars in hand – alongside the caption: “Learning from the master...”

Originally scheduled for 2020, Primus's A Tribute To Kings tour is set to commence tonight (August 10) in Boise, ID, wrapping up in Phoenix, AZ on October 25. It will see the band perform a set of their own material as well as Rush's platinum-certified 1977 album A Farewell to Kings in its entirety.

“Finally, the clouds are parting, the planets are aligning, the dough is rising... whatever metaphor floats your proverbial boat, Primus is going on tour again,” reads a statement from Claypool.

“We were poised and ready for a massive, bent-rock extravaganza when the gremlins of Covid came and yanked the rug out from under us all. I personally have been climbing the walls like a shit-house rat and, after my first season off in 30-some-odd years, I'm very anxious and excited to stand in front of the microphone with my four-string piece of furniture and belt out some girthy ditties to sweaty throngs of punters.”

In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Claypool detailed conversing with Lee prior to the tour coming to fruition, saying the Rush bassist was “excited about the notion”.

“He thought it was a great idea,” he says. “You know, we go way back with those guys, so I think it made him feel good that it was going to be us that was going to do this thing. But I don't know, you'd have to ask him. I can't put words in his mouth, but he seemed excited about it.”

For tickets to A Tribute To Kings, head to Primus's official website.

Alex Lifeson has quashed any possibility for a potential Rush reunion in the future, revealing that the iconic rock band “will never exist again because Neil [Peart]’s not here to be a part of it”.

The electric guitar god made the comments while in conversation with Eddie Trunk on SiriusXM, stating that, though he and the band’s bass guitar player/vocalist Geddy Lee may strike up a new collaborative project in the future, no new music or live performances will occur under the Rush name.

“I talk to Ged every couple of days or so. We try to get together for dinner. That’s been a more challenging thing lately,” he said. “If there’s something that comes up in the future, an opportunity for us to do something, we’ll decide over a cup of coffee what that’ll be.

“There’s no urgency and there’s no preplanned thing now,” Lifeson continued while discussing a potential musical partnership for the pair. “He’s doing whatever he’s doing, I’m doing whatever I’m doing, and we keep each other informed and stuff like that.

“We had such a great history and did so much great stuff together, it’s not really a big deal if, for the rest of our lives, we’re just best friends.”

Despite the possibility that the pair might join forces for a new musical venture, Lifeson made it clear that any resulting material would in no way be related to Rush, with whom the pair performed until drummer Neil Peart’s retirement in 2015.

“Rush ended in 2015. There’s no way Rush will ever exist again because Neil’s not here to be a part of it,” he stated. “That’s not to say that we can’t do other things and we can’t do things that benefit our communities and all of that. I have lots of plans for that sort of thing that don’t necessarily include Geddy.”

Neil Peart retired from music in 2015, before being diagnosed with cancer in 2016. He passed away in January 2020 following a three-and-a-half-year battle with the illness.

Lifeson released his first new solo material since 2012’s Clockwork Angels last month in the form of two songs – Kabul Blues and Spy House – which coincided with the release of his $899 Epiphone Les Paul Axcess Standard signature model.

More recently, the Rush legend revealed he had finished recording a new album with Coney Hatch’s Andy Curran under the moniker Envy of None, which is set to be released “late summer, early fall” this year, as well as a mystery collaboration with Tom Morello and Kirk Hammett.

After admitting he didn't “feel inspired and motivated” to play guitar following the passing of Rush bandmate and drummer Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson's zest for music appears to have been reinvigorated.

In a new interview with Make Weird Music (reported by Consequence of Sound), Lifeson reveals that he and bassist Geddy Lee are “both eager to get back together and kind of get back into that thing that we've done since we were 14 years old”.

“After we finished the last tour in 2015, I started just writing on my own and doing some stuff,” Lifeson recalls. “Geddy was working on his book. We talked about getting together and doing some stuff together, but it got very, very busy for him, even after he finished writing the book – taking it on the road. 

“So we never got a chance to sit down and start working or just having some fun together. We still talk about it, and I’m sure we will.

“Of course, now with the pandemic,” he continues, ”it’s kind of wrecked things for a bit. But we’re both eager to get back together and kind of get back into that thing that we’ve done since we were 14 years old that we love to do. And we work really, really well together, so we’ll see what happens with that.”

Lifeson goes on to elaborate on how he dealt with Peart's death. “As you can imagine, we were very, very close. You lose anybody that’s close, it’s a profound thing. 

