Jesse Kinos-Goodin · CBC Music

· Posted: Mar 28, 2026 9:15 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 hours ago

Legendary rock band Rush has hinted at something "special" happening at the 2026 Juno Awards, taking place in Hamilton on Sunday. 

"We want to let you in on something," the band wrote in a newsletter to fans. "Celebrate a special moment with Geddy & Alex." That cryptic message was followed by a link to buy tickets to the Junos on Sunday, March. 29.

Rush's Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson announced last fall that they would be hitting the road for a tour in 2026. It will mark the first time the band has played a public performance with Anika Nilles, the replacement for late drummer Neil Peart, who died of brain cancer in 2020. Nilles is a German drummer who has a popular YouTube channel and previously toured with Jeff Beck in 2022. 

"She played on the last Jeff Beck tour, and I thought she was terrific," Lee told the Guardian in 2023 about Nilles.

The band didn't provide any additional details, but if the members perform at the Junos, it will mark the first time that fans will see the current lineup in action ahead of their world tour. 

Dubbed Fifty Something, the tour kicks off in Los Angeles in June and includes four shows in Toronto at Scotiabank Arena in August, as well as stops in Vancouver and Edmonton in December. 

Rush was formed in Toronto in 1968 and released its self-titled debut in 1974. Over the decades that followed, the band has released 19 studio albums, including 24 gold albums (marking sales over 500,000), 14 platinum albums (sales over one milllion) and three multi-platinum albums. On March 13, Rush released Grace Under Pressure: Super Deluxe, a box set that included the band's legendary 1984 concert at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens, considered by many fans to showcase the band at the peak of its creative power. 

In 1975, the band won the Juno for most promising group, and won group of the year back-to-back in '78 and '79. Rush has won 10 Junos in total, including the inaugural Juno Award for best hard rock/metal album in 1991 for its 13th album, Presto.

CBC Music has reached out to the band for further comment.