The surviving members of progressive rock titans Rush will reunite for a 50th anniversary tour in 2026.
Rush co-founders Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will play 12 dates in honor of the band’s late drummer Neil Peart, whose monumental percussion talents made Rush a defining act in prog rock. The tour will begin June 7 at the Kia Forum — the site of the band’s last show with Peart in 2015.
“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 f— miss it,” Lee said in a statement announcing the tour. “And that it’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of Rush music.”
The question of a Rush reunion without Peart, who died of brain cancer in 2020, was a fraught one. Even up to last year, Lifeson had told Rolling Stone that “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.”
For this tour, the band will be joined by Anika Nilles, a German drummer acclaimed for her work with Jeff Beck.
“As we all know, Neil was irreplaceable,” Lee said in the band’s statement. “Yet life is full of surprises, and we’ve 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 fan base, whom, we know, will give her every chance to live up to that near-impossible role.”
In their own statement, Peart’s wife Carrie Nuttall-Peart and daughter Olivia gave their blessing for the tour: “We are thrilled to support the Fifty Something Tour, celebrating a band whose music has resonated and inspired fans for generations, and to honor Neil’s extraordinary legacy as both a drummer and lyricist.”
Ford axed the cheery Ka runabout six years ago. Yet Kia is still shifting the dinky Picanto by the boatload.
I dunno. Them crazy Koreans giving people what they actually want.
Right, let’s discuss the cars you see on these pages today.
The yellow car is called K4. That’s a five-door petrol hatch from £25k. Well-equipped. Fizzy 1-litre or 1.6 turbo petrols. Seven-year warranty. As with any Kia. Undercuts a VolkswagenGolf by £3k.
EV6 Kia EV6 GT is a ridiculously fast SUV that even boils your kettle – but can it beat £158k Porsche 911 in drag race
The blue car is called EV4. That’s a five-door electric hatch from £35k, before any electric car grant. Looks great. Drives sweetly.
The chassis could easily handle more power. Iron Man and Mickey Mouse integrated in the onboard computer.
I’m serious.
You can personalise the central screen and satnav with your favourite movie characters. The kids will love that.
Then watch Netflix or play arcade games, if you ever need to stop to recharge.
I say IF because the biggest 81kWh battery will do 390 miles by the official WLTP test. Closer to 320 miles in the real world.
Still more than most people do in a week. And way more than a Vauxhall Astra Electric can manage.
Everything is super easy
The regular EV4 has a 273-mile battery and recharges in a 30-minute tea-and-pee break.
Driving impressions. You sit nice and low in this car. We like that. It rides nicely (multi-link rear axle).
We designed this car thinking about the European customer because they love to drive
Kia engineer
Handles nicely (also multi-link rear axle). Accelerates smoothly. Everything is super easy.
If you want to feel more involved, use the braking regen paddles on the steering wheel to mimic changing down gears for a bend.
I reckon the four-wheel-drive GT due next year is going to be a lot of fun.
A Kia engineer told me: “We designed this car thinking about the European customer because they love to drive.”
Too right.
The cabin is copy-and-paste Kia’s other award-winning EVs. Which means a nice mix of screens and hard controls, cup holders and chargers for everyone, lots of recycled materials, and lots of S P A C and E.
Like 10cm more legroom in the back than a Tesla Model 3. Like a wide-opening boot that swallows loads more stuff than a Focus, Golf or Astra.
That’s the benefit of a ground-up electric car. It’s no bigger on the outside. But you get a next-size-up cabin.
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The K4 is a five-door petrol hatch from £25k that’s well-equipped, zippy, and £3k cheaper than a GolfCredit: Supplied
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The fugly EV4 Fastback. I reckon the designers were rushing to get to the pubCredit: Supplied
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You can personalise the central screen and satnav with your favourite movie charactersCredit: Supplied
Put simply, EV4 is a peach.
Now for the car I’m less bothered about. The fugly EV4 Fastback. I reckon the designers were rushing to get to the pub. Either that or they finished it after they’d been to the pub.
I’m sure someone will like it.
It does have a bigger boot and the biggest battery as standard.
But it costs £41k.
At least Kia is doing Ford’s old job by giving everyone lots of choice.
LOCK, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels star Jason Flemyng has been banned from driving after being caught speeding — at 24mph.
The 58-year-old was pinged in a 20mph zone in his Kia Sorento.
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Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels actor Jason Flemyng has been banned from driving after being caught doing 24mph in a 20mph zoneCredit: Getty
It was the fourth time Flemyng had been caught speeding in the past year.
He already had 12 points on his licence but had not been banned because of a justice system administrative error.
The actor admitted speeding near his home in Clapham, South West London, on December 5.
He was banned for six months and fined £775.
He told Lavender Hill JPs: “I don’t want to waste the court’s time. I accept what has happened.”
Asked whether he wanted to claim exceptional hardship, the actor, wearing a black suit, said: “Well, my work and what I do for a living, and my charity work, all depend on me driving.
“Maybe I should have thought about that before I drove 24mph in a 20mph zone.”
In 2009, the actor joined the cast of the ITVscience fiction cult drama series Primeval during its third series, as maverick ex-policeman Danny Quinn and he reprised the role in 2011.
He has been married to actress and producer Elly Fairman since 2007, best known for Blitz, and has also starred in BBC drama series Casualty.
Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels cast look completely different as they reunite 25 years after hit film
A decade ago, “Weird Al” Yankovic launched his 12th concert tour, which covered 200 shows over two years. Somewhere along the line, the pop world’s foremost parodist was backstage putting on a fat suit “for literally the 1,000th time” when he was suddenly struck by the desire to “go out on stage and do a show like a regular musician.”
Soon after, he launched his “Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour,” playing small venues with no video screens, no costume changes, no props or choreography, and none of the song parodies that made him famous. The songs were still comedic — “Everything I write winds up a little warped,” he says — but were original tunes that were pastiches of, say, Frank Zappa or They Might Be Giants’ style. He enjoyed it so much he revived the concept a couple of years ago.
Yankovic, 65, has also not released a parody song for more than a decade, in part, he says, because there’s no longer a “monoculture where it’s more obvious what the hits are,” but also because he enjoys the challenges of those original pastiches, some of which take months for him to develop.
“I wanted to prove that I’m more than just the parody guy,” says Yankovic, who also co-wrote the 2022 TV film “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” The loopy biopic satire starred Daniel Radcliffe and earned Yankovic an Emmy nomination for his writing. (Recently, he also had self-parodying cameo in “Naked Gun.”)
“The smaller tours cleansed the palate for me and were fun for my band and the hardcore fans,” he says. “But now we’re back playing the big tent. We’ve ramping up the silliness.”
(Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times)
Now, having proved he was more than the parody guy, Yankovic has re-embraced the whole full-throated “Weird Al” parody thing — his “Bigger & Weirder” tour, which comes to the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Saturday, features plenty of video screens, lots of costume changes and props, and twice as many band members.
And, of course, it features parodies covering decades of pop music: The Knack (“My Bologna”), Michael Jackson (“Eat It”), Madonna (“Like a Surgeon”), Coolio (“Amish Paradise”), Nirvana (“Smells Like Nirvana”) and Robin Thicke (“Word Crimes”).
“The smaller tours cleansed the palate for me and were fun for my band and the hardcore fans,” he says. “But now we’re back playing the big tent. We’re ramping up the silliness.”
That includes reviving not just old songs but also old bits. “Some fans feel comfort in repetition, which is OK,” he says. While he’ll change up individual jokes, “we’re trying not to change too much what people came to see — if we don’t fulfill their expectations, they’re liable to walk away disappointed.”
(His fans are committed enough that some even parody his songs with their own rewrites. Yankovic is particularly impressed by Steve Goodie, who parodied his “Hardware Store” with “Dumbledore” and even has a one-man show called “AL! The Weird Tribute (and How Daniel Radcliffe Got Mixed Up in This Nonsense).” “It’s fun and gratifying and a little ‘Inception’-like,” Yankovic says, although he has yet to parody Goodie’s parody.)
And so band newcomer Probyn Gregory, a musician who worked with Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Eric Clapton, spends “Smells Like Nirvana” dressed like a janitor and mopping the stage as part of the performance. “He’s an amazing artist, but you can’t have a sense of shame and be part of this entourage,” Yankovic says.
For the most part, of course, Yankovic is putting Gregory and the other multi-instrumentalists he hired to more practical uses — three of them are women because he wanted three-part female harmonies, but between them they also can add percussion, guitar, saxophones and more. “I needed somebody that could play the trumpet and then someone to play clarinet for the polkas,” he says. “In the arenas, I hear our sound and think, ‘Wow, this is much, much bigger than it’s ever been.’”
It’s also more layered, with all those instruments enabling him to “stretch and do songs that were out of our reach as a five-piece.”
To show off his band, Yankovic drops the funny stuff at one point in each show, covering a classic song and playing it straight. In recent weeks, the group has played Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” George Harrison’s “What Is Life,” the Box Top’s “The Letter,” the Doobie Brothers’ “China Grove,” and even Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.”
“It’s a rotating slot and almost every night is something different,” he says. The fans get into it, he says, although when he talks to them about it, he sometimes finds their reactions “baffling.”
“People sometimes say, ‘Oh, you guys can really play. You can really do real music,’” he says. “What do you think we’ve been doing? Just because the words are funny, it’s not real music?”
Yankovic is a “pop culture sponge” and has always listened to various music genres, first for pleasure and then for work. “I just like to soak it in and regurgitate it in my own demented way,” he says. But he was also raised on Dr. Demento, and was heavily influenced by Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Allan Sherman, and Monty Python. Those comedians taught him that craftsmanship matters even, or especially, when you’re being silly.
“I think that the craftsmanship is one of the reasons that the humor works so well and I think the best parody is material that emulates the original source as closely as possible,” he says. “It helps the joke if you’re sucked into thinking you’re listening to a particular pop song and then think, ‘Wait a minute, these aren’t the lyrics I’m used to.’”
For that to work, the craftsmanship in his writing and arranging must be matched by the musicianship in his band; he hopes his audience appreciates both sides of that coin.
He adds that he thinks he personally has improved over time. “I think I’m a better singer now than I was in the ’80s and I’m a better musician and a better arranger,” he says.
Even with the four newcomers, Yankovic relies heavily on his original band. “I’ve got one of the best bands in the world and they do every genre flawlessly, and that’s what helps make the whole act work,” he says. “The core band has been together for over 40 years and we’re kind of telepathic in the way we communicate now, so we’re a lot better than we were back in the day.”