“And I think both Geddy and I expected to be better with it. Neil was sick for three-and-a-half years, and no-one really knew about it. Well, lots of people knew about it, but it wasn’t public, the information. So we thought that we would be prepared for the end when it came, and we weren’t. We both really struggled with it.

“For me, that first year of grieving is the milestone, and once you get past that, I think you, I don’t know, it’s an anniversary that you process, and it becomes a little easier to handle. 

“With Neil, I’m always seeing pictures, and I’m always reminded of him, and all that stuff, and that was difficult, but now that it’s [been] a year, I find that I think of the good times that we had together more than the sadness.”

In this classic interview from 2009, Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson and bassist Geddy Lee choose 60 minutes' worth of the music that is closest to their hearts.

From Hendrix to Led Zep, Buffalo Springfield to Tool, this collection of songs is essentially the ultimate Rush-approved mixed tape. Enjoy.

Alex Lifeson

1. Johnny Horton - Sink The Bismarck

Album: Greatest Hits (1990)

"I fell in love with music because of this song. It was the first single I bought. I was around 11 years old, which was about a year before I started playing guitar.

"It’s a song about the Bismarck, a German battleship that sunk during World War II. It’s a very thematic, rousing song. I think I mowed two lawns or something to make enough money to buy it."

2. Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth

Album: Buffalo Springfield (1966)

"This was the first rock song that had a big influence on me. I remember hearing it on the radio in my dad’s car when I was a kid. Buffalo Springfield were unlike the other bands of the ‘San Francisco sound’; they were more country sounding. Stephen Stills and Neil Young trade leads on this one.

"I like Young’s very fast vibrato and edgy, truncated playing style, particularly on his soloing, whereas Stills’ sound is sweeter and smoother. This is still one of my all-time favorite songs. In fact, Rush did a version of it on our covers tribute EP, Feedback."

3. Jeff Beck - Shapes of Things

Album: Truth (1968)

"This is another song we covered on Feedback. Jeff Beck has a tone like no one else, maybe because he doesn’t play with a pick very much. He also has a very strong left hand and can move the strings almost effortlessly.

"He’s still cranking it out today, but he doesn’t put out albums as often as I’d like; he works only when he feels like it. Before Truth, Beck was an integral part of the Yardbirds, and their recording of this song is great. But this version, with Rod Stewart’s voice on top, adds a whole new element to the song. It sounds tougher, bigger and beefier."

4. The Who - My Generation

Album: The Who Sings My Generation (1965)

"Pete Townshend is one of my greatest influences. More than any other guitarist, he taught me how to play rhythm guitar and demonstrated its importance, particularly in a three-piece band.

"His chording and strumming always took up the right amount of space. The first time I heard this song was in the basement of Rush’s original drummer, John Rutsey. John had two older brothers, both of whom were music fiends, and they always had whatever new album had just come out."

5. Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced?

Album: Are You Experienced (1967)

"This was another record I heard for the first time at Rutsey’s place. What attracts me to this song is all the backward stuff. It sounds so alien but so right and perfect.

"Hendrix was a natural genius who played many beautiful styles. Talent as great as his doesn’t come through life very frequently. Hendrix was one in a billion."

6. Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower

Album: Electric Ladyland (1968)

"This is one of the most beautiful songs and arrangements ever recorded. Hendrix took a Bob Dylan folk song and turned it into a symphony. The acoustic guitar on this song [played by Dave Mason] has such beautiful compression.

"It doesn’t slap you; it caresses you. This song grabs your heart and sails away with it; it sounds unlike anything anyone has ever done. That was the magic of Hendrix: even if you copied what he recorded and tried to play like him, it could never be the same."

7. Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times

Album: Led Zeppelin (1969)

"Of any guitarist, Jimmy Page was my biggest influence. I wanted to look, think and play like him. Zeppelin had a heavy influence on Rush during our early days. Page’s loose style of playing showed an immense confidence, and there are no rules to his playing.

"I met Page at a Page/Plant concert in Toronto in 1998. I was acting like a kid, all googly eyed. I was freaking out and my hands were shaking. I was so thrilled to meet him because his work meant so much to me."

8. Led Zeppelin - Kashmir

Album: Physical Graffiti (1975)

"This is an absolutely brilliant song, an all-time classic. ‘Kashmir’ has such a wonderful, exotic Middle Eastern feel to it - it’s like no other song of its era - and Physical Graffiti is a mind-blowing album.

