Anika Nilles to join Rush on tour in 2026!

[DaveInNZ]

This is the dumbest and most sexist comment I’ve read on the internet this year

Don't go joining the Tama Bell Brass groups on Facebook then...

But I agree - Anika is brilliant. She's humble, devotes her time and energy to the right things and can play up a storm. I attended a clinic of her in Auckland last year and she had time for everyone, but particularly focused her energy towards the kids and youths in the room, rather than the bunch of middle aged dudes (of which I am one). I managed to thank her at the end of the clinic and say "awesome playing, great to see so much focus on the kids" and it was the biggest smile I saw all night.

And her feel and ability to knit complex patterns together through time signatures like a narrative is stunning. I'm excited to see how that pans out in their shows (assuming the odd bits will end up online.)

Judging any drummer based on gender or race or where they are from in the world makes no sense to me.

[Kelly]

It's possible, I'm not the grouchiest one here

[tcbetka]

I've been seeing her YouTube stuff for years, and was never all that impressed with her. Did she have chops? Yes. But so did the other 23554 drummers posting chops videos on YouTube back then. However I must say that she has definitely gotten better over the years--and as someone who's played drums for over 45 years now (though not much in the past 6 years, before this summer), I recognize the work she's put in. You can go out and find videos of her playing in a musical context (ie; not just the typical "look at me!!!" videos), and she's very tasteful and musical.

Here's the thing: In a way, her chops are "better" than Neil's chops. Yeah, you heard that right. I would argue that the younger drummers of today, including Anika, have DIFFERENT chops that us old guys do. Back in the day, we didn't have the same resources from which to learn. We didn't have YouTube in the 1970s/80s...and so you could really only listen to albums and try to figure it out. I played along to some Journey albums hundreds and hundreds of times back then, just trying to figure out what Steve Smith was doing. But the younger generation of players has been exposed to a world of information pretty much their entire careers--thanks to (primarily) the Internet. Yeah, we had instructional videos in the 90s--I had a couple dozen of them, pretty much would buy every one of them that came out for a while. But the access to instructional information now is orders of magnitude greater than what I had when I started playing in 1977. And these "kids" simply play what they see others play--which isn't likely to be what us old guys play, or learned to play. So in that sense, Neil Peart (who is in my top 5 drummers all-time), didn't have the complexity of chops that Anika Nilles does. Or that guys like Mike Portnoy or Thomas Lang do. It's just the way it is.

That said, I love Neil Peart's drumming on the Rush tunes. I was never a deep-cut guy when it came to Rush's music, but there's no one I'd rather listen to play drums with Rush...than Neil Peart. But that's impossible now that he's passed. I still listen to my favorite Rush tunes on Spotify, no doubt. But I desparately miss seeing YouTube videos of their live performances.

So don't hate the woman because she got the gig that a drum hero made famous. She's an INCREDIBLE drummer--and I wish I had her chops. By that I mean that I wish I was as fluid around the kit as she is. But I'm not, so no big deal. At 60 years old, I'm never going to devote that much time to achieve something that 1) my body will no longer support, and 2) I'm years behind these younger players at doing. And I'm OK with that.

And I'm also OK with Anika Nilles playing drums with Rush. Like I said in my first post in this thread: If Geddy and Alex say she's on the gig, then she's on the gig. Works for me, and I can't wait to hear them play.