Rush postpone San Jose | Anika Nilles has flu

Rush called off Saturday night’s show at the SAP Center in San Jose. Anika Nilles has the flu.

Lifeson says she played the first San Jose show while already ill. If you’ve ever tried to drum through a fever, you’ll know how that felt.

So what happened, when is the new date, and why can’t you just push through a Rush set? Let’s find out.

What happened?

Rush had two nights booked at the SAP Center, on Thursday 15 October and Saturday 17 October. The first one went ahead. The second didn’t.

In a video message posted on Saturday, Alex Lifeson explained that Anika was in the early stages of the flu at Thursday’s show and played through it. Over the next couple of days she got a lot worse, and the band decided to pull the show. Blabbermouth reported the news on Saturday afternoon.

Lifeson expects her to recover in roughly four or five days. He was honest that it’s a guess, though. “Oh, who knows?” was his own aside.

When is the new date?

The makeup show is on Sunday 6 December 2026, back at the SAP Center. As Metal Anarchy reported, tickets already bought will be honoured for the new date, so hang on to yours.

Lifeson’s message only covered San Jose. If you have tickets for the next few shows, keep an eye on the band’s official channels for updates.

Why not just play through it?

She already did, on Thursday. That tells you plenty.

Plenty of jobs survive a dose of flu. Drumming isn’t one of them, and drumming for Rush is about the worst case there is. Here’s why.

It’s an athletic job. Drumming is cardio with sticks. Clem Burke spent years studying exactly that with sports scientists, as we covered in our High Noon story. Now add a fever and a chest that won’t fill properly.

There’s nowhere to hide. These are long, dense shows. In Toronto the band played Moving Pictures in full, plus “Xanadu”, “2112”, “Closer to the Heart” and “Time Stand Still”, as we covered in the Toronto reviews. That’s a lot of odd time, long instrumentals and very few rests.

The parts are fixed. Neil Peart’s drum parts are some of the most famous in rock. Thousands of people in the arena know where every fill lands. You can’t simplify a part on a bad night without the back row hearing it.

And it’s mental too. Anika has said “Xanadu” was the hardest song to learn, because of all the stop-start sections and time changes (more on that here). Counting your way through that with a high temperature is a different kind of hard.

So getting through Thursday was a serious effort. Asking her to do it again two nights later, sicker, wasn’t fair on her or on the crowd.

Who’s on the tour?

The Fifty Something tour opened on 7 June in Los Angeles. It’s the band’s first run of shows in over a decade, and the first since Peart died in 2020.

On stage, Anika joins Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson, with Loren Gold on keyboards.

Rush announced her as their drummer in October 2025, and plenty of people had to look her up. As Modern Drummer put it, the band “opted for a relative unknown”. Drummers knew better. She’s a German player who built a following on YouTube, made two solo records (Pikalar and For a Colorful Soul), runs the drum department at the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg, and toured Europe with Jeff Beck in 2022.

Since joining Rush she’s picked up new signature gear too. Modern Drummer rounded it up on 1 October: Meinl’s 22” Lunar Ride and 14” Lunar Hats, heavy enough to cut through an arena, and Tama’s AN1465 signature snare, a deep aluminium drum with a muffler you can dial in mid-song.

Final thoughts

Nobody wants a cancelled gig, but this is the right call. A drummer who plays through the flu once is brave. Doing it twice risks a longer layoff and a worse show for everyone.

The good news is that nobody loses their ticket, and San Jose gets its night in December. Get well soon, Anika.

For the full story of how she got here, read our Anika Nilles feature, or see who else changed seats this year in our drummer shake-up roundup.