"In a roundabout way, Kashmir influenced A Passage to Bangkok, which has a similar sort of odd-tempo arrangement to the verses."

9. The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Album: Hot Rocks, 1964–1971 (1972)

"This was the second single I bought. One summer when I was 12, I went to Yugoslavia to visit my relatives. I took one record with me - this one. I played it for my relatives because I wanted my cousins to hear it.

"The Stones had that bluesy, dirty, bad-boy image, which I much preferred to cleaner-sounding bands like the Beatles or the Searchers. The Stones were more dangerous than other bands of the '60s. It looked like they had more fun than the Beatles - like they stayed up later.”

10. Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

Album: The Wall (1979)

"David Gilmour is so well respected, and while he’s often overlooked among guitarists, I think people who appreciate rock guitarists regard him as one of the best.

"He’s a brilliant player and has such passion and feel. You can sense he’s a smart man: you can hear how he puts it all together and how it fits, which is a real testament to his songwriting. He’s such a bluesy player, to boot. My eyes water whenever I hear this song.

"Pink Floyd have such incredible arrangements; their songs are rich and complex but not particularly complicated. They can take as long as they want to tell you a story, but it’s always interesting."

11. U.K. - In The Dead Of Night

Album: U.K. (1978)

"Allan Holdsworth has an amazing, out-of-this-world liquidity. What a genius! His fingers are constantly moving. Pulls make up the bulk of his playing; I don’t think he does much picking.

"I was listening to Holdsworth around the time of Moving Pictures [1981], and you can indirectly hear his influence on my playing on YYZ."

12. Tool - Third Eye

Album: Ænima (1996)

"Adam Jones is a fabulous guitarist and songwriter, and Tool are such a powerful band. You know it’s Tool when you hear them, because they’re intensely dynamic, yet heavy, even when their playing is light. I listened to this album over and over; I don’t do that very often.

"Tool have an interesting, intelligent approach to song construction and lyrics. It’s just too bad we don’t hear from them more often."

13. Eric Johnson - Ah Via Musicom

Album: Ah Via Musicom (1990)

"I’ve never heard anybody with a better tone than Eric Johnson! He played with us on a couple of tours and I’d watch his performance most every night.

"There’s a smoothness to his playing that is so elastic. Eric is very accurate and articulate but soulful at the same time. If anybody could come close to playing like Hendrix, he could."

Geddy Lee

14. Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick

Album: Thick As a Brick (1972)

"In my view, this is the first truly successful concept album by a British prog-rock band. They even brought a flute into heavy rock music. How dare they! [laughs]

"Their music is so brilliantly written and well put together, what with its hard-to-play parts and odd time signatures, not to mention the great guitar sounds of the totally underrated Martin Barre.

"And I love how, no matter what influences they brought into the music, from classical to folk, they always did it in a rock context."

15. Yes - Time and a Word

Album: Time and a Word (1970)

"I didn’t know who Yes were until a friend loaned me this record. I was totally amazed. I’d never heard a band like this, and I’d never heard a bass player placed so upfront in the mix.

"Chris Squire had such a driving, aggressive sound, and it made this such a pivotal, influential song for me. Squire’s melodies were brilliant, and they were definitely out there.

"But they were always essential to the skeletal forms of those songs; he never wandered off out of context. His lines help hold the songs together."

16. Led Zeppelin - How Many More Times

Album: Led Zeppelin (1969)

"I saw them in Toronto at a little place called the Rockpile. We were in the second row, and when they played this song it just blew me away. It reaffirmed for me all the creative potential in blending hard rock with progressive music. John Paul Jones was the unsung hero in that band.

"What bass player of that period didn’t know how to play that riff? I still jam to it sometimes at soundchecks."

17. Jeff Beck - I Ain't Superstitious

Album: Truth (1968)

"If I had to pick a favorite guitarist of all time, it would probably be Jeff Beck. I mean, was there a better guitar sound ever? I think this was the first great Jeff Beck ‘moment,’ the first time when you’d hear something and know that it couldn’t be anybody but him. He was such an amazing pioneer, and just an incredible stylist.

"The notes he squeezes out of that thing with a whammy bar, a volume control knob and his fingers are simply incredible."

18. The Yardbirds - Over Under Sideways Down

Album: Roger the Engineer (1966)

"Jeff Beck again, playing one of the most unique guitar lines ever. It’s really hard to play that thing - it manages to grab something essential from the Eastern quarter-tone style without just being imitative of Indian music.

