Rush's Alex Lifeson and Geddy Lee play Toronto's Scotiabank Arena on Aug. 7.Richard Sibbald/Supplied
On Friday at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, a reunited Rush performed its first hometown concert since it played the same venue on June 19, 2015, when it was known as Air Canada Centre. The legendary prog-rock trio was already on a long hiatus when lyricist and virtuoso drummer Neil Peart died of brain cancer in 2020 at 67.
Peart, singer/bassist Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson were closely knit. After a period of deep grief, followed by what Lee described as “some serious soul searching,” they decided to tour for the first time in 11 years.
The line-up for the current Fifty Something comeback tour, which kicked off in early June with four shows at Los Angeles’s Kia Forum and extends into 2027, also includes German drummer Anika Nilles (who formerly toured with Jeff Beck) and American keyboardist Loren Gold. Lifeson and Lee were front and centre on Friday.
Both were holding double-neck guitars for the concert-opening Xanadu, a mystical extravaganza from 1977 about endless life, based on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan. “I had heard,” Lee sang, “the whispered tales of immortality.”
There were many moments dedicated to Peart − spoken tributes by Lee or photo collages shown on giant video screens. American singer Aimee Mann was flown in to revisit Time Stand Still, a duet with Lee from the 1988 Rush album Hold Your Fire. It was the show’s emotional centrepiece.
Elsewhere, every tumbling drum fill from Nilles seemed like tiny salutes to Peart. His lyrics were also constant reminders of his legacy. The Spirit of Radio, inspired by local FM radio station CFNY, captured all his cynicism and romanticism in one go.
The concert ended with the band’s first hit, Working Man from 1974. Earlier, Lee expressed the night’s joyous mood: “You shouldn’t be allowed to have so much fun up here.”
The tour has been nothing less than a triumph. Ticket sales are robust and critics have been united in praise. Rush rolled the bones and, so far, it has paid off handsomely.
It’s not easy being Rush. The music is complicated; the technical challenges facing the players are fierce. And while much has been made of Nilles successfully getting herself up to speed on the band’s catalogue, the toughest job might belong to Lee. He sings, plays bass, manipulates foot pedals and contributes keyboard parts.
Lee is also 73 years old. His high-flying vocal style is the opposite of meek, and, after so many years off, he needed help getting the pipes back in working order. Enter the vocal coach.
Mitch Seekins is an Ontario-based Albertan who has worked with such singers as Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins, Big Wreck‘s Ian Thornley, Emm Gryner and the Glorious Sons’ Brett Emmons. Lee contacted him early in the Rush rehearsal process.
Mitch Seekins, vocal coach to the stars, including Geddy Lee of Rush.woodgate photography/Supplied
“Geddy was concerned whether he could pull it off,” Seekins said. “But he was under the gun. The tour had been booked and the wheels were rolling already.”
Seekins is a former opera tenor and rock singer who launched the Vocal Studio in 1990 in Toronto. He expanded the business to different Ontario cities over the years but now coaches online only from his home north of London, Ont.
He tailors his approaches to each client. For Lee, he pored over decades of Rush live performances on video to identify when changes appeared in Lee’s singing and why they occurred. He noticed subtle shifts that developed during Rush tours of the early 2010s.
“I believe the aging process was starting to show up, in terms of, perhaps, energy level,” Seekins said. “Geddy was beginning to work harder than he needed to. He still sounded great, but there seemed to be more effort and some of the top end of this sound was beginning to widen. And when it does that, particularly up in the range that he sings all the time, it makes it more difficult to stabilize and maintain.”
Much like an athlete who favours an injury, the habits a singer picks up to compensate for a cold or fatigue can become the default setting. That’s problematic, says singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman, a longtime Seekins client.
“Your body learns the new modified technique and unless you’ve got somebody bringing you back to focus, you can be left singing poorly or wrong for years after,” the two-time Juno winner said. “The workaround becomes the new way you do it, and your performance suffers.”
Working with Lee steadily, Seekins determined that while the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer’s voice wasn’t in peak shape after such a long layoff, there was very little actual degradation. What Seekins heard were fixable problems. Lee wasn’t convinced.
“I don’t think he believed me,” the coach said. “But I thought if we put in the work, and it is work, we could do this.”
Rush plays Toronto's Scotiabank Arena on Aug. 7.Richard Sibbald/Supplied
The countless sessions and vocal exercises, squeezed in while Rush was deep into rehearsals, did the trick. In Rolling Stone’s rave review of the tour-opening concert in L.A., Seekins was even credited (though not by name).
“Lee’s recent vocal coaching hasn’t taken him all the way back to the glorious peaks of his seventies screeching, but it’s undeniably left his voice stronger than it was 11 years ago, with its top octave once again available to him,” the magazine’s Brian Hiatt wrote.
A few weeks later, Rush postponed a pair of concerts in Fort Worth, Tex., when Lee was diagnosed with bronchitis (and laryngitis caused by coughing).
“I got a phone call from Geddy,” Seekins said. “There was no voice left. There was no way possible he could have done those shows.”
After 12 days of rest − some of the off days were pre-scheduled − Seekins worked with Lee to stretch the singing muscles and build back the singer’s endurance. There have been no issues since.
The tour was built with days off between concerts, specifically with Lee’s voice in mind. There are no back-to-back nights. “Geddy isn’t 45 anymore,” his coach said. “The vocal recovery time is very, very important.”
On Wednesday, nineties rockers Guns N’ Roses performed at Toronto’s Rogers Stadium. Vocally, 64-year-old singer Axl Rose is a shadow of his former caterwauling self. Rolling Stone’s Hiatt recently gave another shout out to Seekins on X: “Axl Rose needs Geddy Lee’s vocal coach.”
For what it’s worth, Seekins is happy to help. He dialed up a YouTube clip of a recent Guns N’ Roses concert.
“There is a fraction of Axl sounding like he did years ago,” he said. “It was lower in his range, but the stuff is still there. He’s not necessarily a lost cause.”
Rush plays Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, Aug. 9, 11 and 13: Montreal’s Bell Centre, Sept. 2 and 4; Edmonton’s Rogers Place, Sept. 10 and 12; Vancouver’s Rogers Arena, Dec. 15 and 17.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Aimee Mann's name.