Mar 30, 2026
The Story: On March 29, 2026, Rush opened the 2026 JUNO Awards with their first live performance in over 11 years — and their first since the death of legendary drummer and lyricist Neil Peart in January 2020. Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, newly recruited drummer Anika Nilles, and keyboardist Loren Gold took the stage at TD Coliseum in Hamilton, Ontario, and roared through "Finding My Way," the opening track from Rush's self-titled 1974 debut album.
The last time Lee and Lifeson played as Rush was August 1, 2015, at the Forum in Los Angeles, closing out the career-spanning R40 tour. In the decade-plus since, the two appeared together only sporadically — billed under their own names rather than as the band — at tributes to the late Gordon Lightfoot and Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters. When Peart died of brain cancer at 67, many assumed the book was closed forever. Rush, after all, wasn't Rush without all three.
Then came Anika Nilles. The German drummer — known for her virtuosic YouTube channel and her work on Jeff Beck's final tour in 2022 — was recruited for what would become the Fifty Something tour, announced in October 2025. What started as a modest 12-date run quickly ballooned to an 86-date world tour. But nobody had seen the new lineup play live — until the JUNOs. Nilles, in what was likely the most pressure-filled moment of her career, simply excelled, playing a huge kit with the Rush logo on the bass drum, bashing through virtuosic fills. Behind the musicians, vintage Rush footage that included Peart flickered on screen — a reminder that the evening was as much a tribute as a comeback.
"You really can't ask us what song to play," Lee told CBC reporters afterward. "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." Lifeson was more succinct: "Also, it's the only song we know how to play." The choice was perfect — "Finding My Way" isn't just a track title. It's a declaration.
Rush was formed in Toronto in 1968 and released 19 studio albums over the decades that followed — 24 gold records, 14 platinum, three multi-platinum. They won 10 JUNO Awards in total, including the very first JUNO for best hard rock/metal album in 1991. Their return to the stage where they won "Most Promising Group" back in 1975 felt like the universe completing a circle.
When we saw this story, we found something deeper than a concert headline: the terrifying, beautiful act of returning to the thing that defined you after the person who made it whole is gone. This isn't just about Rush — it's about anyone who's lost a partner, a collaborator, a piece of themselves, and had to find the courage to pick up the instrument again.
We wrote it as progressive hard rock because the genre IS the story — Rush's own DNA. The quiet-to-loud dynamics mirror the journey from silence to stage. "Play through the grief, play through the ghost" became the mantra — the act of continuing not despite the absence, but through it. And when the final chorus shifts from "Finding my way" to "Finding our way — we're finally home," it's the moment the tribute becomes renewal.
High-register vocals, cascading guitar arpeggios, precise rhythmic drive, building from intimate grief to arena-scale catharsis. The sound of a power trio finding their voice again.
Led Zeppelin's impressionistic storytelling and mythic vocabulary shapes the metaphorical language — frets "we used to own," "sacred seat," "the thunder hasn't lost its ground" — while title_is_hook keeps "Finding My Way" as the gravitational center of every chorus.
Every string remembers where his hands have been
Press my fingers down on frets we used to own
The melody comes back but half the air is bare
A thousand people waiting for a sound they've never known
My hands are shaking but they're strong enough
The thunder hasn't lost its ground
Finding my way without the beat I knew
Finding my way — the old made new
Play through the grief, play through the ghost
Finding my way to what matters most
New hands are holding down the sacred seat
A different fire behind the kick but just as deep
She counts it in — the room remembers how to shake
Playing forward what the silence tried to take
The wound becomes the sweetest song
The echo proves we still belong
Finding my way without the beat I knew
Finding my way — the old made new
Play through the grief, play through the ghost
Finding my way to what matters most
They said the music died the day you stopped
They said this stage would crumble from the top
But every note I play — I hear you breathing
Every chord that bends — I feel you leaving
And staying at the same time
Brother, we never stopped
Finding our way back through the door
Finding our way — one note, then more
The first chord shook us to the bone
Finding our way — we're finally home
Finding my way...
We're finally home
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