"And it’s the hook to a pop song - back when pop, particularly in England, could be a platform for experimentation and innovation. Beck, Page, Clapton and some other Brits really discovered a totally new sound.

"They figured out how to get a pop angle on the blues by electrifying it, and it became a profound way for guitarists to speak through music."

19. Genesis - Watcher Of The Skies

Album: Foxtrot (1972)

"This is a very strange, ominous tune from very early Peter Gabriel-era Genesis. The time signature was completely odd - it was a little like Yes, but darker and much more theatrical.

"The music wasn’t about people stepping out and doing bluesy solos; they were taking a high level of musicianship and weaving it into the guts of the song, playing with layers of melody, odd time signatures and strange guitar riffs. What fascinated me was how these intricate parts all supported one another - and the song."

20. Jefferson Airplane - 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds

Album: Bless Its Pointed Little Head (1969)

"A great live record, where the band takes some risks and really changes the arrangements, especially rhythmically. Jack Casady, one of the truly great, underrated bass players, is the star of this record.

"His tone was very different from other American bassists; it was edgier, and his riffs were really challenging - they aggressively pushed the songs along. I like when a bass player gets a little pushy and won’t keep his place. He steps out of line, but in a great way.”

21. Cream - Spoonful

Album: Fresh Cream (1966)

"Crossroads was the song you had to learn to play if you were in a band. Clapton just flies through that song. But for me, ‘Spoonful’ was more about Jack Bruce’s great voice and adventurous playing. Bruce, like all the bass players I’ve mentioned, wasn’t content to be a bottom-end, stayin'-the-background bassist.

"He’s playing a Gibson bass obviously too loud, to where it’s distorting the speakers. But it gave him this aggressive sound and a kind of spidery tone, and I love everything about it."

22. The Who - My Generation

Album: Live at Leeds (1970)

"What an amazing guitar sound on this album! And [Pete] Townshend even plays a few solos, which he usually never does. Was there anybody better at expressing themselves through power chords?

"I just loved that record, and I know Alex did, too. Every time we jammed as a young band we would wind up jamming parts of that record."

Geddy Lee and Tech 21 have teamed up to create the new SansAmp DI-2112, a desk-top/amp-top version of the company’s GED-2112 rackmount unit.

The new offering merges the GED-2112’s Parallel Pre-Amping technology, which incorporates two separate internal preamps, with the portability of the SansAmp YYZ pedal.

Features include dual all-analog SansAmp circuits, a drive knob for gain and overdrive, a blend knob to adjust the ratio of SansAmp tube amp emulation and the direct signal, a sweepable semi-parametric EQ and a tight switch to add definition to notes.

There’s also dual 1/4-inch and XLR outputs, a 1/4-inch tuner output and all-metal housing.

The DI-2112 runs on 18V DC via power supply or two 9V alkaline batteries, and is available now for $329.

For more information, head to Tech 21.

Geddy Lee might be known as one of the world's greatest bassists, but the Rush frontman also has a pretty sweet stash of electric guitars.

Now he’s putting six rather impressive vintage guitars from his private collection under the hammer with Mecum Auctions, as part of a sale that will take place in Las Vegas on October 10-12.

The auction, which marks the first time Lee has put any instruments from his nearly 300-strong collection up for bidding, comprises '50s and '60s Gibsons and Fenders, and is highlighted by a coveted ’59 Les Paul 'burst.

You can check out the six guitars, with descriptions from Mecum, below.

1959 Gibson Les Paul Standard

Lee’s 1959 model is in stunning original condition, save for a single refret, and it comes with the original case.

A rare piece like this in any state and from any collection would be a remarkable find, and this one’s original condition and status as an exalted member of rock legend Geddy Lee’s previously untouchable private collection catapult it into the stratosphere of the truly one-of-a-kind, inimitable classics.

1960 Gibson ES-345

This 1960 Gibson, finished in Cherry Red with a mahogany neck and rosewood fingerboard, is an extraordinary offering from the Geddy Lee Guitar Collection. 

Lined with 22 nickel alloy frets and Pearloid split trapezoid position markers, this Gibson ES-345 is one of pure beauty. The ES-345, introduced in 1959, was an upgrade of the ES-335 model, and it symbolized a marriage between Gibson’s innovation and stylistic tradition. 

With PAF humbucking pickups and a Varitone switch, this ES-445 has an unmatched performance ability and the capacity to create a more controlled sound of various tones, making this guitar an example of physical elegance and musical clarity. Time to pick this cherry from the tree and settle it into your personal collection.

1955 Fender Stratocaster

Features include: Kluson single line PAF 2356766, metal oval tip tuning pegs; maple headstock, neck and fingerboard; 22 nickel alloy frets; black dot position markers; bone nut;  single coil, hand-wound pickups with Bakelite covers; 3-way switch, controls bridge, middle, neck, bakelite switch tip; Fender Patent-Pending Tremolo bridge, Pat-Pending stamped on saddles; one volume, two-tone Bakelite knobs; original Fender tweed case; COA by Gruhn Guitars

1960 Gibson ES-335

Features include: Cherry finish; Kluson Gold D-169400 3-on-a-side tuning machines; Holly veneer headstock; Honduran Mahogany neck; 22 nickel alloy frets; ebony fretboard; nylon nut; pearloid position markers; two PAAF humbuckers with double white bobbins; 3-way switch, rhythm/both/lead; gold ABR-1 adjustable saddle bridge, gold Bigsby vibrato tailpiece; individual volume and tone controls; original Brown Lifton case with case cover; COA by Gruhn Guitars

1965 Gibson ES-335

Features include: Cherry finish; Kluson D169400 Single line, single row tips tuning machines; Holly veneer headstock; Honduran Mahogany neck; 22 nickel alloy frets; Brazilian rosewood fretboard; nylon nut; pearloid position markers; patent-number Gibson humbuckers; 3-way switch, Rhythm/Both/Lead; Gibson ABR-1 adjustable bridge, Maestro vibrato tailpiece; individual volume and tone controls for each pickup; original Gibson yellow-lined case; COA by Gruhn Guitars

1967 Gibson Flying V

Features include: Sunburst finish; gold Kluson D169400 3-on-a-side tuning machines; Holly veneer headstock; Honduran mahogany neck; Brazilian rosewood fingerboard; 22 nickel alloy frets; nylon nut; pearloid position markers; patent number humbucking pickups; 3-way switch, Rhythm/both/lead; Gibson patent number bridge with a short Maestro tremolo tailpiece; two volume controls, one tone control; original case; highly original condition; COA by Gruhn Guitars

For more information on Geddy's guitars, head to Mecum Auctions.

You can have a rock-solid drummer, a perfectly capable guitarist, and a show-stopping frontperson, but when it comes down to it, many would argue that a bassist could make or break a band. After all, would Give It Away be the same without Flea's bombastic bass? What would YYZ sound like without the genius of Geddy Lee? Our guess is not nearly as good. 

So it begs the question: if you could have any (any!) bassist join your dream band, who would that be? Here is our list of low-end juggernauts that could take your band from bars to the big leagues.

Dave Ellefson

Speed is the name of the game with Dave Ellefson, and he can help crank your band’s intensity all the way up to eleven. The Megadeth bassist’s playing is the foundation of the band’s sound, delivering driving bass lines at breakneck speeds that are certain to blow away your audience. Ellefson is a perfect fit for any band looking to push BPMs to the limit, while also starting a few mosh pits here and there.

Geddy Lee

You have to go big or go home when it comes to selecting the right bassist, and nobody embodies this better than Geddy Lee. His pronounced playing style immediately makes itself known; he takes charge while delivering some of rock's most complex and proggy bass lines. Lee is definitely not a bassist who will hide in the shadows - he thrives in the limelight and will make sure you never forget his playing.

Carol Kaye

If you somehow land Carol Kaye in your lineup, you've struck gold. The L.A. studio ace has played on over 10,000 recordings, including timeless works by the Beach Boys, Stevie Wonder, Frank Sinatra and more. Plus, having Kaye as a bandmate could serve a dual purpose - she began her career as a jazz guitarist, so just in case your guitar player isn't cutting it, you're probably covered there, too. Watch Brian Wilson, the musical genius behind the Beach Boys, gush over Kaye in this video.

Victor Wooten 

When it comes to technically precise bass parts overflowing with musical vocabulary, Victor Wooten is your guy. As a member of the genre-blurring supergroup Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Wooten has proven his virtuosic chops and innovative take on the bass - and having five Grammy awards under his belt wouldn't hurt your band's cred, either.

Les Claypool

We hope your guitarist doesn't mind taking the back seat, because that's likely to happen if Les Claypool joins your band. The propulsive bassist and frontman of Primus is credited for furthering slap bass technique and helping introduce it to hard rock, earning him a rightful place as one of the most respected figures in low-end lore.

Flea

Granted you're ok with a little bit of on-stage nudity, enlisting Flea to your lineup would be no-brainer. A founding member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea's first entry into music was playing jazz trumpet. He later picked up bass, fusing hard funk and punk with his own melodic adventurousness to approach the instrument in an entirely new way.

Geezer Butler

The word “legend” gets thrown around a lot, but Geezer Butler is more than worthy of the title. On top of writing some of metal’s most iconic bass lines, Butler was one of the first in the genre to use a wah pedal and implement down-tuning. Plus, he’s responsible for nearly all of Black Sabbath’s Ozzy-era lyrics, so get ready for your band’s songwriting to receive a serious upgrade.

Doug Wimbish

Want a player who will add a little versatility to your sound? Look no further than Doug Wimbish, a bassist with some serious studio experience under his belt. In addition to his time with Living Colour, he’s recorded with everyone from the Rolling Stones and Joe Satriani to Madonna and Billy Idol. No matter what sound your band is shooting for, you just can’t go wrong with having Wimbish on your side.

Robert Trujillo

If you’re looking for heaviness with a hint of funk, give Robert Trujillo a call. His jazz fusion background and love of slap bass shine bright in his work with Suicidal Tendencies and Infectious Grooves. Plus, his preference to tackle Metallica’s catalog without a pick is no small feat, solidifying his place as a thrash titan.

Paul McCartney

As far as rock bassists go, you can't do much better than Paul McCartney. His bass lines stand alone as masterworks, lending brilliant melodicism and counterpoint to any song he graces. And it wouldn't hurt to have a Beatle around to help out in the songwriting department, either.

Rush have released the lyric video for their 1977 song, "Farewell to Kings." You can watch it above.

The video—which was created by Adam Jones, with artwork by Hugh Syme—was released to promote the deluxe reissue of the band's 1977 album of the same name, which is available now.

The reissue is available in a Super Deluxe Edition, three-CD Deluxe Edition, four-LP Deluxe Edition and a Deluxe Digital Edition. The Super Deluxe Edition includes three CDs, Blu-ray audio and four 180-gram vinyl LPs. The extra discs include a February 1978 performance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon—featuring the 2112 suite performed in its entirety—and four covers of Farewell to Kings songs by Big Wreck, Dream Theater, Alain Johannes and the Trews.

You can pick up a copy of the set for yourself here.

Rush have announced a 40th anniversary reissue of their 1977 album, A Farewell to Kings.

The reissue—which is set for a December 1 release—will be available in a Super Deluxe Edition, three-CD Deluxe Edition, four-LP Deluxe Edition and a Deluxe Digital Edition.

The Super Deluxe Edition includes three CDs, Blu-ray audio and four 180-gram vinyl LPs. The extra discs include a February 1978 performance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon—featuring the 2112 suite performed in its entirety—and four covers of Farewell to Kings songs by Big Wreck, Dream Theater, Alain Johannes and the Trews.

You can preorder the set here, and check out the tracklist below.

Rush, A Farewell to Kings—40th Anniversary: Super Deluxe Edition Track Listing

DISC 1
Original Album

DISC 2

Live at Hammersmith Odeon—February 20, 1978

• 1. "Bastille Day"
• 2. "Lakeside Park"
• 3. "by-Tor & the Snowdog"
• 4. "Xanadu"
• 5. "A Farewell to Kings"
• 6. "Something for Nothing"
• 7. "Cygnus X-1"

DISC 3

Live at Hammersmith Odeon – February 20, 1978

1. "Anthem"
2. "Closer to the Heart"
3. "2112"
4. "Working Man"
5. "Fly by Night"
6. "In the Mood"
7. "Drum Solo"
8. "Cinderella Man"
9. "Xanadu" – Dream Theater
10. "Closer to the Heart" – Big Wreck
11. "Cinderella Man" – The Trews
12. "Madrigal" – Alain Johannes
13. "Cygnus X-2 Eh"

Blu-Ray Audio—Disc 4

96kHz 24-bit 5.1 Surround Mix by Steven Wilson - Original Album
96kHz 24-bit Original Stereo Analog 2015 Remaster - Original Album